An ATACMS missile being fired from a mobile HIMARS launcher. Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
The U.S. Should Let Ukraine Use ATACMS Deep Inside Russia
On the week of September 23rd, 2024, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet with U.S. President Joe Biden to pitch his “victory plan”, including allowing Ukraine to use the American-made Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to strike targets deep inside Russia. However, Russian President Vladimir Putin warns that using Western missiles to strike such targets will lead to a war between Russia and NATO. The United States must therefore decide as soon as possible whether to allow Ukraine to use its limited ATACMS inventory in a potentially escalatory manner.
America and its allies are already providing Ukraine with long-range missile systems. In April of 2024, Ukraine used secretly-delivered American ATACMS for the first time. Likewise, France and the United Kingdom have given Ukraine some of their Storm Shadow missiles. However, these long-range missile strikes were primarily within Ukrainian territory and limited sites within Russia so that Ukraine could defend itself, rather than for offensive purposes.
Using longer-range ballistic missiles will help Ukraine attack key targets deep inside Russia. With ATACMS, Ukraine can strike military targets that are outside of the 77-kilometer range of High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) rockets, such as Russia’s Southern Military District Headquarters in Rostov. The longest-range version of ATACMS, meanwhile, has a 300-kilometer range, which, coupled with the mobile HIMARS launcher, can strike faraway targets more easily. Likewise, Ukraine can use ATACMS to disrupt Russian supply lines, thereby hindering Russia’s ability to conduct airstrikes and other assaults on Ukraine. However, Ukraine was given only around 40 HIMARS launchers, some of which Russia has already destroyed. This risk will compound the farther Ukraine moves beyond the Russian borders.
Additionally, more ATACMS will give Ukraine a tactical advantage, but whether that advantage can be translated into strategic effect is questionable. Needing to retain its own stockpiles, America can only send over so many missiles, and in a war of attrition, missiles and other weapons are necessary. Furthermore, given Ukraine’s already small number of weapons, it will be hard to hold Russia off long-term. For instance, Russia has over eight times more tanks and eleven times more fighter jets than Ukraine. Ukraine’s new equipment would have a short-term tactical impact, though it is difficult to see how this could directly translate to a strategic advantage. Russia is also boosting its defense to make it more challenging for Ukraine to achieve strategic goals. On September 19th, 2024, President Putin announced that Russia will increase its drone production to around 1.4 million. Russia is also moving its offensive military assets out of Ukrainian range, which, though initially sparing Ukraine, means that Ukraine may have missed the opportunity to destroy the targets that would have had the most impact on the course of the war. However, Ukraine could use new secretly delivered ATACMS as an element of surprise in order to destroy a significant number of Russian military assets deep inside the country and achieve an effective strategic outcome.
Though Putin has threatened war against NATO for delivering these long-range missiles, such a war is unlikely to occur. Several NATO allies have previously given Ukraine military equipment that Russia has said constituted a red line, such as F-16 fighter jets, and Putin has not responded to any of these exports with all-out war. Likewise, Putin’s red lines are ambiguous, given that the West has crossed them several times and has not provoked a violent response. Moreover, going to war with NATO would be costly for Putin, as the alliance has more military personnel, ships, and aircraft than Russia. There is, however, a non-zero chance that Putin could interfere with NATO members in ways other than combat, including by executing cyberattacks. Regardless, the West should not be as worried about the prospect of war with Russia in this situation.
The case of using ATACMS to strike targets deep inside Russia illustrates a lasting trend in the Ukraine war. Hesitant to cross Putin’s red lines and concerned about the possibility of the war evolving into an open Russia-NATO conflict, Washington has acted cautiously almost nearly every time Ukraine has asked to be provided with capabilities that might outclass Russia. As a result, while Ukraine’s overall strength has improved with new equipment, capabilities, and permissions, the overall slow introduction of these new components has granted Russia ample warning and an ability to prepare and improve its own defense strategy. The outcome is that the piecemeal expansion of Ukraine’s tactical capabilities has failed to result in the overall strategic impact it could have had if it was able to promptly implement them together in a coordinated, battlefield-changing manner.
