U.S. Reportedly Close To Approving Long-Range Missiles for Ukraine
Sept. 5—Reuters posted an article Sept. 3, claiming that the Biden Administration is close to a decision to provide the AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, or JASSM, to Ukraine, though it would take months for the first ones to be delivered. The inclusion of JASSM in a weapons package is expected to be announced this autumn, three unnamed sources said, though a final decision has yet to be made.
Several sources contacted found this report laughable nonsense. "The Biden Administration is doing this to appease some of the lunatic fringe who want to give [Ukainian dictator Volodymyr] Zelenskyy the okay to use U.S. systems already in place, such as ATACMS, to strike deep into Russia," one source stated.. "There is serious opposition to this with the defense establishment, because the accurate assessment of the battlefield is that the war is hopelessly lost and might be over by next month. There are already signals that there could be negotiations for a peace deal. So, delivery of these weapons systems, which is not likely to take place before the end of the year at the earliest, and then the modifications of aircraft that could use them, which will take longer, place all this outside the frame of actual fighting, which should be fully over before the end of the year. More importantly, this order would no doubt be reversed by an incoming Trump administration, whose chief has said he will end this senseless war, which NATO has lost, before he takes office in January.
"If they wanted to have some real effect on the war," the source concluded, "these weapons needed to be deployed several months ago. This {the Reuters story]is a NATO puff piece, from one of the most reliably stupid NATO sources, Reuters. They think that they can scare the Russians with this nonsense. In reality, what this says is that the U.S. is not going to unleash the rabid dog Zelenskyy to use munitions already in place. More sober analysts have said that even that action, while potentially provoking a Russian response against NATO assets outside the Ukraine war theater, will have no effect on the Ukraine battlefield in the immediate sense. They {NATO} have already killed almost all that works in the Ukrainian military. They have no one left to fight and deploy these weapons. But NATO wants to keep bleeding going and provoking the Russians and keep the Ukrainians on the pitch. I think that the Ukrainian military leadership will end this, if no one else does."
Sending JASSMs to Ukraine could significantly alter the strategic landscape of the conflict by putting more of Russia in range of powerful, precision-guided munitions, an important concern of the Biden administration, the officials told Reuters. Military analysts have suggested the introduction of JASSMs—which are stealthy and can strike farther than most other missiles in Ukraine’s current inventory—could push Russian staging areas and supply depots back by hundreds of miles. This would severely complicate Russia’s ability to sustain its offensive operations and potentially provide Ukraine with a strategic advantage, it is hoped.
The JASSM has so far only been integrated into U.S.-designed aircraft. Ukraine will ultimately operate several dozen F-16s, each of which can carry two of the cruise missiles. One of the U.S. officials said there were efforts to make the missile operable with non-Western fighter jets in Ukraine’s inventory, which had not been reported previously. Although the official did not provide further detail on which jets in Ukraine’s inventory JASSM could be used, Ukraine operates Soviet-era MiG-29, Su-24 and Su-27 jets.
Giving Ukraine JASSMs would also add pressure for Washington to drop restrictions on how Ukraine uses U.S. weaponry, because their effects would be limited if they were not cleared for use on targets inside Russia, said a Congressional staffer who works on the issue.
The provision of JASSMs would clearly deepen the U.S. involvement in the war against Russia. “They’re pretty stealthy, but not completely designed around maximum stealth,” said William Herbert of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey in California. “A few years ago, a bunch were fired at Syria after chemical weapons incidents, and Russian air defense systems in the country failed to shoot many down, possibly none of them,” he said. “I would expect that carefully planned missile flight paths would let JASSM be effective almost anywhere in the war area.” Herbert is not quoted saying who would be doing that planning but it’s pretty obvious that it would be the U.S., using U.S. and NATO intelligence assets.
At the Pentagon, spokesman Pat Ryder refused to comment on the Reuters report. “I saw those press reports. I don’t have anything … no announcements to make,” he told reporters.
The War Zone’s Tyler Rogoway reported that besides the JASSM’s advanced capabilities, what’s really attractive about it, is that the U.S. plans to build a huge stockpile of them, making it possible to supply them to Ukraine in the hundreds, if not more. “Pentagon budget documents and Selected Acquisition Reports for the JASSM program show just over 2,000 AGM-158As were acquired before production of those missiles ended in 2021,” he wrote. “The current ‘inventory objective’ for total JASSM purchases, past and future, including the aforementioned A versions, as well as current and future subvariants of the JASSM-ER (extended range), is over 12,000.” At $1 million a piece, that will be quite a windfall for JASSM-maker Lockheed Martin.
"Aha! So now you see who benefits from this," said the source. "The merchants of death who supply the NATO war machine. What a sick joke!"
