To reduce the qualities of hypersonic missiles to their speed is to belittle them. Not only are they faster (exceed five times the speed of sound) also maneuver in flight and alter their trajectorywhich makes its detection and interception extremely difficult.
Now the United States Army indicates that it will incorporate a total of 4,500 hypersonic missiles into the MACE program by 2031. The MACE program (acronym for Multi-Mission Affordable Capability Effector) will be extended from fiscal year 2028 to 2031 according to the document published by the authorities. It is not just about having a few advanced systems, but about something much more ambitious: deploying thousands.
And this is important because the United States is late to this race. Between 2010 and 2022, it has carried out more than 20 tests of this type of missile, but it has not yet deployed any units that use them. That’s why Going from almost none to 4,500 in five years is an enormous leap.
And yet, the key in this context is not quantity, but price. Until now, hypersonic missiles were a rare, expensive and almost experimental commodity. Systems designed for very specific missions, but the program MACE introduces a different idea: mass and modular production.
According to the documents, the average cost per unit could be around $384,000a surprisingly low figure for this type of technology. The strategy is more reminiscent of the logic of industry than of traditional war. It’s not about having the perfect weapon, but enough good weapons. Many. Thousands.
In military terms, this has profound implications. A large number of relatively affordable hypersonic missiles would allow defense systems to be saturatedattack multiple targets simultaneously and maintain constant pressure on the adversary. It’s a change of scale.
Furthermore, these systems are designed to be integrated into existing platforms: fighters such as the F-35 or F/A-18, and even other future configurations. That is, they do not require reinventing the entire military infrastructure, but rather adapting it. But behind this bet there is also a clear geopolitical context that we already mentioned, but it has a twist. If China and Russia have been investing in hypersonic weapons for years (the first I would have about 600 and Russia half), The United States’ commitment to creating thousands would not only reduce the “technological gap”also poses an uncomfortable question: what happens when technologies designed to be exceptional become commonplace?
Military history offers a clue. The long bow, gunpowder, the guided missile… all of these innovations started out as rare, almost exotic. Until they weren’t. And at that moment, the balance changed. To where? That’s what we still don’t know.