Over the May holiday weekend news broke that the United States has at last supplied Ukraine with a batch of Javelin anti-tank weapons (37 launchers and 210 missiles).
Finally. Russia has already been making war on Ukraine in the Donbas for four years, and this is the most potent defensive weapon that the West has sent to help Kyiv fend off Kremlin aggression.
We cannot know whether it would have made a difference militarily if these weapons had been sent sooner — the situation now is quite different from those dark days of April 2014. But we can say that they will probably make little difference to Ukraine’s army now.
Firstly, the weapons are few: a single U.S. infantry battalion is equipped with 35 Javelin launchers. Ukraine now has that amount, plus a couple of spare launchers, for its entire army. The 210 missiles, even with a 100 percent kill rate, would knock out barely a quarter of the tanks available to Russia’s proxy forces in Ukraine. And were there to be a full-scale invasion, many more tanks would flood over the border from Russia.
Secondly, it is known that the weapons will not be deployed to the front line, but will be kept in storage, to be used only in the case of a Russian offensive. Russian-led forces could easily move forward and take more ground before Javelins could be deployed to stop them.
Thirdly, these are defensive weapons. Having them will not help Ukraine liberate one square foot of the occupied part of the Donbas or Crimea. It is nonsense to suggest that they would encourage Ukraine to go on the offensive. That is not what they were designed for.
The main difference, militarily, that the supplying of the Javelins will make is that they will discourage further Russian aggression.
The Kremlin, of course, howled angrily in December when it was announced that an export license for the Javelins had been approved. But while baying warnings about “new bloodshed” by Ukraine in the Donbas, should Javelins be supplied, the Kremlin is actually only annoyed that its options for escalating the war have been reduced.
The supply of Javelins to Ukraine is thus an important signal to the Kremlin, with much more political than military significance. The cost of further aggression is rising for Russia, and hopefully will continue to rise as Ukraine’s army strengthens further. Ukraine still enjoys firm support in the West. The Kremlin should pay heed.
