• Title/Summary/Keyword: hypersonic missile on maritime strategy

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Effect of Hypersonic Missiles on Maritime Strategy: Focus on Securing and Exploiting Sea Control (극초음속 미사일이 해양전략에 미치는 영향: 해양통제의 확보와 행사를 중심으로)

  • Cho, Seongjin
    • Maritime Security
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    • v.1 no.1
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    • pp.241-271
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    • 2020
  • The military technology currently receiving the most attention is the hypersonic missile. hypersonic is faster than the speed of sound or Mach 5+. The vast majority of the ballistic missiles that it inspired achieved hypersonic speeds as they fell from the sky. Rather than speed, today's renewed attention to hypersonic weapons owes to developments that enable controlled flight. These new systems have two sub-varieties: hypersonic glide vehicles and hypersonic cruise missiles. Hypersonic weapons could challenge detection and defense due to their speed, maneuverability, and low altitude of flight. The fundamental question of this study is: 'What effect will the hypersonic missile have on the maritime strategy?' It is quite prudent to analyze and predict the impact of technology in the development stage on strategy in advance. However, strategy is essential because it affect future force construction. hypersonic missiles act as a limiting factor in securing sea control. The high speed and powerful destructive power of the hypersonic missile are not only difficult to intercept, but it also causes massive ship damage at a single shot. As a result, it is analyzed that the Securing sea control will be as difficult as the capacity of sea denial will be improved geographically and qualitatively. In addition, the concept of Fortress Fleet, which was criticized for its passive strategy in the past, could be reborn in a modern era. There are maritime power projection/defence, SLOC attack/defence in exploiting sea control. The effects of hypersonic missiles on exploiting sea control could be seen as both limiting and opportunity factors.

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USN's Efforts to Rebuild its Combat Power in an Era of Great Power Competition (강대국 간의 경쟁시대와 미 해군의 증강 노력)

  • Jung, Ho-Sub
    • Strategy21
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    • s.44
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    • pp.5-27
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    • 2018
  • The purpose of this paper is to look at USN's efforts to rebuild its combat power in the face of a reemergence of great powers competition, and to propose some recommendations for the ROKN. In addition to the plan to augment its fleet towards a 355-ships capacity, the USN is pursuing to improve exponentially combat lethality(quality) of its existing fleet by means of innovative science and technology. In other words, the USN is putting its utmost efforts to improve readiness of current forces, to modernize maintenance facilities such as naval shipyards, and simultaneously to invest in innovative weapons system R&D for the future. After all, the USN seems to pursue innovations in advanced military Science & Technology as the best way to ensure continued supremacy in the coming strategic competition between great powers. However, it is to be seen whether the USN can smoothly continue these efforts to rebuild combat strength vis-a-vis its new competition peers, namely China and Russian navy, due to the stringent fiscal constraints, originating, among others, from the 2011 Budget Control Act effective yet. Then, it seems to be China's unilateral and assertive behaviors to expand its maritime jurisdiction in the South China Sea that drives the USN's rebuild-up efforts of the future. Now, some changes began to be perceived in the basic framework of the hitherto regional maritime security, in the name of declining sea control of the USN as well as withering maritime order based on international law and norms. However, the ROK-US alliance system is the most excellent security mechanism upon which the ROK, as a trading power, depends for its survival and prosperity. In addition, as denuclearization of North Korea seems to take significant time and efforts to accomplish in the years to come, nuclear umbrella and extended deterrence by the US is still noting but indispensible for the security of the ROK. In this connection, the naval cooperation between ROKN and USN should be seen and strengthened as the most important deterrents to North Korean nuclear and missile threats, as well as to potential maritime provocation by neighboring countries. Based on these observations, this paper argues that the ROK Navy should try to expand its own deterrent capability by pursuing selective technological innovation in order to prevent this country's destiny from being dictated by other powers. In doing so, however, it may be too risky for the ROK to pursue the emerging, disruptive innovative technologies such as rail gun, hypersonic weapon... etc., due to enormous budget, time, and very thin chance of success. This paper recommends, therefore, to carefully select and extensively invest on the most cost-effective technological innovations, suitable in the operational environments of the ROK. In particular, this paper stresses the following six areas as most potential naval innovations for the ROK Navy: long range precision strike; air and missile defense at sea; ASW with various unmanned maritime system (UMS) such as USV, UUV based on advanced hydraulic acoustic sensor (Sonar) technology; network; digitalization for the use of AI and big data; and nuclear-powered attack submarines as a strategic deterrent.