As Putin levels Odesa, Biden dithers on giving Ukraine the missiles it needs

The Biden administration continues to waffle on whether to arm Ukraine with the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS).

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his war against Ukrainian grain and the Ukrainian people, however, has no such problem in making decisions. He has been leveling the port city of Odesa with a four-day barrage of cruise missiles and drones. He also sent a message to nearby Romania — “Keep your distance!” — by attacking a port in the town of Reni, just across the Danube River, which destroyed a grain hangar.

Although Ukraine’s capital city of Kyiv benefits from a NATO-installed air defense umbrella, Odesa and other villages, towns and cities throughout the country do not. Missiles and drones get through ground fire and hit their targets, destroying residential neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, and cultural centers, and maiming and killing civilians.

Air defense systems provided to Ukraine are an invaluable addition to the defense of the country. They save lives, but they all have one thing in common — they attack and interdict missiles and drones while in flight. They have no impact on the weapon systems launching or guiding those missiles or drones. This is allowing Russians to create round after round of death and destruction the next day from the sanctuary of their own territory.

Any doctor will tell you that attacking the symptom instead of the disease only prolongs the disease.

There must be a two-pronged approach — attack the weapon system and interdict missiles and drones that get through. To do that, Ukraine needs precision deep-strike capability and intelligence to destroy these weapons and the locations where Russian missiles and drones are stored. ATACMS is part of that solution.

Yes, the United Kingdom’s Storm Shadow and French SCALP cruise missiles provide an air-launched capability. But the HIMARS platform provides a ground-launched mobile capability that has been brilliantly incorporated into the Ukrainian playbook. Each weapon system has its own advantages and disadvantages. Together, though, they present a trifecta of lethality that Russia is unprepared to counter. 

The number of missiles available is finite, and the number of targets is plentiful. France has committed at least 50 of the 400 missiles in its inventories, while the number of missiles the UK sent from its estimated arsenal of 700 to 1,000 missiles is unknown. 

Which only makes the Biden administration’s indecision more perplexing. What are they waiting for?

The Washington Post recently reported that 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.” Other reasons include “the number of ATACMS in American stockpiles is fixed,” and that “Lockheed Martin manufactures 500 ATACMS each year, but all of that production is destined for sale to other countries.”

Six of those countries are NATO allies. Of the six, Poland has 30 M57 ATACMS on hand and another 45 ordered in February 2023. Romania has 54 M57 ATACMS. Turkey and Greece have ATACMS munitions on hand, too, but would likely be less inclined to provide them to Ukraine. Estonia and Lithuania had requests approved to purchase 18 M57 ATACMS missile pods each in 2022. 

If, as Politico reported in February 2023, the Pentagon “told Kyiv’s representatives that it doesn’t have any Army Tactical Missile Systems to spare,” then why does the Biden administration not just release the authority to our NATO partners to send their inventories?

And why, if this munition is in such demand worldwide, has the Biden administration not increased production? Where is the urgency, given the current situation in Ukraine and the threat posed by North Korea and China?

Clearly, the Pentagon acknowledged both the need in Ukraine and the shortage of ATACMS with its assertion that, as the Post put it, “sending enough to Ukraine to make a difference on the battlefield would severely undercut U.S. readiness.” Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles contribute to the “enough to make a difference,” but surely the U.S. can afford to match the UK and French contribution to complete that “enough.”

A lot has changed since Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Dr. Colin Kahl held a Press Briefing on Security Assistance in Support of Ukraine back in August 2022 and asserted that the Ukrainians, at that moment, needed only Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, “not ATACMS.” For one thing, the battle is no longer a defensive one but a counteroffensive intended to push Russian ground forces out of the Ukrainian mainland and the Crimean Peninsula.  

There are three components to Ukraine’s counteroffensive: the close, deep and rear fights. The majority of the weapons systems provided to Kyiv are best suited for the close fight, to include the latest U.S.-supplied munition, the dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM).

But one cannot win the close fight if the enemy is able to replace its losses as quickly as you can dispose of them. By affording Russian forces safety in aggression from their own side of the border, the administration’s indecision is preventing a Ukrainian victory. 

Ukraine must have the ability to strike Russian forces and their equipment staging in Russia and Crimea, along with their ammunition, fuel and logistic depots and the headquarters that command and control the fight. Seaports and airports used to sustain these activities should also be included. And Ukraine must be able to conduct counterfires against the missile and drone launch sites, regardless of their location.

The air-launched Storm Shadow and SCALP cruise missiles have already proven to be effective tools in this fight, but ATACMS would enhance this capability. And its mobility would provide an excellent counter-battery capability against the cruise missile and drone threat, defeating these weapons systems at their source.

These decisions should be made by Ukrainian generals in the fight, not by Kahl and other bureaucrats in bland Washington offices. The U.S. needs to come off its “no strikes inside Russia” policy, as stated by John Kirby on June 5. Part of the solution is to get ATACMS into Ukraine. 

No additional training would be necessary. The only requirement would be to undo the modifications secretly made to HIMARS launchers provided to Ukraine so they “cannot be used to fire long-range missiles into Russia … a precaution the Biden administration says is necessary to reduce the risk of a wider war with Moscow.” 

The cruise missile and drone attacks on Odesa and Reni clearly demonstrate a need for Ukraine to possess U.S. precision deep-strike capabilities. If the Biden administration wants Ukraine to win and survive this war, it cannot keep affording Russia a sanctuary from which to launch these assaults on civilian population centers.

Retired Col. Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer, including with the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division and the Intelligence and Security Command. He led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014. Mark Toth is an economist, entrepreneur, and former board member of the World Trade Center, St. Louis.