Long-Range Missiles on Russia; Hypersonic Missiles on Israel

Bottom Line

Mid-week of the week of September 8-14, many analysts, including myself, had expected with a high degree of certainty that the US would greenlight the use of Western precision-guided long-range missiles on targets in Russia.

At the time of writing on September 15 this had not yet occurred. The main reason for this reluctance to proceed can only be a reaction to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s statement on Thursday in which he declared, in effect, that any such greenlighting of long-range missiles on Russian targets would be considered by Russia to be a direct participation by NATO in NATO’s otherwise proxy war against Russia over Ukraine, because only NATO is capable of using these weapons, only NATO has the satellite reconnaissance capability necessary to navigate them, and the engineering skills to maintain, launch and fire these systems.

In short, NATO would have embarked on World War Three, and Russia would respond accordingly.

The use by Houthis in the Yemen of a hypersonic missile for an attack on Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport may be a signal from Russia of how its supply of weapons to the West’s enemies, in retaliation for any Western move towards the use of long-range missiles against Russia, will quickly reconfigure global geopolitics to the West’s disadvantage.

Previous Long-Range Missile Attacks

In the Russia-Ukraine context, long-range weapons (but not hypersonic - the West simply doesnt have them) had already been used in the past, against targets in Crimea. Most notably, perhaps, these included an ATACMS missile - or fragments after an ATACMS missile had been intercepted by Russian missile defense or by Russian electronic warfare- that killed a party of beachgoers in Sevastopol in June this year.And there have been comparable attacks against targets either within Novorussiye, or just beyond it.

But these attacks did not figure prominently in the Western conversation last week, given that the focus now was on the firing of missiles “deep” into Russia, and given previous US agreement for Ukraine to use such weapons against sources of Russian fire directed to Ukrainian positions in Kharkiv, following the Russian offensive centered on Vovchansk earlier in the summer.

Some nervousness from Washington, where it was known that the Pentagon was not enthusiastic about, and even hostile to, the use of long-range missiles, created an expectation that the nature of the Russian targets for NATO missiles might be limited to certain categories, or that Washington would allow Ukraine to use British Storm Shadows but not US ATACMS. Nonetheless, some kind of positive indication of permission for the use of long-range missiles had been expected during or in the immediate aftermath of a meeting between President Biden and UK Prime Minister Starmer on Friday, September 13th.

From East and West

In the meantime, I had observed that Japan had permitted the stationing in Japan (and for some months), the US Typhon land-based intermediate range cruise missile system which suggested a further escalation of US preparations with its allies in Asia, South East Asia and Australasia for war with China over either Taiwan (on the pretext that China might treaten to invade Taiwan - highly unlikely, in my view) or over contested ownership over any of dozens of islands in the South China Sea.

These developments, together with any escalation in use of long-range missiles from the west, therefore exacerbated Russian vulnerability from both west and east. The use of any US weapons in Asia targeting eastern Russia could only be fired in the event of an outright war between NATO and Russia, an outcome to which we seemed to be moving over the past few days.

White House Stalled or Stalling

As things turned out, no formal announcement of a US greenlighting of the use (supposedly by “Ukraine”) of long range missiles against Russia had emerged by the end of the weekend of September 14-15. There was not even any indication that the White House would approve the use by Britain of its Storm Shadow missiles, even if the US decided to hold back its ATACMS missiles from use by Ukraine.

Rather, widespread press commentary indicated that the Biden White House “kicked the can further down the road" by waiting until the visit of Zelenskiy to New York for the UN General Assembly, whose major discussions will run from September 24 through to September 30.

At that time, it is being suggested, Zelenskiy could better explain to Washington what is Ukraine’s overall strategy for victory. In addition, Zelenskiy might introduce some kind of resolution to the Assembly in a bid to secure majority approval for an escalation to long range missiles against Russia. This would not be binding, and it might not even capture a majority of votes. The strength of world opinion, therefore might become a factor influencing Washington’s final decision.

This is not to say that it is impossible that a decision in favor of long-range missiles has indeed been taken but simply not disclosed. This seems unlikely in view of expressions of great disappointment in the British Sunday Times that the Starmer government has not been given the green light for the deployment of Storm Shadows, and expressions of angry dismay by five former Defense Ministers and by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. These seemed to raise the prospect of a campaign on Starmer for Britain to “go it alone.”

Britain to Go It Alone?

There are several reasons why this is unlikely:

(1) First of all, and for many decades now, the British have been Washington’s poodles, allowed only to bark and attack on Washington’s command. (Which is not to rule out the possibility that Washington has given a secret and deniable permission to London).

(2) Secondly, it would be highly inadvisable for Starmer to give the appearance of any such bid in advance of the UN General Assembly.

(3) Thirdly, the threat of use of Storm Shadows is in itself ridiculous. The weapon is an Anglo-French-Italian production, that the French call the “Scalp.” A year ago it was reported that production of the Storm Shadow would be halted. In any case, stocks of these missiles are limited (as are stocks of ATACMS available for use in Ukraine, as US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has explicitly said) and if production is indeed continuing, their numbers are nowhere near comparable to the volume and speed of Russian production of equivalents.

(4) Even a few hundred of these is not going to change the course of the war. Besides, Russia has already withdrawn many of its most valuable military assets well behind the 300 kilometer range of the Storm Shadow.

(5) The Storm Shadow contains US components, of which perhaps the most significant is one that would reportedly overcome Russian electronic hacking of the Storm Shadow’s current reliance on GPS positioning. In other words, in the event that Washington was truly opposed to British use of Storm Shadows, it could simply bring production lines to a sudden half.

(6) If the UK Starmer government really does try to “go it alone,” it is doing so at a time when Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and even the US are showing indications of reducing their military engagement in the conflict; that is to say, they are reducing the scale of their promises to supply weapons. Germany has again refused to supply Taurus missiles; the Netherlands is no longer going to supply Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine; Italy is opposed to the use of long-range missiles against Russia; and there is growing opposition to the idea in France, despite Macron’s habitual anti-Russian bellicosity.

Soundings of Congress by the Biden administration are advising there is a distinct cooling on Capitol Hill for the idea of any further major aid package for Ukraine of the scale that we saw earlier in the year.

In short, if Starmer persists with Storm Shadows now, or if engages in a lobbying campaign on Washington for Britain to be allowed to deploy them, he is swimming against the tide in a fashion that may mark him out for ridicule and renders the UK peculiarly vulnerable to Russian retaliation (as in Russian supply of weapons to enemies of Britain around the world).

(7) On the eve of the US November presidential election it is likely that neither the incumbent, Biden, nor his vice-president and possible president-to-be, Kamala Harris, actually wants to rock a boat that might just about be able to float by itself until after the election is over. Their opponent, Trump, does not want to continue this struggle. Anyone left in Washinton who is intelligent - a diminishing fraternity, perhaps - now understands that a country with $3.5 trillion debt, its economy perhaps already surpassed by China in terms of purchasing power equivalence, and a foreign policy that commits the US militarily to fighting on at least three fronts - Russia over Ukraine, a regional war on Israel’s behalf against Iran, and a war with China over Taiwan as proxy - is a country whose existential future is in grave doubt.

Pressure to Negotiate

We can debate whether the intent behind lobbying for long-range missiles is to put further pressure on Russia to make it more amenable to negotiation. If so, the endeavor is hopeless because Russia will make no concessions in the direction of anything that the Neocon West wants and certainly nothing short of Ukrainian neutrality and Russian retention of Crimea and Novorussiye.

Because Russia is winning on the battlefields (see below) and because it looks increasingly as though Ukraine will be kicked out of Kursk at the cost of very heavy casualties, there is little incentive for Russia to enter into negotiation at this point of time.

Russia will be paying attention to the attitude of its allies in the BRICS and this is indeed a factor that may end up being more important than anything else in inspiring Russia to re-enter negotiations but, even in that eventuality there can be no doubt whatsoever that Russia will insist that the starting point of any such discussion must be “Istanbul Plus.” The more time that elapses between March 2022 (when Ukraine and Russia signed a draft agreement that was then sabotaged by the likes of Victoria Nuland and Boris Johnson on behalf of the Neocon crazies in NATO) and the restart of negotiations, the greater is going to be the “Plus” in “Istanbul Plus.”

Pressure from India and Brazil on Russia towards what some might describe as “moderation” of Russia’s stance on negotiation is tempered somewhat by China which, under the partnerhsip of Xi Xinping and Wang Li, clearly has a deeper understanding than either India or Brazil as to why Russia has had to fight this war and for how long it has been fighting it (definitely since the Western instigation of a coup in Kiev in 2014, but, more reasonably, since 2008 when Putin first “read the Riot Act” to the West on NATO encroachment on Russian border security).

Both Russia and China now realize that the Neocon West has no “reverse gear,” and that the West, under US tutelage, will never give up its hegemony, even, it sometimes seems, at the expense of launching World War Three and igniting nuclear Armageddon.

A Nuclear Response?

We can debate whether the escalation that the supply of long range missiles to Ukraine for attacks on the Russian mainland represents would provoke Russia into a nuclear response. While we have several times heard Russian people of influence say that the West will only ever listen to the reality of a nuclear bomb, I don’t expect Russia to do anything so reckless that would usher in World War Three and nuclear annihilation of the species.

Given the miserable quality of Western leadership we could expect the West to resort to nuclear weapons before Russia does.

For the moment we should anticipate that in response to any move to greenlight long-range missiles on Russian targets, there will be fiercer Russian attacks on Western missile systems in Ukraine (whose data, servicing and operation depends considerably on NATO personnel); together with release by Russia of more lethal weaponry to Western enemies in countries such as Yemen, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Iraq, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela; and ever closer strategic coordination between Russia, China and Iran.

Russian weapons will strengthen the backbone of Islamic retaliation against Israel for the Gaza and West Bank genocides, and of responses by Iran, Syria and Iraq to daily Israeli murder and other aggression, even as the US reduces its aircraft carrier presence in the region down to one (with the return home of the Eisenhower and the Roosevelt, perhaps to be redeployed to the Pacific in a game of diminishing imperial returns).

Russian missiles will sustain Houthi crippling of Western international trade (trade through the Red Sea already down 80%) and precipitate the economic collapse of Israel. In the past 24 hours, at the time of writing, the Houthis have used a hypersonic missile (provenance either Russia or Russia via Iran) againt Israel’s Gen Gurion airport near Tel Aviv (it landed in the forested area close to the airport)

The Iranian Factor

The greenlighting of long range missiles from Ukraine is premised in part by what Blinken claims is Iranian supply of ballistic missiles to Russia. Iran denies this (Russia has not denied the claim explicitly), and also says that in the past it has refused Russian requests for such missiles. There is little doubt in my mind that Russia has found it useful in the past to import Shahed drones from Iran but I am skeptical that Russia is in any sense dependent on Iran for missiles, given what we know of the extent and sophistication of Russian manufactured missiles, Russian manufacturing capacity and expertise.

Perhaps Iran can provide certain categories of missile more cheaply. And perhaps Iranian supply of weapons to Russia has the symbolic advantage of demonstrating to the peoples of both countries the degree of political, military and economic solidarity between these two important members of the BRICS.

Blinken’s unlikely claims about Iran are merely a pretext that justify yet more Western sanctions on Iran and continue the West’s decades-old demonization of Iran on one false pretext after another, disguising how this vindictiveness sustains a divided Middle East to US advantage. More worryingly, Western propaganda against Iran may make it easier for the US to succumb to Netanyahu’s provocations which are designed to lure the US into a regional war that Israel cannot possibly fight and win on its own.

A country that has for so long been falsely accused of wanting to develop a nuclear weapons capability should now surely realize the advantage of prioritizing the acquisition of just such a weapon. It is not impossible that Russia has already supplied Iran with nuclear warheads; nor is it impossible that, under the terms of a join defense treaty that both sides are still working towards (this delay, by the way, deserves more consideration in a future post) Russia might assist Iran towards this objective. Either way, we should take serious note of Iran’s denial of any such intent or ambition, and recent history would counsel respect for Iranian declarations on this matter.

In a possible bid to distract Chinese attention to the gathering crisis in the region of the world on which China depends for a substantial proportion of its energy supply, the US is ratcheting up anti-Chinese tensions in East and southeast Asia, pretending that China is about to invade Taiwan or do something else that the US deems problematic in the South China Sea. Perhaps the US should be more mindful of China’s own ramping up of its nuclear force. ahead of what almost certainly will be the end of START early next year and the demise of restraints on nuclear weapon production by both the US and Russia.

Ukraine Battlefields

In a fairly comprehensive overview of the combat lines from south to north, Dima of the Military Summary Channel today starts with the observation that the world is overlooking signs of intensifying action by Russia in Zapporizhzhia, north of Robotyne towards Novodanylivka, and in the directions of Stepnohivka, Pavlivka and Kamianske, and taking in even the city of Zapporizhzhia itself.

Russia is slowly encircling Vuhledar and is currently battling to take control over South Donbass coalmines 1 and 3. It has total control over the village to the north - Vodiane and its surrounding territory - and is now bombing the settlement to the northwest, Bohoiavlenka and the supply roads to Bohoiavlenka, while taking more territory to the south and west of Kostiantynivka. All of this will assist Russia in the encircling of Vuhledar itself.

To the north, Russian forces are penetrating Maksymilienivka from their recently established position at the adjoining settlement of Heorhiivka to the east. Moving further north, Russia is in the process of establishing an operational encirclement of Ukrainsk, and there are ongoing battles in the central, northern and western parts of the city. A similar situation is unfolding in Novohrodivka, critical to the taking, soon, of the major target in this region, Pokrovsk. Essentially, the line of Russian control east of Pokrovsk now takes in all or parts of Sukfryi Yar, Novohrodivka, Marynivka, Mykhailivka, while in Pokrovsk itself Russian rockets and bombs have destroyed the operational capability of the railways.

Further north still, Russian progress in Chasiv Yar is considerable, with forces now positioned in the north, east and, increasingly, in the south for a major and likely final offensive on the city itself. Russia has taken more territory between Ivanivka and Kleschiivka, both east and west of the Kanal, while north of Chasiv Yar Russia not only controls Kalynivka but now controls Hryhorivka to the north of Kalynivka, augmenting the number of Russian forces available for the final onslaught on Chasiv Yar.

Russian forces are closing in on Siversk along the railway lines from the south, through the villages of Kuzmynivka and Sviato Pokrovkse. They are also closing in from the east through Verkhnokamianske, but have to overcome the Ukrainian stronghold to the northeast of that city before making full progress.

Near Kupyanske, Russian forces are expanding their zone of control around Makiivka; they are taking more territory between Pischanne and Berestove, and moving south from Synkivka into Petropavlikva, which is a short distance east from the city of Kupyansk.

In the Kursk area, while Ukraine makes none-too-successful attempts to cross the border west of Sudzja (e.g. Novyi Put, Veseloye, Medvezh’e), Russian forces have recovered a significant percentage of all their territory around and between Kerenevo and Snagost. Tney have re-entered Liubmovka, a good ways east of Snagost, and engaging with Ukrainian forces in Tolstyi Lug and Dar’ino. Further east Russia has reestablished control over Borki.