The U.S. has announced that it will not send ATACMS long-range missiles to Ukraine, dashing the hopes of Ukraine and its advocates that it would have the means to strike Crimean bases used to launch recent punishing strikes against Odesa.
The Washington Post reports on the situation:
But U.S. defense and administration officials familiar with the issue said that despite what one called a growing public perception of “some sort of slow, gravitational pull” toward approval, there has been no change in U.S. policy and no substantive discussion about the issue for months. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to address the sensitive subject.
The Pentagon believes that Kyiv has other, more urgent needs than ATACMS, and worries that sending enough to Ukraine to make a difference on the battlefield would severely undercut U.S. readiness for other possible conflicts.
The reaction on social media has been predictable—claims that the U.S. doesn’t want Ukraine to win, that it’s holding back to slowly bleed Russia dry, that it is callously disregarding the sacrifices of Ukraine forces on the ground.
Currently, Ukraine has little ability to reach deep into Russian lines. Here are the options. An asterix means Ukraine already has it:
* Tube artillery: 20-30 kms, depending on type of shells
* GMLRS: 70-80 kms
GLSDB: 150 km
* Storm Shadow/SCALP: 225 kms
ATAMCS: 300 kms
Ukraine already has GMLRS, launched from HIMARS and M270 rocket artillery launchers. The Brits supplied a reported 50 or so Storm Shadow cruise missiles, and they have been used to devastating effect against Russian targets. France recently committed to delivering another 50 of their version of the missile, called SCALP.
GLSDB is a brand new version of HIMARS/M270-launched rocket artillery. It doesn’t quite exist. And while defense industry officials hoped to deliver the new longer-range rocket by spring, production has been delayed into the fall or winter. Manufacture requires repurposing old MLRS rocket tubes—the ones that used to carry cluster bomblets back in my day. Turns out that the booster propulsion part of the rockets had issues and have to be refurbished. No one wants them blowing up on launch, destroying both the launcher and killing its crew. Furthermore, GLSDB gets its added range by adding wings, gliding to its final destination. It is slow, and thus theoretically more vulnerable to air defenses.
As for ATACMS, there just aren’t that many of them. Just 4,000 in total have been built, and many of them were used up during the War on Terror and training, while almost 1,000 of them have been sold to foreign buyers. Only 500 are manufactured per year, most of them contractually committed to foreign buyers. And with China and North Korea both acting belligerently, ATACMS would be important in an American defense of either South Korea or Taiwan. It’s clear the Pentagon is hesitate to dip into what appears to be a limited stash.
All that said, absent completely empty stocks, it does seem ridiculous that the United States wouldn’t have 50 of the rockets to spare. It wouldn’t take much: a few dozen fired into Sevastopol would clear out Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and send them out of range of the port city of Odesa, which they are hammering with sea-skimming anti-ship missiles immune to current Ukrainian air defenses. A dozen more might be able to take out the rail line on the Kerch Bridge. That would leave 1-2 dozen ATACMS for opportunistic targets, and to simply keep Russia fearful and at bay.
GLSDB, when they arrive, aren’t the answer. They have less range than Storm Shadows/SCALPS, which already come up just short in necessary range.
NATO armies don’t have more ordinance in that 300-500 km range because they fully expect air power to deliver ordinance at those distances. Ukraine will never have that ability, even if and when F-16s arrive. So to fill the gap, even one month production of ATACMS (around 42 missiles) seems more than reasonable. President Joe Biden should make it happen.
That said, the idea that the U.S. is slow walking its support to bleed out Russia, callous to Ukraine’s needs for a quick victory, are absolutely ludicrous. If anything, there is urgency to make things happen quicker, let American domestic politics, the 2024 presidential election, and a growing pro-Putin wing of the Republican Party sabotage future military and financial assistance.
The war is expensive for the United States. It’s not just the cost of the donated military gear (which critics claim is a giveaway to the military industrial complex), but billions of dollars in direct American payments to Ukraine to pay for the basics of running a government. Furthermore, the war is causing global economic disruptions that threaten the American economy and that of our European allies. It is in everyone’s interest to end this as quickly as possible.
There is certainly no slow-rolling American support on ammunition. The U.S. has literally emptied out its supply of 155mm artillery shells, and has had to go searching for supplies in places like Israel and South Korea to feed Ukraine’s hungry guns. That’s what led to the controversial decision to send cluster munitions—an action that has infuriated our European allies, congressional Democrats, and emboldened conservative critics of the war.
People complain that the U.S. could do more to send M1 Abrams main battle tanks, but Ukraine is struggling to use the Western armor it has already received. Ukraine, by all indications, still has hundreds, if not thousands, of tanks, including its existing stash of Soviet-era armor, bolstered by captured Russian equipment. Yet on the front lines, we’re now seeing mostly infantry advances. Tanks are simply too vulnerable, and Ukraine doesn’t have the time and means to learn effective combined arms operations that would increase their survivability.
F-16s, carrying anti-ship missiles, would certainly threaten the Russian Black Sea fleet at Sevastopol, more so than ATACMS, but that was always a long-term solution.
What Ukraine needs now, more than anything, is ammunition. What they can’t manage via close-air support, they can manage with a wall of artillery. If Ukraine has the capacity to stand up new armor brigades, then great, provide those tanks and M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. But more than anything—and this is reflected in recent aid packages—Ukraine needs more artillery shells, more anti-tank rockets, more mine-clearing charges and equipment, more air defenses, and more small-arms ammunition. It’s not sexy, it’s not a brand new “game changing” weapons systems, but no such thing exists. Ammunition is most crucual to support those brave Ukrainians at the front.
All the said, goddam it, send 50 ATACMS already.
With the ending of the grain corridor deal, Russia has launched barrage after barrage against the port city of Odesa, targeting not just its port facilities to render them unusable, but also cultural targets in parts of the city designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Last night, it even hit the city’s main historic church.
Tankies like Glenn Greenwald wailed when Ukraine shut down the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, very obviously a front for Russian intelligence, in a church gleefully vested in Russia’s war of conquest. They’ll all be silent about this attack, however.
