Rebekah Koffler is a former intelligence analyst with the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) and holds expertise in Putin’s war fighting plans as well as his mindset. In an article in Fox Digital, she laid out the reasons the Pentagon should wake up and pay attention to the potential threats from the recent Russian Flotilla that cruised near the Florida Keys about three weeks ago. She isn’t the only voice raised about the dangers that were dismissed as not a problem.

She stated that it may not have posed an immediate threat, but it reveals a much larger threat that requires serious vigilance.

“The Kazan, a Yasen-M-class guided missile submarine, carried guided missiles with a range of 1,000 nautical miles. Admiral Gorshkov is capable of executing long-range strikes and conducting anti-submarine warfare. These naval assets, which field a variety of anti-ship and land attack weapons, were testing anti-ship missiles virtually in the Atlantic against targets at a range of more than 350 miles. They are both capable of carrying the 1,000-mile range 3M-54 Kalibir NK land attack cruise missile, the P-800 Oniks anti-ship missile and the 3M-22 Zircon hypersonic anti-ship cruise missiles. 

The Zircon (3M22 Tsirkon in Russian or SS-N-3 as NATO designation) is a scramjet-powered hypersonic missile that has a range of 1,000 km (625 miles) and travels at nine times the speed of sound. Developed on Vladimir Putin’s orders, Zircon is a new generation weapon designed with the primary purpose of overcoming U.S. missile defenses. It comes in sea-launched and ground-launched versions, with the kinetic energy sufficient to attack deep and hardened targets. Its hypersonic speed and ability to fly at low altitude and maneuver in flight makes it extremely difficult to detect by missile warning systems – radars or satellites. 

The inability of current U.S. and Western systems to intercept hypersonic missiles like Zircon presents a grave threat. Moreover, the United States has no similar capability. Russia and China are far ahead of us in the field of hypersonics.” Rebekah Koffler

Is she correct? Is the United States that far behind Russia and China in hypersonic weapons? And does it mean that the Russian flotilla actually posed a “grave threat?”

The US military has been experimenting with hypersonic missiles since Trump directed them to do so in 2021. The problem is that none of the resulting products has actually been fielded to the military. Some failed miserably, others are still in development. On Jun 24, 2024, the Congressional Research Service report to Congress made some startling comments:

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The maneuverability and low flight altitude of hypersonic weapons could challenge existing detection and defense systems. For example, most terrestrial-based radars cannot detect hypersonic weapons until late in the weapon’s flight due to line-of-sight limitations of radar detection. This leaves minimal time for a defender to launch interceptors that could neutralize an inbound weapon. Figure 1 depicts the differences in terrestrial-based radar detection timelines for ballistic missiles versus hypersonic weapons.

U.S. defense officials have stated that both existing terrestrial- and space-based sensor architectures are insufficient to detect and track hypersonic weapons; former Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Mike Griffin has noted that “hypersonic targets are 10 to 20 times dimmer than what the U.S. normally tracks by satellites in geostationary orbit.” USNI

Hypersonic weapons fly at above Mach 5 or above, which is around 1 mile per minute.  And that’s not all. Russia has the world’s quietest submarine, the Akula-Class. An Akula class sub stayed around the US coastline for weeks undetected in 2012. The sub was ARMED with long range missiles and sparked concern among military officials.

Koffler noted that there is not a mindset to use these weapons…yet. That’s in spite of the threatening rhetoric coming from the Kremlin. She stated that Putin appears to be planning on the use of these weapons only in the event of a US-Russia war. (Which they threaten on a daily basis by the way.)

The Congressional Research Report posed questions. Will the United States be able to counter the dangers of Russian hypersonic weapons? Can we afford it? Under the Biden administration, it appears we may be more concerned about pronouns than the actual danger.

• Is an acceleration of research on hypersonic missile defense options both necessary and technologically feasible? Does the technological maturity of hypersonic missile defense options warrant current funding levels?
• How are SDA, MDA, and SSC collaborating on various elements of hypersonic missile defense? Are their current roles increasing or decreasing costs and the speed and efficiency of technology development?
• Does DOD have the enabling capabilities, such as adequate command and control architectures, needed to execute hypersonic missile defense? CRS report

So was the Russian flotilla an actual problem? Maybe not in the immediate, but in the near future if the practice of our adversaries hanging around the US coast is allowed to continue, we are in serious danger.

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