Dear Members and Friends,
Ukraine’s bold and brilliant counter offensive into Russian territory is both a tactical and strategic win. The ingenious move called out Putin’s bluffs:
“If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will without doubt use all available means to protect Russia and our people – this is not a bluff.”
– Vladimir Putin, Moscow, September 21st, 2022.
Putin’s significant and frequent escalatory threats have confounded U.S. policy makers since the start of the conflict, resulting in crippling limitations on Ukraine’s ability to fully utilize U.S. weapons. These handcuffs afforded Russia a sanctuary from which they could launch attacks without fear of retribution for over two years of conflict. Ukraine’s bold move changed this in one fell swoop and allowed Ukraine to regain the initiative, if only briefly. Since crossing the border, President Zelensky’s forces have captured 500 square miles of Russian territory in Kursk, and more importantly, proved again that Putin’s nuclear threats are hollow.
Zelensky’s decision is an important lesson for the West to learn from this conflict. Despite the relatively high success rate of Ukraine’s patchwork of missile defense systems, Zelensky and his team realized a “defense only” mindset was a challenging proposition. They had to seize the offensive and attack Russia’s sanctuaries for Ukraine to be realistic of defending its people and territory, ultimately winning the war. Doing so meant calling Putin’s nuclear bluff.
The U.S. and its allies have taken initial steps to ensure the defense of their populations and fielded forces with operationally deployed missile defenses across the globe. The relentless pursuit of missile defense must be urgent with increased capacity to defend the U.S. homeland, Allied, and Partner territory. Ukraine has demonstrated that adversaries cannot be allowed to dictate the terms of conflict by issuing threats of nuclear attack.
This was on full display two nights ago in Ukraine as Russia retaliated against Ukraine’s offensive with a massive missile and drone attack consisting of 236 aerial threats. More specifically, the attack consisted of 127 missiles (This number includes 77 X-101 air-to-surface cruise missiles launched from Tu-95MS aircraft, 10 X-59/X-69 air-to-surface missiles launched from Su-57 and Su- 24 aircraft, 28 “Kalibr” cruise missiles launched from surface and subsurface platforms in the Black Sea, 6 Iskander-M/KN-23 surface-to-surface ballistic missiles launched from withing Russia, 3 Kinzhal X-47M2 aeroballistic missiles launched, and 3 X-22 cruise missiles) and 109 one-way attack drones (Iranian-made Shahed 131/136).
Ukraine utilized all available air defense systems to shoot down over 200 of the inbound threats. Of significance, a large number of the missiles and nearly all of the one-way attack drones that were successfully engaged were tracked using a Ukrainian-developed distributed acoustic passive sensor system. The tracks produced by the acoustic system are connected to mobile fire teams equipped with highly affordable, readily available weapons, such as 50 caliber automatic weapons ($5 per round). It is impressive what the Ukrainians have accomplished in the face of an existential threat. They are leading a cost war revolution against low flying arial threats and proving the viability of their systems every single day in combat on an active battlefield.
Policy makers must resource more Missile Defense capacity in support of U.S. Service Members and our Allies and Partners, including low cost, deep magazine options like those fielded in Ukraine, and the same policy makers must be willing to take the fight to the adversary by augmenting Missile Defenses with Offensive firepower to deny sanctuaries and destroy as many threat systems as possible before and after they are launched.
This is the Gameplan for Victory and Ukraine is doing its best to demonstrate and implement despite the senseless Policy restrictions and limited missile defense capacity that still remain.
