On Friday, September 14, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House to discuss granting Ukraine permission to use U.S. and British long-range missiles to strike inside Russia, or, at least, to discuss the U.S. granting Britain permission to allow Ukraine to use British long-range missiles. The meeting passed with no decision being announced. That decision seems to be on hold at least until Ukraine presents the U.S. with a list of targets it believes would help achieve victory.
The debate over the use of Western long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia reflects the risky search for the Goldilocks formula: a calibrated strategy that allows Ukraine neither too little nor too much. If the West allows Ukraine too little, Ukraine could be on the verge of losing the war; if the West allows Ukraine too much, the West could be on the verge of being drawn into the war.
If the West allows Ukraine too little – and everything they have allowed so far, from Western tanks, long-range Western missiles, Patriot air defense systems, war gaming, intelligence, targeting information, F-16s and missile strikes a short range into Russia are all proving too little—Ukraine could lose the Donbas.
Russian forces are taking advantage of the shortages created by Ukraine’s Kursk invasion to advance threateningly west in the Donbas. There are indications that the Ukrainian front is crumbling. Ukraine’s ability to supply its troops in the Donbas by rail or road is being threatened, and open fields to the west of the city of Pokrovsk over which Russian troops can pour into the rest of Donbas are being exposed. By some accounting, Ukraine is losing more troops per day than at any time during the war.
The Kursk invasion has not only failed to relieve pressure on the Donbas, it has come under pressure of its own. The rapid advance has been stopped, Russian counter attacks seem to have begun and the no longer advancing troops have reportedly become sitting ducks who are taking enormous losses of Ukrainian lives and Western equipment.
Anxious to do more, the West has to be anxious about doing more without doing too much more. If doing more is perceived by Russia as doing too much more, it could not only hurt Ukraine instead of helping it, but it could risk crossing the existential red line that could draw the West into direct war with Russia.
There seem to be few illusions left in Western capitals that Ukraine can win the war if win is defined as the recapturing of all of its territory. The goal seems to be, as David Ignatius recently opined in The Washington Post, “to escalate to be strong enough to reach a decent settlement.” The Goldilocks formula would be to give Ukraine just enough rope to put enough fear into Russia to drive them to the negotiating table but not enough to cause the existential fear that would trigger a Russia-NATO war.
It is for this reason that Blinken travelled to Kiev and Starmer travelled to Washington: to evaluate and calculate the Goldilocks formula. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is daily demanding permission to fire long-range missiles into Russia. Though, according to David Sanger, Biden has, in the past, expressed the fear that Zelensky’s purpose may be to pull the U.S. into direct war with Russia because that is the only way he can deliver on his maximalist promises to win the war, advocates of the policy change argue that letting loose long-range missile strikes on carefully selected military targets is the best way to hurt the Russian military, prevent the launching of attacks and, most importantly, push back Russian aircraft that launch the glide bombs that have devastated the Ukrainian armed forces.
But such an escalation would be unlike any previous escalation. Past U.S. approved escalations could be presented to Russia as helping Ukraine to defend itself. If long-range strikes are allowed with Western missiles, that would be perceived by Russia, not only as attacking Russia and not defending Ukraine, but as direct Western involvement and not simply helping Ukraine.
As has often been the case during this war, the U.S. State Department has acted as the hawkish arm of the Pentagon. While the diplomats have argued for permitting the escalation, the military and intelligence have been far more cautious. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has hinted at the permissive change in policy, saying that “from day one… as what Russia is doing has changed, as the battlefield has changed, we’ve adapted… And I can tell you that as we go forward, we will do exactly what we have already done, which is we will adjust, we’ll adapt as necessary, including with regard to the means that are at Ukraine’s disposal to effectively defend against the Russian aggression.”
The Pentagon has been more cautious, providing three reasons that the benefits of long-range strikes don’t outweigh the risks of escalation. 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 that “ Russia had moved its glide bombs back to positions beyond the range of U.S.-made Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS).” U.S. intelligence agrees, assessing that “more than 90% of Russian aircraft launching glide bombs and firing missiles against Ukraine are based at airfields that are at least 300 km from Ukrainian-controlled territory, putting them outside of ATACMS range.”
In addition to arguing that the change in policy is not worth the risk of escalation because it will fail to accomplish its goal, two other arguments have been made against the change in policy.
The first there are not enough missiles in stock to do it. U.S. officials say that, of the “several hundred” ATACMS that have been sent to Ukraine, “Ukraine has used most of them.” Precluding a solution to that shortage, American officials worry that the U.S. has a limited stock of ATACMS to send to Ukraine without compromising their own military readiness.
The second, and most important, is that this escalation would be different in kind and more dangerous than any previous escalation. Previous escalations still allowed Russia to frame them as the U.S. helping Ukraine to defend itself. But, not only are long-range strikes into Russia attacking Russia and not simply defending Ukraine, but such an escalation can no longer possibly be framed by Russia as indirect help to Ukraine. Ukraine cannot fire long-range ATACMS missiles into Russia without direct involvement of Western troops. ATACMS are computer guided. Their GPS targeting relies on a system of satellites run exclusively by the U.S. military. The missiles can only be operated with direct involvement of American soldiers. And the targeting data has to be inserted by NATO personnel.
The necessity of U.S. involvement has led Russian President Vladimir Putin to issue what may be his clearest red line warning yet. Putin says that this is not a question of allowing Ukraine to strike Russian territory: they already are. The point is, Putin says, that “these weapons are impossible to employ without intelligence data from… NATO satellites,” and that “only NATO military personnel can assign flight missions to these missile systems.” That means that, if the permission Ukraine seeks is granted, “it will clearly change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict.” It “will mean that NATO countries… are at war with Russia.” It is now the time, Putin says, for “deciding whether NATO countries become directly involved in the military conflict.”
And it is in weighing that very decision that the Biden administration is calculating the Goldilocks formula: giving Ukraine enough to strike sufficient fear into Russia to drive them to the negotiating table without causing fear sufficient to draw the West into direct war with Russia.
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.
