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Comment by imglorp | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious about the PR strategies at play when governments either saber-rattle or keep secrets.

Announcing breakthrough, surprising even, HAWC tech seems to clue in opponents about what sorts of countermeasures they'd want to start developing.

By contrast, the US has held the high-altitude Aurora/SR-72/whatever tech very close to the vest for decades, when it's pretty much obvious that a new generation of high altitude replacements for U-2/SR-71/etc have been in the works or operational for a long time.

Could this be economic trolling/baiting like what in the 80's, (in part?) contributed to the USSR bankrupting itself trying to keep up with cold war tech?

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> Announcing breakthrough, surprising even, HAWC tech seems to clue in opponents about what sorts of countermeasures they'd want to start developing.

It's pretty hard to hide hypersonic devices these days, and the concept is not exactly a secret: Russia and China are testing devices, and multiple other countries are working on developing their own.

Russia is not really testing devices per se anymore, they are preparing for mass production of hypersonic air breathing missiles. We don't know too much as for China.

> they are preparing for mass production of hypersonic air breathing missiles

...or so they say. Of course they've been preparing for mass production of T-14 and Su-57 for quite some time now. Any day now they'll get them, I'm sure...

T-14 is ready for mass production, it's just too expensive for the broke Russian government to buy enough of them.

3M22 unlike Su-57 has actually achieved it's goals. It has already been fired from ships and hit targets while achieving it's speed and altitude goals. Su-57 has not been able to achieve it's goals of being stealthy or being reliable so there is no reason it would be readied for mass production.

If I remember correctly it was claimed that the Su57 was too good and that's why they we're cancelling serial production.

> We don't know too much as for China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DF-ZF

Hypersonics aren’t new tech, they were tested and developed decades ago by the US. It’s only recently that they’ve made a reappearance. Why do you think it took only 2 years for multiple military branches to spin up and test multiple separate missile designs? I would argue that Russia/China are playing the PR game in order for the US to appear behind in terms of missile technology.

There are offensive weapons that you advertise so that the enemy wastes resources to defend against.

Having nukes for MAD is useless if no one knows you have a credible threat.

"Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you keep it a secret!"

I sorta suspect that this is more about the fact that the US knows this isn't a secret to China and Russia, so they're using it as an opportunity to brag domestically and get more funding.

Given the fact that other governments are fielding hypersonic scramjet missiles, I don't think so.

MAD worked out pretty well. Sometimes the best outcome of a weapon system is that it's never used.

Reminds me of the Doomsday Machine in Dr. Strangelove.

> The Whole Point of the Doomsday Machine is Lost if You Keep it a Secret!

> contributed to the USSR bankrupting itself trying to keep up with cold war tech?

Source?

It is probably a reference to the SDI program, also called the Starwars program. Note that the economic impact on USSR is just speculation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative...

Yes, and yes that remark was speculative.

It was known as "the strategy of technology" and there's been a lot of controversy if really was as effective as many claim.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_of_Technology

USSR was spending majority of it's GDP on mil., hard to imagine it was not a major factor.

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