US (& Allies) Hypersonic developments and missiles

Such weapons 1000 km from Moscow are very dangerous for Russia. The US will again try to deploy first-strike nuclear weapons close to Moscow.

It is very dangerous for Europe and the US too because missiles that fly at hypersonic speed can cover 1,000km in a few minutes so assuming they are detected the Russians will have no idea what their target is and whether it has a nuclear weapon or a conventional warhead on board.

On detection the Russians might have 2-3 minutes to decide what to do... they might launch a full nuclear response or they might do nothing and hope... but the latter sounds rather unlikely really.

The whole point of the INF treaty was because missiles like Pioneer put all the countries involved on a hair trigger... which is destabilising and can lead to mistakes.

Picking your lotto numbers if you make a mistake you might miss out on winning an enormous sum of money, but easy come easy go.

Mistaking a missile test for a missile attack that leads to nuclear war... remember US nuclear missiles coming from Germany will result in a nuclear strike on the US and on Germany and any other pre-targeted threat the Russians want to hit... this is a case of use it or lose it... Russia can't afford to ignore a missile headed over its territory that might be an EMP weapon for all they know.

That is why the INF treaty was signed.

These weapons are kind of pointless though since Russia can just deploy the Zircon from land based platforms as a response.

In the event of WWIII Russia will want to destroy lots of targets in Europe and Asia... Japan and probably South Korea and other US vassal states that really don't warrant ICBMs and SLBMs so being able to use IRBMs and IRCMs and MRBMs and MRCMs is very useful and rather cheaper... as these weapons are not included in the START treaty or the new START treaties because they are not strategic range weapons.

Yes, Tsirkon is a good answer, but when it comes to hitting NATO decision centers, not the US itself. As for the US, they would have to keep 885M patrols close to the US coast. Then there are a few minutes of flight to the US decision centers

Russian is not planning a first strike so it would only launch in the case of a western attack on Russia. US missiles coming from Germany or Poland or Finland would not result in a Zircon strike on Brussels and Washington... it would be a full nuclear strike... you launch or you risk losing the capacity to launch.

The point is that Russia currently does not have the means to directly strike very quickly at decision-making centers, etc. in CONUS itself. The US, if it deploys missiles in Poland, is 3 to 4 minutes of flight to Moscow.

The point is that when Moscow responds the decision making centres in the west have already made the decision that will cost them their families and their country.

Moscow should not waste warheads on decision making centres, they should hit population centres and industrial centres and food and energy and resources.

We simply do not know what exactly will be the configuration of the Khabarovsk class submarines. It is quite possible they are a combination of Poseidon nuclear torpedo and cruise missile carriers.

Interesting... but even with 5,000km range nuclear armed Kh-102s the cruise missile armament would require being within about 4,000km of the target area, while Poseidon can be launched from the other side of the planet and does not need to be so close to enemy bases/forces.

Having thunderbird cruise missiles.... the nuclear powered unlimited range cruise missiles would make more sense as both it and Poseidon can be launched from the south pacific or south atlantic and still hit targets in the northern hemisphere. The cost of sending ASW groups to patrol hunting for such subs would be horribly expensive and simply not practical.

The Poseidon also simply takes up too much space for a Borei sized submarine to also have a significant VLS armament.

Could be room for a few vertically launched Thunderbird missiles of unlimited flight range...

The agreement was signed because the USSR had a huge advantage in medium-range systems.

That is why the west signed it. The Soviets didn't sign because they thought all the money and energy they had spent building up a powerful force might be destabilising.

They signed because the western response might be to put Pershing II missiles in Turkey where the fight time is going to be less than 10 minutes.

10 minute is destabilising... it might take 5 minutes to detect the launch from multiple sources and to track the target and determine its target... then you have less than five minutes to get the president... it might be 3am... you might have to wake them up... if you got woken up at 3am from a deep sleep and someone said to you there has been a missile detected heading towards us, we have it confirmed by three satellite sources and a guy on the ground who might be a spy and we have tracked it and it is heading for Moscow... what are we going to do... you have less than 3 minutes to decide.

Now you might say... well we shoot it down... but what if it was never going to hit the ground and was going to explode thousands of kilometres up in space to create an EMP pulse to take out Moscows radars and electronics for an hour or two to hide the real attack which might be sub launched cruise missiles flying at low altitude approaching from any direction they can locate a SSN.

3am is not the time to make good decisions.

As Medvedev has said, the west fears AI so much but the orders and decisions in case of such an attack would need to go out fast so they would need to be automated... yet there have been multiple cases on both sides where it appeared an attack was happening and cool heads led to no response only to find it was a computer error. At least one case in the west when a massive attack was detected coming over the horizon... but it was from an unexpected direction and seem to be a massive launch... they decided not to do anything and it was finally worked out that it was actually the computer was putting a decimal point in the wrong place and it was the moon rising.

Hacking and all sorts of other issues are also possible... the reason the Soviets wanted the INF treaty was because it puts WWIII on the lightest of a hair trigger which makes WWIII vastly more likely and everyone much less safe.

But the US tore up the INF treaty and it basing missiles in Europe so of course Russia is going to do the same.

It sound bad for both sides but actually Russian air defences are much much much better than western air defence which has mostly been sent to Kiev and destroyed, while the Russian hypersonic missiles are rather likely to make it to their targets.

The difference is that they are not going to save the Europeans from their nazi overlords... you made that bed, now you can lie in it.... the missiles the Russians will be launching at Europe and because those missiles are American also at America too will all be nuclear armed... this is not a game.

The Soviet leaders knew they were giving up their advantage but they also knew that America loves to spend money and would simply put ground launched Tomahawks and Pershing II missiles into mass production... and obviously of course they already have plenty of tomahawks on their navy ships too... and air launched missiles the INF treaty does not cover... the US made sure navy and air force missiles were not effected.

Now Russia has again an advantage over the US in both strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. They should work on the concept of a first decapitating strike on the US.

The issue is that the US has lots of vassal states that will happily host US missiles on their territory so they can pretend they are safe from big bad Russia.... so tactical US weapons essentially become strategic weapons against Russia, while Russia is a bit limited as its options to do the same to the US.

Now, it will go all automatic, AI-assisted. No humans involved.
Judgment Day.
Kabooom.

Exactly, and it does not require a sentient AI programme to decide to wipe out humanity... it just takes a mistake or error or a set of data from sensors the programme does not understand for a mistake to happen.

A test sounding rocket, or faulty radar array... a decimal point in the wrong place... and no time to check...