WASHINGTON — A group of former senior U.S. defense officials is pressing the Pentagon to substantially increase investment in advanced hypersonic weapons and manufacturing capacity. Their warning emphasizes that China and Russia are surpassing the United States in developing high-speed, maneuverable missiles that could weaken U.S. military deterrence.
The recommendation is detailed in a new report, published on October 9th by the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. The study advocates for the Department of War to quickly deploy both offensive hypersonic strike weapons and counter-hypersonic interceptors on a scale sufficient to achieve credible deterrence and, if necessary, defeat enemy attacks.
The report was compiled by the Atlantic Council’s Hypersonic Capabilities Task Force, established in early 2025 and co-led by former Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James and former Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy. The task force includes former senior Pentagon officials and industry executives. "As Russia and China advance their hypersonic capabilities, the United States faces critical decisions on investment, prioritization, and deployment of these technologies,” the task force stated.
Hypersonic weapons, which can fly at speeds exceeding Mach 5 while maneuvering to avoid detection, are a primary strategic concern for Washington. China has conducted numerous tests of hypersonic glide vehicles and cruise missiles, while Russia has deployed operational systems targeting Ukraine. Lead author Michael White, former principal director for hypersonics in the Pentagon’s research and engineering office, stated that the United States has developed sophisticated hypersonic missiles but at unsustainable cost levels.
According to published reports, some current U.S. systems cost between $15 million and $30 million per missile, limiting production to small quantities. "If you look at the portfolio of systems that we have developed and that are ready to field, they are very capable,” White said during a panel at the Atlantic Council. He added that they’re too expensive to produce in the numbers needed to deter adversaries that are likely to launch large salvos.
White urged the Pentagon and defense industry to “find that sweet spot in the affordability-capability spectrum” to produce hypersonic systems at scale. “We need to do that aggressively,” he said. The report suggests that the U.S. defense industrial base isn't structured or incentivized to design and manufacture hypersonic weapons affordably. It calls for a “dramatic shift” toward a production model similar to commercial aerospace and automotive industries, emphasizing high-volume, lower-cost manufacturing rather than bespoke, high-end systems.
“There must be a dramatic shift in perspective,” the report said, adding that investments should focus on “innovative ways of achieving affordable capacity” rather than expanding traditional defense contractor capabilities. White said the Pentagon must “get rid of the traditional culture” and adopt a commercial manufacturing mindset. “We’ve got to start with cost,” he said, comparing the needed shift to how commercial space firms have reduced launch costs through iterative design and mass production.
Whitney McNamara, senior vice president at Beacon Global Strategies and a member of the task force, emphasized that modernizing the nation’s hypersonic testing infrastructure is crucial. She stated that current facilities and processes are siloed and slow down development cycles. She recommends building an AI-enabled test network that can integrate and analyze data across multiple programs, significantly reducing cost and time. The report noted that the Pentagon’s Test Resource Management Center has begun modernizing facilities and exploring the use of commercial space assets for more frequent hypersonic flight testing. But McNamara said progress has been too slow: “We need to leverage commercial innovation more aggressively to break the testing bottleneck.”
White linked the push for large-scale hypersonic manufacturing to the broader U.S. missile defense effort, including the Golden Dome initiative launched by the Trump administration to defend against hypersonic threats. “No matter how sophisticated your defenses are, if you’re relying solely on kinetic interceptors, you get overwhelmed by numbers in a big hurry,” he said. “Your best defense is a good offense — you have to be able to deny launch and go after those numbers before they launch.” He argued that the Pentagon’s success in deterring adversaries like China and Russia will depend on its ability to field hypersonic weapons — both offensive and defensive — in large quantities, not just as limited prototypes. He insisted that capability without capacity is not effective deterrence.