Tomahawks for Ukraine?
In recent news, it was revealed that the United States may provide Ukraine with Tomahawk missile systems, Tomahawks are subsonic, terrain following, long range precision strike missile systems. These systems come in multiple variants and are further categorized by “blocks” which indicate the level of modernization. It is assumed that the Tomahawks that are to be provided to Ukraine are land-based systems of the block V modernization category. (U) The block V category includes improved navigation, increased range and communications with datalink technologies. Despite these upgrades, Tomahawks have limitations, limitations that Russia can defend against. Russia has a layered Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) capability as part of its Integrated Air Defense network or IAD. Russian IAD systems are robust, which raise the chances of detection, even during low altitude flight. If launched over dense areas or coastal areas, radar coverage will increase the chances of early detection as these areas will be saturated with coverage. Russian forces have already defended against ATACMs, virtually all of our GPS guided munitions as well as other deep strike capabilities. Opinion: Why then, would we think that throwing more technology at Russia is a good idea?
The BGM-109 Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) is an American long-range, all-weather, jet powered, subsonic cruise missile that is primarily used by the US Navy.
After three + years of encountering Western technologies on the battlefield, Russia has adapted, meaning that it’s now highly unlikely that additional anti-jamming measures employed by block Vs will adequately mitigate Russian defenses. Even if early detection fails, the Russian A2/AD (Anti-Access/Area Denial) bubble is layered, meaning that point defenses would activate S-300s, Pantsirs and even SHORAD (Short-Range Air Defense) systems which are all part of Russia’s overlapping engagement layered network. Electronic warfare defenses include Krasukha and Murmansk-BN that jam radars, satellite links and datalinks, all of which degrades targeting and missile guidance systems. Why then, would the Tomahawk system be any different? The Russians have demonstrated adaptability time and time again…
I don’t see the trade-off here, meaning, given recent events which include Russian escalation signaling, why would we inject a high-cost technology, one which will likely fail to advance Ukrainian objectives on the ground while further provoking Russia?
The escalation risk and political cost with supplying these systems to Ukraine is immense as Russian warnings and rhetoric have indicated that retaliation is likely. The political risk for the Trump administration involves the high unit cost of the Tomahawks, the Tomahawks have poor cost effectiveness for most targets as they will not be effective against heavily defended High Value Targets (HVTs). Tomahawks cost millions of dollars per round, using them against targets that can be attacked using much cheaper weapons systems is a poor economic tradeoff. But most importantly is the Russian political blowback and public warnings of countermeasures. Supplying Ukraine with Tomahawks also raises the risk for allies in Europe and significantly complicates diplomatic channels that are already delicate.
The Nuclear Gamble
Of course, the paramount concern is the nuclear gamble. I would remind readers that Russia and the United States retain an equal amount of nuclear warheads under the START treaty. Under this treaty, both Russia and the US retain 1,550 strategic warheads under START limits. While Russia actually has more nuclear warheads with 5580 including reserves, this point is moot though as both nations have more than enough active warheads to guarantee mutual assured destruction (MAD). So, the numerical difference doesn’t change the strategic balance.
With this in mind, and after the multiple warnings from Russian officials, any cursory analysis reveals that providing Tomahawk missile systems to Ukraine would be a monumentally poor course of action to follow. During the Biden administration, they pushed the envelope by providing the first tranche of deep strike capabilities to Ukraine. This action brought the collective West closer to full scale nuclear retaliation from an adversary than we have been since the Cuban missile crisis. Mainstream media provided minimal coverage on this crisis and instead chose to highlight Taylor Swift’s concert tour and wardrobe choices. I digress, the justification for these actions is always the same, we should escalate to de-escalate and believe that Russia is simply bluffing. Anyone that understands the Russian mindset at all, will know that Russian nuclear signaling is part of escalation management and not empty bluffing. Moscow regularly combines nuclear rhetoric with operational movements, (U) a few recent examples include the deployment of non-strategic nuclear weapons (NSNW) to Belarus, the modernization of its strategic triad and an update to its nuclear doctrine. In the updated doctrine, Russia allows for limited nuclear employment in response to existential threats to the state or large-scale attacks on key military/government infrastructure – even with conventional weapons. This means that updated Russian doctrine explicitly leaves room for nuclear use in extreme conventional scenarios, so calling this a “bluff” ignores updated Russian doctrine.
What Western leaders fail to recognize is that in deterrence, risk assessment isn’t about likelihood alone, its about consequence. For instance, if they assume that Russia is bluffing and they’re correct they achieve a minor win, if they assume Russia is bluffing and they’re wrong, national annihilation and the potential end of the collective West. This is why in my estimation, its irresponsible and poor leadership to assume that Russia is bluffing. Russia has both the capability and doctrine that allows for the use of nuclear weapons under conditional escalations received from the collective West.
