As the nations of the world meet in New York this week for the high-level week of the 79th session of the General Assembly, many important global issues will be debated and addressed. But the most important issue will be discussed, not in the General Assembly Hall, but on the sidelines. That is where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet with leaders from the U.S. and U.K. for the next round of discussions on the U.S. granting permission for Ukraine to fire Western long-range missiles deeper inside Russian territory.
U.S. President Joe Biden has long boasted that one of his legacies will be having united NATO. That legacy has been placed in jeopardy by Zelensky’s long-range missile request. That seems to be the escalatory line at which NATO members divide. On the enthusiastic side are the Eastern European nations, Canada and, most importantly, Britain; on the more cautious side are the most powerful country in NATO and the most powerful NATO country in Europe: the U.S. and Germany.
Demanding permission on a now daily basis, Zelensky is pleading for unity and “decisiveness.” But, though the U.K. has decided, the U.S. has not. Zelensky has promised to present the U.S. a “Ukrainian Victory Plan” that promises to outlines the steps to victory and what is needed to achieve each step. The Biden administration says it wants to see a clearer blueprint of how long-range missile strikes deep into Russia contribute to those steps to victory. They are seeking more details on how the benefits of launching western missiles deep inside Russia outweigh the risks of escalation.
Zelensky says that his victory plan is now complete and ready to present to Washington. The plan includes continued military assistance from the West complete with “the freedom to use it without restrictions” and promises to include a list of targets inside Russian that Ukraine believes would help achieve victory.
Though the U.S. State Department seems ready to sign off, the military and intelligence community are more cautious. They have two concerns. The first is that long-range strikes are not worth the risk of escalation because they will not deliver their goal. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin says that “long-range strikes into Russia would not turn the tide of the war in Ukraine’s favor,” and U.S. intelligence assesses that 90% of Ukraine’s selected targets have already been moved out of range. Recent satellite imagery indicates that Russia is continuing to move its targets out of range of Western long-range missiles.
The second is that the West does not possess enough long-range missiles to implement Ukraine’s plan. U.S. officials say that Ukraine has used most of the missiles that have been sent to them and that the U.S. can’t draw on its own limited stock without compromising their own military readiness.
Britain is prepared to send their own Storm Shadow missiles, but they have a problem too. Their problem is that they need U.S. permission. The reason is threefold. The first is that the U.K does not want to “go it alone.” They say that “It’s important that as allies supporting Ukraine, we have a shared strategy to win going forward.”
The second is that because components of the Storm Shadow missiles are manufactured in the United States, the U.K. requires U.S. approval.
And the third is that, even if the U.K. wanted to make and could make a unilateral decision, the British missiles would be useless to Ukraine without willing U.S. participation because U.S. guidance systems are required for the missiles to hit their targets. In the absence of U.S. targeting data, the Storm Shadow missiles would have to rely only on GPS, which Russia’s electronic warfare systems are very adept at disrupting. To hit its target, the Storm Shadows would rely on Terrain Contour Matching in the final phase of its flight. That system and its data are American.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that such direct U.S. involvement in missile strikes deep into Russian territory would “change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict.” It “will mean that NATO countries… are at war with Russia.”
It needs to be very clear that that is what is at stake as Biden and Zelensky take up the question this week of using Western long-range missiles to strike deeper into Russian territory. It is the time, Putin says, for “deciding whether NATO countries become directly involved in the military conflict.” It is the time for deciding whether the war being fought in Ukraine to defend NATO’s right to expand as widely as it wants should risk becoming a wider world war.
Ted Snider is a regular columnist on U.S. foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He is also a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft and The American Conservative as well as other outlets. To support his work or for media or virtual presentation requests, contact him at tedsnider@bell.net.
