800:DATA WAR: OVERT, COVERT OR GREY ZONE

Chinese private firms like MizarVision are using artificial intelligence to transform open-source data into real-time battlefield intelligence. They are reportedly selling what they claim is real-time intelligence on U.S. forces in the Iran war, using satellite data and AI tools.

Inputs to the questionnaire related to the subject

Q1. “Chinese private firms marketing US wartime data from the Iran war”: Is it covert warfare?

Short Answer

Yes, to some extent, but more accurately, it is grey-zone warfare conducted through commercial proxies. Chinese firms like MizarVision use AI to blend open-source data into real-time battlefield intelligence. They sell it openly while advancing Chinese state interests under the guise of plausible deniability. It surpasses traditional covert warfare in scale, persistence, and reach.

Comprehensive Inputs

It is something more sophisticated and more durable than traditional covert warfare — and the distinction matters enormously for how states should respond.

Classical covert warfare involves a state using deniable means (intelligence officers, front organisations, recruited agents, proxy forces) to advance its strategic interests while concealing its involvement. What Chinese private firms are doing in the Iran conflict fits that template in some respects and structurally exceeds it in others.

Firms such as MizarVision and Jing’an Technology are using artificial intelligence to fuse open-source intelligence into near-real-time battlefield intelligence products. They use commercial satellite imagery from constellations like Jilin-1, ADS-B flight-tracking data, AIS shipping logs, social media geolocation data, and commercially available signal monitoring. The collated information is converted into intelligence, such as carrier movements, aircraft deployments, refuelling patterns, base activity, and CSAR package assembly. These products are then marketed commercially, sometimes advertised openly on social media, and sold to any paying customer.

It fits the covert warfare template in that the firms provide Beijing with plausible deniability. China publicly calls for ceasefires and peace talks while private companies advertise “US force exposure” products. Beijing can credibly claim it does not direct private commercial intelligence companies, that data brokerage is a legal commercial activity, and that it cannot be held responsible for what its private sector does in international markets. Some of these firms hold National Military Standard certifications. They operate within the ambit of China’s civil-military fusion ecosystem. However, none of this provides the clear attribution needed to justify a formal state involvement. The deniability is thin but legally and diplomatically tenable.

It exceeds classical covert warfare in three critical respects. First, the scale is potentially unlimited. Commercial data aggregation faces none of the manpower constraints of a traditional intelligence operation. Second, it is persistent. Data once collected, analysed, and sold cannot be unrecovered. It will be studied, operationalised, and built upon for years after any ceasefire. Third, and most significantly, it operates through the global commercial system rather than around it.

The most precise characterisation is grey-zone operations conducted through commercial proxies. It can be classified as a form of intelligence warfare that is covert in its state attribution but entirely overt in its commercial operation. The firms are not hiding that they sell wartime intelligence. They are hiding only that they are instruments of the Chinese state strategy. If this data reaches Iranian targeting systems — enabling missile or drone cueing against US assets, or revealing the assembly pattern of a CSAR package like the one that extracted the downed F-15E weapons officer — it crosses from commercial analytics into functional asymmetric support.

Q2 What does it indicate about the changing nature of global warfare?

Short Answer

The battlefield has expanded permanently into the domain of the data layer. Military superiority no longer guarantees information superiority. The distinction between war and peace, state and commercial activity, espionage and business, has been dissolved.

Comprehensive Inputs

This episode is not one of a kind, but an indication of the changes in 21st-century conflict.

The commercialisation and democratisation of intelligence. The state monopoly on strategic intelligence — historically derived from dedicated satellite constellations, signals interception networks, and human intelligence operations that only governments could afford — has been broken. A Chinese private firm can now synthesise commercial satellite imagery, publicly available tracking data, unclassified radio emissions, and social media geolocation into a product of genuine strategic value. This was structurally impossible twenty years ago. It is routine today. More importantly, the data Chinese firms collect and sell does not remain in China. It enters a commercial market accessible to Iran’s allies, North Korea’s procurement networks, Russia’s defence industry, and non-state actors with sufficient resources. US operational data from the Iran campaign — how the F-15E performs in contested airspace, what electronic countermeasures it deploys, how CSAR packages are assembled and timed — becomes simultaneously available to every adversary through a single commercial transaction. This is the “Uberisation” of intelligence: a capability that once required a superpower’s resources is now available as a subscription service.

The weaponisation of the private-state boundary. China has systematically developed the capacity to use nominally private entities as instruments of state strategy. It has regularly resorted to technology transfer through commercial joint ventures, infrastructure influence through Belt and Road contractors, data collection through consumer applications, and now wartime intelligence through commercial data brokers. China’s civil-military fusion model allows private firms to serve as frontline sensors and information warfare units without the legal or political friction that would accompany overt military intelligence operations.

The data layer is a new domain of warfare. Land, sea, air, and cyber were the recognised domains of modern conflict. What Chinese firms marketing US wartime data represent is distinct from all four: the weaponisation of the data economy itself as a strategic domain. Every military operation generates a data exhaust that is collectable, aggregable, and analysable by adversaries operating commercially and legally. The military’s extraordinary intelligence signature no longer needs a spy network to exploit. As one analyst framed it: war is no longer defined solely by who shoots — it is defined by who sees, who knows, and who shares information fastest.

The end of the temporal and geographic battlefield. Traditional warfare had relatively clear boundaries — it began with a declaration or a first strike, ended with a ceasefire, and took place within a defined theater. The commercial intelligence data collection and analysis operation against an adversary has no beginning, no end, and no geography. This is warfare conducted at the speed of commerce, with the deniability of the market, and the persistence of digital storage. There are no frontlines in this domain, no ceasefire provisions that apply to it, and no arms control framework that addresses it.

The erosion of traditional neutrality. States earlier stayed out of conflicts by not deploying troops or weapons. Now they can stay out while meaningfully shaping battlefield outcomes through data, technology, and commercial supply chains. China’s posture in the Iran war — publicly neutral, privately enabling information flows that enhance one side’s situational awareness — illustrates a new model of belligerence without formal participation. This has profound implications for international law, which has no adequate framework for a state that influences the outcome of a war it officially opposes through commercial data products sold by private firms.

Counter-strategies are structurally constrained. US response options in this case are genuinely limited. Sanctions require attribution that Beijing’s deniability deliberately forecloses. Diplomatic protests are met with denials. Military retaliation against a commercial data firm is neither legal nor justified. The most effective counter-strategies are reducing the electromagnetic and data signatures of operations, developing operations security doctrine for the digital age, hardening commercial data ecosystems against hostile aggregation, and investing in AI-driven denial and deception.

Q3. Does this mean that MizarVision/China was aware of US wartime preparations even before Epic Fury started?

Short Answer

These firms operate continuously, monitoring commercial data streams. They become operationally significant once the conflict starts. The military buildups generate distinctive data signatures. The AI systems detect and interpret it as a pattern of escalation. It is not a foolproof indication of the outbreak of hostilities. The military buildup can be a part of strategic coercion or political signalling.

Comprehensive Inputs

MizarVision and similar firms were not activated by the outbreak of Operation Epic Fury. They were operating continuously before it began, monitoring the same commercial data streams — satellite imagery, ADS-B flight tracking, AIS shipping logs, electromagnetic signatures — that became operationally significant once the conflict started. The pre-war military buildup that preceded Epic Fury would have been, from a data-collection standpoint, arguably more visible than the conflict itself. The movement of carrier strike groups into the Gulf, the surge in tanker and logistics aircraft activity at regional bases, the repositioning of electronic warfare and SEAD assets, the unusual concentration of HH-60W CSAR helicopters at forward staging points — all of this generates a distinctive data signature that AI systems are specifically designed to detect and interpret as a pattern of escalation.

This is precisely what makes the civil-military fusion model so strategically potent. A traditional intelligence operation requires tasking — someone must decide to collect against a specific target. Commercial AI-driven OSINT systems collect everything continuously and retrospectively identify the patterns that matter. MizarVision did not need to know that Epic Fury was coming to collect the data that would reveal its arrival. The system was watching regardless, and the pre-conflict build-up wrote its own signature into the data record.

The further implication is that China — and potentially Iran, if it were a customer for these products — had strategic warning of US military preparations that Washington may have believed it was concealing through operational security measures designed for a previous technological era. The diplomatic and strategic consequences of that asymmetry are significant. If Iran had reliable intelligence that a US-Israeli military campaign was imminent, its own preparations — dispersal of assets, activation of mosaic defence provincial commands, pre-delegation of launch authority — would have begun before the first strike. The effectiveness of the opening campaign’s decapitation logic would have been degraded before a single aircraft crossed the border.

This is the deepest strategic implication of the commercial intelligence phenomenon: it potentially eliminates strategic surprise as a US operational advantage against any adversary that is either a customer of these services or allied with the state that produces them. The build-up to every future US military operation will be observed, analysed, and potentially shared with the intended target before the operation begins — not by spies, but by algorithms running continuously on commercially available data that no classification system can suppress and no operational security protocol can fully conceal.

The Strategic Bottom Lines

The era in which military superiority translated automatically into information superiority is structurally over.

Every military operation is simultaneously a kinetic event and an intelligence event harvested by commercial actors.

The distinction between war and peace, state and commercial activity, espionage and business, has been dissolved.

The battlefield is no longer only land, air, sea, and cyber. It is also data (ambient, persistent, commercially mediated, and available).

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Information and data included in the blog are for educational & non-commercial purposes only and have been carefully adapted, excerpted, or edited from reliable and accurate sources. All copyrighted material belongs to the respective owners and is provided only for wider dissemination.

References:

“Chinese firms market Iran war intelligence ‘exposing’ U.S. forces”, The Washington Post, 04 Apr 2026.

(2024–2025). Reports on Chinese commercial satellite firms and defence-linked AI analytics.

Michael C. Horowitz, & Paul Scharre
Horowitz, M. C., & Scharre, P. (2021). AI and the future of warfare. International Security, 46(2), 130–167.

Mazarr, M. J. (2015). Mastering the grey zone: Understanding a changing era of conflict. RAND Corporation.
Kania, E. B. (2017). Civil-military fusion and the PLA’s pursuit of dominance. Center for a New American Security.
Center for Security and Emerging Technology
(2020). Open-source intelligence and AI: Transforming analysis.

Atlantic Council. (2022). The weaponisation of data in modern conflict.

April 5, 2026April 4, 2026

798: IRAN’S MOSAIC DEFENCE AND DISTRIBUTED COMMAND ARCHITECTURE

Iran’s Mosaic Defence doctrine is one of the most deliberately constructed asymmetric military strategies of the 21st century, and the ongoing US-Israel military campaign against Iran — Operation Epic Fury, launched February 28, 2026 — has provided its first real-time stress test against a peer-level adversary. The doctrine’s performance in the opening weeks of that conflict has validated decades of Iranian military planning and confounded Western expectations of rapid regime collapse.

Iran’s defence doctrine was shaped by two formative historical experiences: the 1980–88 Iran-Iraq War and Israel’s intervention in Lebanon. Both anchored ballistic missiles and proxy networks are core instruments of Iranian strategy. But the formal doctrine crystallised from a more recent lesson. Iranian military planners studied US operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Balkans, concluding above all from the 2003 collapse of Saddam Hussein’s centralised regime that highly centralised militaries collapse quickly once their leadership is struck. As Foreign Minister Araghchi put it: “We’ve had two decades to study defeats of the US military to our immediate east and west. Bombings in our capital have no impact on our ability to conduct war. Decentralised Mosaic Defence enables us to decide when — and how — war will end.”

Formalisation and Architecture

The doctrine was formalised in 2005 when the IRGC, under General Mohammad Jafari, announced the Mosaic Defence model: a decentralised command-and-control system restructured into 31 separate provincial commands. Each of Iran’s 31 provinces has its own IRGC headquarters, command structure, weapons stockpile, and intelligence capability — effectively a complete military system in miniature. “Every province is a mosaic, and the commanders have the ability and power to make decisions,” analyst Farzin Nadimi has noted. “So when they are cut off from their command in Tehran, they can still function as a cohesive military force.”

Under this model, the IRGC, regular army, missile units, naval assets, and the Basij militia form a distributed defence network. If one unit is destroyed, others continue operating independently. The architecture was designed against one specific adversary capability: the decapitation strike.

The Four Operational Pillars

Asymmetric Warfare and Cost Imposition. Rather than conventional force-on-force engagement, the doctrine imposes prohibitive costs through endurance — survive the initial shock, keep retaliating through multiple channels, and raise the costs of a prolonged campaign until continuation becomes politically untenable for the attacker.

Distributed Command with Pre-Delegated Authority. Iranian sources described how the Revolutionary Guards delegated authority far down the ranks and built “successor ladders” so units continue operating if commanders are killed. Each provincial command operates with overlapping chains of command and dispersed stockpiles — not just decentralisation but redundancy at every level. Provincial IRGC units can call upon Basij forces during crises. This enables a multi-level defence that is largely unfazed by decapitation strikes.

Missile Arsenal as Strategic Anchor. Iran’s ballistic missile capability is the backbone of the mosaic architecture. Distributed missile batteries across 31 provincial commands mean that neutralising Iran’s missile threat requires destroying 31 separate, geographically dispersed launch systems rather than a single centralised arsenal — an operation orders of magnitude more complex than a leadership strike.

The Axis of Resistance as Strategic Depth. National security is not limited to the protection of national territory; it rests on preventing confrontation from spilling over national borders. Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iraqi Shia militias, and Syrian proxy forces each represent distributed nodes of retaliatory capacity operating semi-independently of Tehran — a regional application of the same mosaic logic applied domestically. Acting upon nodes across the Middle East’s interconnected system of military bases, maritime chokepoints, and energy corridors can transform a localised confrontation into a crisis with global repercussions.

The 2026 Operational Test

The initial US-Israeli campaign followed the standard Western pattern. It aimed to create a systemic collapse by destroying command centres, communications nodes, and senior figures. The US campaign did not yield the desired results. On the contrary, it highlighted the fundamental characteristic of the Iranian system, i.e. its capacity to absorb strategic shock.

Rather than triggering disintegration, the loss of the decision-making center appears to have accelerated the activation of a resilience mechanism already embedded in Iranian doctrine. What has emerged is that the Iranian strategic model can be described as “war without a centre”. The military capability is organised not around a single decision-making nucleus, but across an array of interconnected tactical centers.

The system seems to be working. The independent Iranian military units (somewhat isolated) are acting based on general instructions given to them in advance. They have responded to heavy bombardment by firing unprecedented barrages of ballistic missiles and kamikaze drones at Israel, US military and diplomatic facilities across the Middle East, and critical energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf.

Doctrinal Vulnerabilities

Mosaic Defence, however, does carry significant structural vulnerabilities.

Coordination Problem. Decentralisation enables resilience; however, it simultaneously creates coordination challenges. It becomes difficult to coordinate with the autonomous provincial units.

Strategic Coherence. Without a clear political direction, the doctrine designed for endurance risks prolonging the conflict, without achieving any meaningful strategic outcomes. Military persistence must eventually convert into political outcomes.

Dependency on Political Cohesion. The doctrine depends on public support and internal unity. Provincial commanders operating with pre-delegated authority must be politically reliable as well as militarily capable — a requirement that becomes more demanding as the human and economic costs of sustained conflict accumulate.

Escalation Unpredictability. Units acting on general instructions given in advance, without real-time central guidance, are inherently prone to escalation. The doctrine that gives Iran resilience also makes selective de-escalation difficult. These units may not be reachable for recall or restraint.

Strategic Implications

For US and Israeli Doctrine. The most significant implication is that the standard Western decapitation playbook, which worked against Iraq in 2003 and Libya in 2011, did not work against Iran. Defeating mosaic defence requires not precision strikes on central nodes but sustained, comprehensive degradation of 31 independent provincial systems simultaneously.

For India’s Strategic Assessment of War Duration. The activation of Iran’s mosaic defence has direct implications for India. It implies that Hormuz closure is not a temporary measure, but a potentially sustained strategic instrument. India must plan for a prolonged, rather than brief, disruption scenario.

For India’s Structural Reorganisation. In terms of military doctrine, Iran’s architecture offers relevant insights for India’s distributed warfighting requirements. The concept of 31 self-contained provincial commands maps directly onto questions about India’s theatre command architecture. The lesson that decentralised command enables resilience is relevant to India’s two-front scenario planning.

For the Theory of Modern Warfare. The emergence of “war without a center” as an operational reality, rather than just a theoretical concept. It poses a fundamental challenge to the Western doctrine of rapid dominance. The assumption that power is concentrated in a single center, and that striking that center causes strategic paralysis has been disproven in real time. The broader implication is that the era of quick, decisive, decapitation-based military victories against a sophisticated adversary, who has studied and prepared specifically for such an approach, may be fundamentally over.

Analytical Perspective

Iran’s Mosaic Defence represents a genuinely innovative solution to a fundamental strategic problem—the problem of facing a technologically superior adversary by a militarily inferior state. The challenge is to survive the first strike and sustain the fight long enough to make the cost of continuation prohibitive for the attacker. The solution lies in distributing everything, pre-delegating authority, building redundancy at every level, and making the system function as a web rather than a hierarchy.

This doctrine’s greatest success is not operational but psychological. In the case of the war in Iran, it has converted Iran’s structural military inferiority into a manageable constraint. It has ensured that the adversary’s greatest advantages (i.e., precision, speed, and decapitation capability) did not translate into a rapid victory on which the entire campaign logic depended. Iran has prepared itself for a long war. Whether that long war serves Iran’s strategic interests better than a rapid defeat would have done is a question the doctrine itself cannot answer.

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Disclaimer:

Information and data included in the blog are for educational & non-commercial purposes only and have been carefully adapted, excerpted, or edited from reliable and accurate sources. All copyrighted material belongs to respective owners and is provided only for wider dissemination.

References:

Connell, M. (2010). Iran’s military doctrine. CNA Analysis and Solutions.

Eisenstadt, M. (2011). The strategic culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran: Religion, expediency, and soft power in an era of disruptive change. Middle East Journal, 65(4), 551–570.

Golkar, S. (2015). Captive society: The Basij militia and social control in Iran. Columbia University Press.

Jafari, M. (2005). Mosaic defence doctrine: IRGC restructuring framework [Internal IRGC policy document, as cited in open-source analyses].

Nadimi, F. (2020). Iran’s evolving approach to asymmetric naval warfare: Strategy and capabilities in the Gulf. Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Ostovar, A. (2016). Vanguard of the Imam: Religion, politics, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Oxford University Press.

Takeyh, R. (2009). Guardians of the Revolution: Iran and the world in the age of the Ayatollahs. Oxford University Press.

Ward, S. (2009). Immortal: A military history of Iran and its armed forces. Georgetown University Press.

Pape, R. A. (1996). Bombing to win: Air power and coercion in war. Cornell University Press.

Reuters. (2024). Iran’s Revolutionary Guards delegate authority down the chain of command amid preparations for conflict. Reuters.

April 4, 2026April 3, 2026

797: HYPERSONIC WEAPONS AND MISSILE DEFENCE 2.0: NEW STRATEGIC CALCULUS

Paper published in the April 2026 edition of “The News Analytics” Journal

Hypersonic weapons are weapons capable of sustained flight at Mach 5 or higher. Existing missile defence systems do not cater for this new threat. Their speed and manoeuvrability demand a new approach to early warning and subsequent neutralisation. These weapons are emerging as highly valued systems for militaries worldwide. Their rapid development marks a turning point in military technology and strategic thought. These weapons are giving a new meaning to deterrence and stability.

Hypersonic Weapons. Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) can also reach hypersonic speeds. However, they travel through space in a predictable parabolic arc. Their trajectory becomes predictable, and long-range radars can track them. On the other hand, the characteristics of hypersonic weapons include sustained high speed, increased manoeuvrability, and a high-altitude trajectory (in the upper atmosphere – higher than cruise missiles but lower than the apogee of ballistic missiles). These attributes of hypersonic weapons are blurring the line between ballistic and cruise missiles. Hypersonic weapons are classified into two categories: hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs) and hypersonic cruise missiles (HCMs). HGVs are carried and launched from ballistic missiles. Post-separation, they glide through the upper atmosphere at extreme speeds following a controllable trajectory. HCMs sustain hypersonic flight within the atmosphere using advanced scramjet engines. Hypersonic weapons can alter their trajectory. This adds to the complexity of detecting, tracking, and intercepting them. High speed also compresses decision-making time. It shortens the window for assessing the threat and making a decision on counteraction.

Speed and Manoeuvrability: A Strategic Game-Changer. Hypersonic missiles are commonly depicted as a “game changer and the unprecedented capabilities of these weapons portend a revolution in missile warfare. It is considered that the speed, accuracy, and manoeuvrability of hypersonic boost-glide weapons will fundamentally change the character of warfare. Developments in hypersonic propulsion will revolutionise warfare by enabling faster strikes. With unmatched speed, these weapons will likely hit over-the-horizon targets in a fraction of the time. This claimed speed advantage is ostensibly accompanied by near-immunity to detection, rendering hypersonic weapons “nearly invisible” to existing early warning systems. Together, these capabilities will significantly compress decision and response times.

Missile Defence 2.0: Adapting to the Hypersonic Age

Missile Defence in the Pre-Hypersonic Era. Existing defences are primarily designed to counter ballistic missiles. They rely on layered architectures that include early-warning launch detection, long-range radar-based trajectory tracking, and interception. The destruction could occur during the boost, midcourse, or terminal phases. These systems operate on the logic of predictability. However, these systems are not optimised for low-flying targets that manoeuvre frequently and have little warning time.

Hypersonic Threat Mitigation. A comprehensive missile defence strategy is required to provide an integrated and practical capability to counter ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic missile threats. The speed of hypersonic weapons leaves little time to compute a fire-control solution, communicate with command authorities, and complete an engagement to intercept them actively. Anti-Hypersonic defence would require a combination of disruptive data links and sensors, space-based tracking sensors, and innovative interception methods. Some passive defensive measures against traditional missiles are also effective against hypersonic weapons; these include deception, dispersal, hardening, concealment, etc.

Missile Defence 2.0. To counter hypersonic threats, defence developers are exploring what might be called Missile Defence 2.0. This concept emphasises integration, speed, and adaptability. One key area is sensor networks. Future defences rely on constellations of space-based infrared and tracking satellites that can track hypersonic weapons throughout their flight. Methods of interception also need to evolve. Instead of relying solely on kinetic weapons, multiple new interceptors may be required to neutralise the threat. Artificial intelligence would be essential for data fusion from multiple sensors. Another element of Missile Defence 2.0 is layered resilience rather than perfect protection, recognising that no defence will be impenetrable.

Hypersonic Race

The United States, China, and Russia are competing to develop these weapons. They would be fielding a wide array of hypersonic systems in the coming decades. The development of short-, medium-, and long-range variants of these weapons by major powers is resulting in an arms race. These technologies are changing the nature of warfare, and they have the potential to destabilise the global security environment.

USA. The U.S. has pursued both hypersonic weapons technologies since the early 2000s. It has sought to develop longer-range systems capable of reaching deep into an adversary’s territory to attack defended, hardened, and time-urgent targets. The Department of Defence (DOD) is developing hypersonic weapons under the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike program and through several Air Force, Army, and DARPA programs.

Russia. Russia is reportedly the first nation to deploy a hypersonic missile. It characterises these weapons as a centrepiece of its security strategy and has extensively tested at least three distinct hypersonic systems. Russia’s HGV, known as Avangard, is equipped with a nuclear warhead and deployed on SS-19 long-range land-based ballistic missiles. Avangards reportedly feature onboard countermeasures and can manoeuvre in flight to evade ballistic missile defences. Russia has successfully fielded the Zircon and Kinzhal hypersonic weapons, and it has launched the air-launched Kinzhal hypersonic missiles (with a speed of Mach 10 and a payload of 480kg) against Ukraine.

China. China has made a significant effort to match Russian and U.S. capabilities. It has invested heavily in the hypersonic research, development, test, and evaluation programs in the past decade. China is also investing heavily in hypersonic development infrastructure and weapon systems, reportedly outpacing the United States in testing these technologies. China has developed an HGV known as the DF-ZF, previously referred to as the WU-14. China is also developing the DF-41 long-range intercontinental ballistic missile, which could carry a nuclear hypersonic glide vehicle.

India. India has been investing in hypersonic weapon development. In Sep 2020, India successfully tested the Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle (HSTDV). HSTDV is a hypersonic unmanned scramjet demonstration aircraft. In addition to the HSTDV program, India is continuing its research and development efforts across various aspects of hypersonic technology (propulsion systems, materials science, and guidance systems). In July 2025, India reportedly conducted a successful test of a hypersonic cruise missile capable of reaching Mach 8 under Project Vishnu. Reportedly, the project aims to develop the Extended Trajectory-Long Duration Hypersonic Cruise Missile (ET-LDHCM), a weapon system that will fundamentally enhance India’s strategic capabilities.

Great Power Competition and Technological Asymmetry. The development of hypersonic weapons has the potential to create a new form of asymmetry. In technologically advanced states, having these weapons gives them an edge in overcoming opponents’ defences. On the other hand, smaller or less tech-savvy states find it difficult to keep up. This creates a growing divide between the “haves” and the “have-nots.” This asymmetry is reshaping the strategic calculus. Major powers may become aggressive, while weaker states may double down on asymmetric strategies such as cyber operations or unconventional warfare.

Implications for Deterrence Stability. The most concerning aspect of hypersonics is their impact on deterrence stability. During the Cold War, stability was based on the philosophy of “Mutually Assured Destruction”. However, now with reduced reaction time, the risk of miscalculation has increased dramatically. The shift is taking place from ‘Launch on Warning’ to ‘Launch on Uncertainty’. States may get tempted to launch their own weapons at the first sign of a perceived threat. This “crisis instability” is compounded by Strategic Ambiguity: most hypersonic vehicles can carry either a conventional or nuclear payload, leaving an adversary to guess the stakes of an incoming strike.

Conclusion

Technology is a good gadget, but a destructive weapon. Hypersonic weapons signify a significant advancement in military technology. These weapons are even more powerful than traditional ballistic ones because of their incredible speed and agility. Many countries are actively working on developing and testing them. At the same time, Missile Defence 2.0 is evolving to counter this new threat. It includes advanced sensors, smarter interceptors, and a robust architecture to provide better protection. The proliferation of hypersonic weapons could have significant implications for the global security landscape. Their speed and manoeuvrability could reduce decision-making time in crises, increasing the risk of miscalculation. The development of hypersonic weapons is also starting a new arms race, as countries seek to maintain or gain military superiority in this field.

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Disclaimer:

Information and data included in the blog are for educational & non-commercial purposes only and have been carefully adapted, excerpted, or edited from reliable and accurate sources. All copyrighted material belongs to respective owners and is provided only for wider dissemination.

References:-

“Hypersonic missiles: What are they and can they be stopped?”, Partyard Defence, May 10, 2019. https://partyardmilitary.com/hypersonic-missiles-what-are-they-and-can-they-be-stopped/

“Hypersonic Technology”, Drishti IAS, 10 Oct 21. https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/hypersonic-technology-2

“Russia, China, the U.S.: Who Will Win the Hypersonic Arms”, IEEE Spectrum, Dec 2020. https://spectrum.ieee.org/russia-china-the-us-who-will-win-the-hypersonic-arms-race

Air Marshal Anil Khosla, “Hypersonic Long Range Weapons”, Air Marshals’ Perspective, 10 Nov 2021. https://55nda.com/blogs/anil-khosla/2021/11/10/hypersonic-long-range-weapons/

Air Marshal Anil Khosla, “Countering Hypersonic Weapon Threat: A Difficult But Manageable Problem”, Air Marshals’ Perspective, 07 Jun 2024. https://55nda.com/blogs/anil-khosla/2024/06/07/countering-hypersonic-weapon-threat-a-difficult-but-manageable-problem/

Tom Karako and Masao Dahlgren, “Complex Air Defence Countering the Hypersonic Missile Threat”, A Report of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Missile Defence Project, February 2022.

Rylie White, “An Emerging Threat: The Impact of Hypersonic Weapons on National Security, Crisis Instability, and Deterrence Strategy”, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.

David Roza, “Why Hypersonic Missiles’ Greatest Strength Also Makes Them Vulnerable”, Air and Space Forces Magazine, Dec 2023.

Col Mandeep Singh, “Countering Hypersonics”, Indian Defence Review, Jan 2024.

Economic Times. (2025, July 16). Why India’s new hypersonic missile may outrun Israel’s Iron Dome and Russia’s S-500 and shift the balance in Asia.

Aroor, Shiv. “India’s Hypersonic Missile Ambitions: DRDO’s Project Vishnu and the Road Ahead.” India Today.