Weaponizing Wars
NATO’s missile-makers weaponize Russo-Ukrainian hostilities to land lucrative orders. Missiles, they claim, visibly transform battlefields whilst presaging tactical nuclear warfare. With NATO-missiles already best-in-class, money must flow toward production increases needed to deploy these masterpieces decisively in real-world combat. Governments must ensure:
- NATO-missiles reign supreme;
- NATO’s missile-makers reap international sales;
- Commercial applications of missile R&D spin-off to crony-capitalists.
Lobbyists say missile expenditures bless myriads of Natonians with well-paid, skill-enhancing jobs. Missile investment buys broad economic stimulus, and hones sunrise industries like digital navigation, situational awareness, computer simulation and hypersonic rocketry. Missilemakers sustain chipmakers.
(CHIPS and Science Act, 2022 aims $50 billion in tax-breaks, loan guarantees and R&D funding at helping Americans build chips in America. CHIPS won bipartisan support and prompted: European Chips Act, 2022.)
NATO-states give Ukraine 40+ types of: surface-to-air-missile, anti-tank guided missile, surface-to-surface missile, guided glide-bomb, air-to-air missile, unmanned aerial combat vehicle, air-to-surface missile, and guided howitzer round. Each require state-of-the-art sensors, transmitters, computers etc. Precision-missile warfare necessitates state-commanded expansion of microchip production capacity.
If Ukraine fails to elicit consensus for upscaling output, other conflicts will be weaponized. This war, however, remains missile-makers’ bird-in-hand. This war could yield game-changing sales; moreover, this war presents unpassable opportunities for blunting blades upon Russian plate. Cancelling this tournament forsaketh Western techno-supremacy… lobbyists might say.
Ukraine-deployed NATO Missiles
Of Ukraine’s seven infantry-fired, surface-to-air MANPAD missiles, three show Soviet pedigree. Through NATO Ukraine receives:
Vehicles mounted with antiaircraft-guns and/or launch-tubes for surface-to-air missiles; i.e., Air Defense Platforms (ADPs), rumble amidst multi-vehicle “weapon-systems.” Ukraine’s ADP-systems include nine Soviet models. NATO supplies:
- Crotale (Thales)
- NASAMS (Kongsberg and RTX)
- IRIS (Diehl)
- Aster (Eurosam)
- Avenger (Boeing)
- Hawk (RTX )
- Sea Sparrow (RTX and General Dynamics)
- Patriot (RTX)
- Ground-launch Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile (MBDA)
Ukraine possesses seven Anti-Tank-Guided-Missiles (ATGMs); four from NATO:
Except for Ukraine’s Neptune, NATO supplies all Ukraine’s guided surface-to-surface missiles:
- Hellfire (multipurpose, Lockheed Martin)
- RBS-17 (BAE)
- Brimstone (MBDA)
- Harpoon (Boeing)
- Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (Boeing and SAAB)
- (HIMARS) (Lockheed Martin)
- (ATACMS) (Lockheed Martin)
NATO-states make four of Ukraine’s air-to-air missiles:
- Cirit (Roketsan)
- AIM-120 (RTX)
- Sidewinder (RTX)
- ASRAAM (MBDA)
NATO-states supply Ukraine with these air-to-surface missiles:
- Hammer (Safran S.A)
- UMTAS (Roketsan)
- MAM (Roketsan)
- Highspeed Anti-Radiation Missile (RTX and Northrop Grumman)
- Storm Shadow/SCALP (MBDA)
- LMM (Thales)
Ukrainians build most of their own Unmanned Aerial Combat Vehicles (UACVs, kamikaze or bomber-drones), and plan to launch 30,000 long-range UACVs in 2025. Imports include:
- Switchblade (Aerovirant)
- Phoenix Ghost Family (Aevex)
- Bayraktar-TB2 (Baykar)
- Warmate (WB Group S.A.)
Ukraine uses Boeing’s JDAM kits to transform free-fall bombs into laser-guided glide-bombs; and BAE’s Advanced Precision Kill Weapon kits to transform plentiful 70 mm unguided rockets into guided missiles.
Ukraine deploys RTX/BAE’s Excalibur guided artillery round.
NATO’s November Surprise
Tightened sanctions, ruble runs; Assad’s ouster; and hefty Ukraine aid pledges merely garlanded NATO-states greenlighting Ukraine’s firing of NATO-missiles into Russia. November’s Surprise saw scores of NATO-member government agencies synchronize their watches to better destabilize, humiliate, terrorize, isolate, insult, taunt, goad and poke Putin. NATO-missile strikes (alone constituting extraordinary provocations) landed atop incursions into Kursk and evermore drone attacks. The intent could only be to spin the spiral. Putin didn’t disappoint.
Do Missile-people Dream?
Missilepeople dream of money streams powering NATO to see Russians screaming from Ukraine under maelstroms and hailstorms of precision projectiles.
Feasible?
Thrust before our inquiry zoom three celebrity missiles, …two entangled.
Nineteen-eighties-born US Army project, ATACMS (Army TACtical Missile System), centered around a heavy, tracked vehicle (MGM-270) bearing a two-tube launcher.
Nineteen-nineties-born US Army project, HIMARS (HIgh Mobility Artillery Rocket System), introduced MGM-142s – lighter, wheeled vehicles with launchers designed to fire one ATACM missile, or six GMRLS (Guided Multi-Launch Rocket System) missiles.
Upgraded MGM-270s launch GMRLS missiles; hence, both systems now fire both missiles. Both systems cost $5 million (with support vehicles, without missiles). Lockheed Martin discontinued MGM-270s but builds five MGM-142s monthly. Ukraine’s launcher-fleet: 45ish HIMARSs, 25ish ATACMSs.
ATACMS missiles carry 210-kilo warheads up to 300-kilometers. (ATACMS signature steel rain warhead dispenses 300 bomblets pre-impact, at 3,700 k.p.h.) GMLRS missiles carry 100-kilo warheads up to 80-kilometers. ATACMS missiles cost over $1 million a toss; GMLRSs, between $150,000 and $400,000.
Our third celebrity issued from a British-French marriage. Britain named it, Storm Shadow. France christened it, SCALP. These air-launched cruise missiles pack 450-kilo warheads, fly 500-kilometers at 1,100 k.p.h., and cost $1-to-$2.5 million per.
Using ATACMs and Storm Shadows for terrain-denying barrages would cost $billions per month. Still, $1 billion buys several thousand GLMRS strikes.
Bargain-basement options:
- Small Diameter Bombs (SDB) propel 96-kilo warheads up to 150-kilometers. Boeing invented SDBs by plunking old GBU-39 bombs onto surplus M26 rocket engines. Unit price: $40,000!
- Disrupter, a Phoenix Ghost drone, flies 1,000-kilometers, or loiters for 4.5 hours, before swooping onto prey with 22-kilo payloads. Unit price: $70,000. (Ukraine secretly purchased 5,000 Ghosts.)
- Arrays of Ukrainian and Turkish drones and missiles.
Between February 2022 and December 2024 NATO-members gave Ukraine $130 billion in military aid. Doubling this wouldn’t bankrupt anyone. US military aid to Ukraine equals 0.3% of US federal expenditures. Said peanuts could buy thousands of celebrity missile strikes; plus, tens of thousands of cheapo-missile and drone attacks, per month. This might flip frontline trends.
Manufacturing capacity and inventories don’t present immediate obstacles. Lockheed Martin yearly adds 500 ATACMS missiles to Army stockpiles of 2,500ish (after deducting Biden’s secret April/24 transfer of 500). Lockheed cranks-out 1,200 GMLRS missiles monthly.
Then again, missilepeople’s dreams climax in overcoming supply-chain bottlenecks; in this instance via government-mandated expansion of microchip production; i.e., doubling-down on pre-existing, statute-enabled programs supported NATO-wide… two birds, one missile.
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William Walter Kay is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: File photo of Ukraine army helicopters flying over Kyiv. Photo Credit: Oleg V. Belyakov, Wikimedia Commons.
