Ukrainians have been waiting for this for months. The White House finally authorized them to use an American long-range missile, the ATACMS, to strike positions deep in Russian territory. But with a caveat: this will have to be limited, initially, to the area where the Ukrainian army crossed the border, in the Kursk region. The episode serves as a reminder that the use of long-range weapons is a key to the conflict for the belligerents.
In a report published this Tuesday, November 19of which L’Express had the first news, two researchers from the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), Héloïse Fayet and Léo Péria-Peigné, explain the growing importance of these deep strikes, several tens of kilometers from the front line, for which Europe, and in particular France, is accumulating capacity delays. “[Elles] become again a tool of strategic competition, they explain, as at the end of the Cold War.”
L’Express: Joe Biden has just authorized Ukraine to use American long-range ATACMS missiles to strike Russia in depth. What are these missiles?
Léo Péria-Peigné: The ATACMS is a surface-to-surface semi-ballistic missile. It can be launched by a wheeled multiple rocket launcher like the Himars or a tracked rocket launcher like the MLRS, models supplied by the West to Ukraine. This received ATACMS with a range of 150 kilometers with a cluster munitions charge and perhaps also a version which ranges even further. These anti-personnel and anti-armor charges contain several hundred small bombs which hit the ground.
How could Ukrainians use them?
BVG: Until now, their use was reserved for targets located either on occupied Ukrainian territory or in the immediate vicinity of the front. The Ukrainians could not exploit its full scope inside Russian territory. From now on, they could use them, according to American media, in the Kursk region [NDLR : partie de la Russie occupée par l’Ukraine depuis une offensive estivale]where North Korean soldiers came to participate in the Russian counter-offensive.
Ukraine is currently in difficulty on the front. Aren’t the “new” Western weapons like the ATACMS delivered to it a little too late?
Héloïse Fayet: Since the February 2022 invasion, there has been a fear of conventional, possibly nuclear, escalation with the delivery of new weapons. But in this case, since it is Russia that escalates first with the use of North Korean soldiers, the Americans can respond that it is a response to a Russian escalation. However, this delivery comes very late.
Will this authorization apply to other equipment such as the French Scalp air-to-ground missiles?
HF: For the moment, we don’t know. Ukraine would no longer have either the French Scalp or their British twin, the Storm Shadow. The question may arise again in the event of new missile deliveries, which could lead to alignment with the American line. There could also be another air-to-ground missile, the German Taurus, if Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s reluctance disappears. But there is no “game changer” material per se, it’s the quantity used that counts.
You just released a report on deep strikes. What weapons are we talking about?
BVG: Depth is everything that goes beyond the immediate surroundings of the front and the tactical combat support systems, such as important command posts, supply nodes, or critical infrastructure such as bridges and others, beyond 50 to 100 kilometers. For NATO, it is rather from 300 kilometers, for weapons relating to long-range artillery, medium-range missiles, drones or naval cruise missiles.
Why are these weapons a hot topic for the world’s armies?
HF: The deep strike has never disappeared from the concept of employment of Western armies, but was no longer a subject in the context of the counter-insurgency wars led by the Westerners in the Sahel or the Middle East. They now find themselves facing adversaries who had not been confronted with these counter-insurgency issues and had continued to develop deep strike weapons such as Russia and China. Missile precision has continued to improve since the genre revolution in the 1970s and 1980s. Added to this is the development of hypersonic weapons. [NDLR : plus de cinq fois la vitesse du son]. Deep strikes are once again becoming a tool of strategic competition, as at the end of the Cold War.
With what difference?
BVG: We are moving towards a form of democratization. Access to technologies to carry out deep strikes is becoming simpler, whether to constitute means of strikes, as shown by the Iranian Shahed drones, capable of covering 2000 kilometers, and of identifying a target and seeing if it was indeed destroyed, thanks to civilian satellite imagery, or other drones. Western anti-aircraft defenses are not calibrated for this threat.
Which countries are ahead and which are behind?
HF: China is banking heavily on these weapons, with a dedicated force and a very wide range of ballistic, cruise and even anti-ship missiles, to strike Taiwan, but especially American ships and bases in the Indo-Pacific such as Guam. South Korea exports its long-range systems to Poland, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. North Korea is developing a short and medium range ballistic arsenal. There are small programs in Japan and Australia. Asia is the laboratory of great depths. It is for this theater that the United States is developing systems to strike China, from Guam, the Philippines, South Korea and Japan. In the Middle East, Israel, Iran and its regional relays, such as Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen, have weapons to strike in depth.
And in Europe?
BVG: There are the Russians, a large part of whose doctrine is based on artillery. They have the Iskander surface-to-surface missiles and several other air-to-surface vectors. The Ukrainians, in addition to drones, are banking on long-range missile programs that they are developing themselves. On the European side, we find systems inherited from the Cold War, such as the MLRS, from which the French LRU comes, and Himars, with which certain countries are equipping themselves.
What does France have to strike in depth?
BVG: It has an air-ground vector, the Scalp. The Navy has a missile that it can fire from its surface ships and its latest generation attack submarines, the MDCN, with a range of 1,000 kilometers. The Army has this remainder of 4 to 6 ground-to-ground LRUs currently being replaced, against 230 Himars equivalents from Korea acquired by Poland…
HF: All this gives too limited options to French decision-makers. The small quantity means that the use is necessarily strategic. The price of the Scalp contradicts the contemporary practice of deep strikes, which are massive in Ukraine.
The Directorate General of Armaments has launched a call for tenders for deep strikes and another for very deep strikes…
BVG: Yes, each time with a team including MBDA and another with ArianeGroup. First there is the project of a rocket launcher which reaches 150 kilometers, compared to 80 for LRU currently, but which can also strike at 500 kilometers. Then there is the European Elsa initiative [European Long-range Strike Approach]which includes but is not limited to the very deep strike, launched jointly by France, Germany, Italy and Poland, joined by the United Kingdom last month.
What are we talking about?
HF: Which goes beyond 500 kilometers. These are capabilities that were prohibited by the INF treaty, concerning intermediate-range missiles, which prohibited the development of surface-to-surface missiles with conventional or nuclear ranges of 500 and 5,500 kilometers. This treaty, resulting from the Euromissile crisis of the 1980s, only concerned the United States and the USSR, then Russia, led to the absence of development of this type of capability in the West. But Washington came out of it in 2019 by accusing Russia of violating it. Since then, both countries have been developing new systems.
Could this have an impact on nuclear deterrence?
HF: In the case of systems that can carry nuclear or conventional charges, as Russia and China are developing, there is the risk that this will generate interpretation errors in the event of a shot. Furthermore, targets that previously could only be reached by nuclear systems are now being reached by conventional systems. These deep strikes give, in any case, an additional option to political and military decision-makers to increase pressure on the adversary’s strategic sites and have a psychological impact on them. They strengthen conventional deterrence and raise questions about their connection with nuclear deterrence.
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