The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine has exposed serious flaws in some of the most sophisticated weapons supplied by the US, according to military analysts.
Stacie Pettyjohn of the Center for a New American Security told Business Insider that some US weapons sent to Kyiv could not survive Moscow’s electronic warfare (EW) campaign.
The invading forces’ EW systems have reportedly become adept at scrambling the GPS navigation systems used by guided rockets and missiles to hit their targets with high precision.
“The war has revealed that some of the [US-made] precision-guided munitions fail in a highly contested electromagnetic environment,” she said.
As a result, Kyiv has ramped up its use of cheap, off-the-shelf drones that can evade enemy jamming.
In addition to guided weapons, the Institute for the Study of War previously reported that Russia’s ballistic missiles have been difficult to intercept, making Ukraine’s air defenses less effective.
Capacity to Produce
More than the quality of the weapons, Pettyjohn said the ongoing war has exposed problems with the capacity of the US to produce them in sufficient quantities.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly asked Western allies to provide more weapons and ammunition to prevent Russia from seizing more territories.
A US general also admitted in April that Kyiv’s forces have been so outgunned by Moscow that for every artillery shell they fire at enemy positions, the invaders return five.
“The US should have learned that mass matters in addition to precision,” Pettyjohn said. “The US military needs more artillery shells, missiles, and drones than it currently has and an industrial base that can scale production of these critical systems.”
US lawmakers have approved a $61-billion supplemental bill for the war-torn nation, but Pettyjohn claimed that this is just a “band-aid solution.”
Gaining Valuable Insights
According to the report, some analysts see a silver lining for the US in spending billions of dollars for its European ally.
Since the invasion began in February 2022, Washington has provided a total of $107 billion to bolster Ukraine’s defense capabilities.
And since the war-torn nation has become a test bed for sophisticated weapons systems, the US could gain valuable insights into how its strategic assets perform on the battlefield.
These insights could help the “most powerful military” in the world to further improve its capabilities amid increasing tensions with near-peer adversaries.
