Two GBU-39 small diameter bombs sit within the munitions storage space at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, Nov. 27, 2020. (U.S. Air Nationwide Guard picture by Workers Sgt. Jordan Martin)
With the White Home anticipated to announce the discharge of a Patriot battery for Ukraine’s use, there may be as soon as once more a debate raging in Washington about what new tools can, or ought to, be despatched to Kyiv’s support. Within the following op-ed, John Hardie and Bradley Bowman argue that there’s one other functionality the Biden administration ought to clear for Ukraine’s protection — a reasonably low cost weapon with a long-range to strike at Russian targets.
The Kremlin on Dec. 13 rejected a Ukrainian peace proposal that referred to as for Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine, as a substitute insisting that Kyiv ought to merely settle for the “new realities” and cede its occupied territories to Moscow. It’s a transparent signal from Moscow: they’re not on this conflict ending anytime quickly. To assist Ukraine defeat Russia’s invasion and liberate its land and folks, Washington must redouble efforts to supply Ukrainians with the weapons they want.
A method to do this, which is outwardly now into account, is sending Kyiv the Floor-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB). This method, which integrates an current munition and rocket at a comparatively low price, would allow the Ukrainian navy to strike high-value Russian targets effectively past the vary of present Western-supplied munitions. That may assist Ukrainian forces additional degrade Russian logistics and command and management and finally retake extra territory. For that reason, the Pentagon ought to transfer immediately to supply Kyiv with the GLSDB.
A joint undertaking by Saab and Boeing, the GLSDB marries two inexpensive, combat-proven programs: the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb, a 113 kg precision-guided munition that’s comparatively low cost at round $40,000 every, and the M26, a low-cost, previously demilitarized rocket. The system may embrace a multi-purpose warhead tailor-made for fastened, hardened, low collateral harm, and shifting targets.
The GLSDB would permit Ukrainian forces to strike Russian navy targets as much as 150 km away with an accuracy of round one meter. With integration, the GLSDB could be fired by the M142 HIMARS and M270 MLRS rocket artillery programs already provided to Ukraine by the USA and United Kingdom, respectively.
Nevertheless it can be fired by non-traditional launchers, comparable to from the again of an ordinary-looking truck or from a nondescript transport container hidden in plain sight. That may make it harder for Russian forces to seek out and destroy the system. The non-traditional launcher additionally makes the system a low-cost possibility to enhance HIMARS, which US trade is presently racing to provide so as to each substitute US launchers despatched to Ukraine and meet demand from allies.
One of many nice benefits of the GLSDB is that the munition and rocket exist already within the US arsenal. Business would solely must combine the munition and rocket fairly than enterprise the time-consuming course of of creating a brand new manufacturing line. Accordingly, relying on a number of elements, Ukraine may obtain an preliminary supply of two launchers and 24 weapons in as little as 9 months after the Pentagon approves the plan. If trade and the Pentagon transfer with a way of urgency and Congress offers assertive oversight, a choice now by the Division of Protection may see an estimated 750 GLSDBs and 12 launchers delivered to Ukraine by the tip of 2024. That dramatic ramp up in manufacturing is feasible as a result of trade merely must combine current bombs and rockets fairly than construct new ones.
That’s the how. Right here’s the why: Offering the GLSDB would improve Ukraine’s means to weaken Russian forces by hitting high-value targets deep behind the entrance traces.
Ukraine has employed this technique to nice impact because it acquired its M142 and M270 programs over the summer time, hanging key bridges, ammunition and gasoline depots, command-and-control nodes, and different high-value targets in Russia’s rear. This has helped Ukraine halt Russia’s advances and performed a important function in Ukraine’s profitable counteroffensives in Kharkiv and Kherson oblasts.
However whereas the Guided A number of Launch Rocket System, or GMLRS, rockets supplied for Ukraine’s M142 and M270 programs can hit targets from round 85 kilometers away, the GLSDB would allow the Ukrainian navy to strike targets at nearly double that vary. For instance, the important thing Russian logistics hub in Luhansk metropolis and its environs, simply out of attain of GMLRS, could be effectively throughout the GLSDB’s vary. The identical goes for the important rail hub within the Crimean metropolis of Dzhankoi, which provides Russia’s grouping in southern Ukraine. Close by settlements home main car parks ripe for concentrating on.
If Ukraine had the GLSDB, Russia could be compelled to maneuver its depots even farther again from the entrance line, making it harder for Russian logistics to supply fight items with adequate ammunition and different provides to carry again Ukrainian forces, not to mention take floor themselves. Likewise, Ukraine may strike varied airbases from which Russian plane present shut air help to Russian troops or launch missiles concentrating on Ukraine’s important infrastructure. GLSDB would additionally assist Kyiv goal bases in Ukraine from which Russian forces are launching Iranian drones.
Certainly, the most effective type of air and missile protection contains an offensive strike functionality.
The GLSDB may fulfill a few of the missions that might be assigned to ATACMS missiles, that are additionally fired by the M142 and M270 however have a 300-kilometer vary. For months, Kyiv has pleaded for ATACMS. However the White Home has refused, fearing that offering these missiles may invite additional provocation from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
This danger is overstated relating to ATACMS, and the Biden administration mustn’t let comparable fears deter it from sending the GLSDB. So far, Moscow’s response to the West’s provision of navy support to Kyiv has featured a lot of bark however little chunk. Western materiel has enabled Ukraine to remain within the combat and finally retake massive swathes of land, together with Ukrainian territory Putin has cynically labeled as a part of Russia.
Whereas Moscow has escalated assaults in Ukraine, the Kremlin has assiduously averted attacking any NATO member, regardless of the Western weapons flowing into Ukraine. There’s little doubt why: Doing so would danger a direct battle with the USA, one thing Putin seems eager to keep away from, notably when the majority of his navy is tied down in Ukraine — and badly battered.
As an additional precaution, the Biden administration may situation its provision of the GLSDB on a Ukrainian dedication to make use of the system solely in opposition to targets in occupied Ukrainian territory, together with Crimea. Kyiv has honored the same promise made with respect to HIMARS, and there’s each motive to imagine the Ukrainians would hold their phrase with the GLSDB.
The Kremlin needs Kyiv and the West to just accept “new realities” in Ukraine following Russia’s unprovoked invasion. That may be a catastrophe, inviting extra aggression sooner or later from authoritarian regimes in search of to bully beleaguered democracies and seize territory by pressure.
In Ukraine, the USA has a companion keen to combat for our shared pursuits and rules. They aren’t asking People to do the preventing for them. They’re merely asking for the means to defend their houses.
The GLSDB would offer Ukraine with a robust device to advance US and Ukrainian pursuits. Day-after-day the Pentagon delays its determination on the GLSDB is one other day Ukraine will go with out this useful functionality. There isn’t any time to waste.
John Hardie is deputy director of the Russia Program on the Basis for Protection of Democracies (FDD), the place Bradley Bowman is senior director of FDD’s Middle on Army and Political Energy.
