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Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ismail Baghaei: We have no plans for the next round of negotiations






The Israeli Air Force has opened an investigation after a direct missile impact in Arad. Despite interception attempts, the strike hit residential buildings, leaving dozens wounded.











Hypersonic Missiles: Why One Strike Would Put a US Aircraft Carrier Out of Action Aircraft carriers are not designed to survive a strike by hypersonic missile entering the ship vertically from above. The United States Navy has long sold the myth of the invincible aircraft carrier. These floating cities—90,000 tons of steel, bristling with aircraft and sailors—are meant to project power across the globe, symbols of American dominance at sea. Yet the uncomfortable truth is this: a single hypersonic missile, striking vertically through the decks and detonating deep in the hull, would put one of these leviathans out of action straight away. The Navy’s own history offers a cautionary tale. In 2005, the decommissioned USS America was subjected to weeks of punishment in a classified sinking exercise. Torpedoes, bombs, and explosives battered her, yet she stubbornly refused to go down. Admirals hailed this as proof of carrier resilience. But survivability in a controlled test is not survivability in combat. The America was empty—no fuel, no ordnance, no crew. A hypersonic strike in wartime would be a different beast entirely. The Vertical Kill Shot Hypersonic missiles travel at Mach 5 and beyond. Their speed alone makes interception almost impossible. A vertical strike—plunging through the flight deck, smashing through hangars, and exploding at the keel—would bypass the carrier’s layered defences. The result? A gaping hole at the bottom of the ship, flooding compartments from below and crippling propulsion, power, and damage-control systems in one blow. Carriers rely on compartmentalisation to contain damage. But a vertical penetration connects multiple decks, overwhelming watertight integrity. Flooding spreads upward, fires ignite aviation fuel, and secondary explosions ripple through magazines. Within minutes, the ship is mission-killed. It may not sink immediately, but it cannot launch aircraft, manoeuvre effectively, or sustain operations. For a carrier, that is defeat. The Myth of Unsinkability American admirals like to remind us that carriers are hard to sink. True enough—size buys time. But the question is not whether a carrier sinks; it is whether it fights. A carrier that cannot fly jets is a useless hulk, a liability rather than an asset. In the age of hypersonic weapons, survivability must be measured not in hours afloat but in minutes of combat effectiveness. China understands this perfectly. Its investment in “carrier-killer” missiles—the DF-21D and DF-26—reflects a strategic calculation: neutralise the carrier, and you neutralise American power projection in the Pacific. The Pentagon’s own war games admit as much. Once hypersonics are in play, carriers cannot safely operate within thousands of miles of contested waters. The Strategic Shock The implications are stark. For decades, the carrier has been the centrepiece of US naval doctrine. It is the platform around which fleets are built, the symbol of deterrence, the tool of intervention. Yet one hypersonic strike could render it impotent. That is not just a tactical setback—it is a strategic shock. Britain, too, should take note. Our own carriers, the Queen Elizabeth class, are smaller but no less vulnerable. We have invested billions in platforms that may be obsolete before they reach maturity. Hypersonic weapons are not science fiction; they are already deployed. Russia has tested them, China has fielded them, and the US is scrambling to catch up. Rethinking Naval Power The uncomfortable conclusion is that the age of the carrier may be ending. Distributed lethality—smaller ships, unmanned systems, long-range missiles—offers resilience where the carrier offers vulnerability. Power projection must adapt to a world where a single strike can silence a fleet’s flagship. The US Navy will not admit this easily. Carriers are political as much as military, symbols of national pride and industrial might. But pride does not stop hypersonic missiles. The lesson of the USS America is not that carriers are unsinkable—it is that survivability in peacetime tests means little against weapons designed to exploit their weaknesses. Final Thought A vertical hypersonic strike is the nightmare scenario: swift, unstoppable, devastating. It would not just damage a carrier; it would put it out of action straight away. In an era of hypersonic warfare, the carrier is no longer the hunter—it is the hunted. And unless navies adapt, the next great war at sea may be decided in minutes, not months. 19fortyfive.com/2026/01/the-u-…




