An ICBM goes up and back down w/the trajectory of a cannonball. Hypersonics are guided missiles, travel lower in the atmosphere, and are not as fast (ICBMs travel 15k mph+ in terminal, hypersonics run about Mach 5, not quite 4k mph). 1/x 
https://twitter.com/jackmurphylive/status/1449841058272227328
They present different air defense challenges. The difficult part for ICBMs is their sheer speed, which nearly matched the velocity of the explosion & shrapnel of our defending missiles (meaning we usually need a skin-to-skin hit to guarantee destruction). 2/x
OTOH, we know where they’re going because, well, because they’re ballistic. This limits their tactical use - say, for taking out a carrier group in the Indian Ocean. In the time it took to reach the target, the ships could simply run away and the missile couldn’t follow. 3/x
Our ability to shoot down orbital targets has greatly improved, but realistically no one is going to launch an ICBM at one of our cities without launching enough (with blanks mixed in) to overwhelm our defenses. Deterrence is our only defense, hypersonics don’t change that. 4/x
But hypersonics do have the potential to change the game tactically - for example, by threatening a carrier strike group. In a war situation, a carriers’ primary defense is distance - DDGs, FFGs, & F/A-18s keeping people far away. Most anti-ship missiles have range < 100m. 5/x
When you look at the hypersonic trajectory above, what’s going on there is that the glider pulls up on re-entry, allowing the missile to come in on a relatively flat trajectory. Since the earth is round, much of its flight time is over the horizon, thus, less visible. 6/x
However, our space-based early warning detection systems are quite robust these days. The real question will be whether our radar & AAW missile systems will be prepared to track and deal with the threat at point of impact. Our new SPY-6 AAW system is extremely legit.
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