That's called a Ballistic missile and those are just how nuclear war works. The general assumption is that no one uses nukes. Because if we go nuclear, the wor

That's called a Ballistic missile and those are just how nuclear war works. The general assumption is that no one uses nukes. Because if we go nuclear, the world as we know it is over. There is no missile shield vs Ballistic missiles or ICBMs. That's always been true. Our defense against ICBMs is always the same, we have more of them and promise to blow the enemy up with our more numerous, bigger nukes. ------------ The reason hypersonic missiles are a 'thing' is because they aren't nukes. They work because China (presumably) figured out a homing device that can lock onto ships. So from a conventional perspective, it's about hitting a fleet of ships without escalating to nuclear combat. That doesn't mean that China instantly wins vs Taiwan, it just means we need to be careful about our fleet positioning and stay outside of China's sensor / homing mechanisms range. Our F35 can perform mid-air refueling for a reason, we can sit outside the range of the Chinese missile and still fly missions, albeit with a slower response time due to the increased flight distance before combat.