Assessing Strike Capabilities

Long-range precision strike capabilities and the ability to defend against them have an increasingly prominent place in Russian and NATO thinking about current and future warfare. This paper assesses the role of long-range strike on the modern battlefield and the relative competitive advantages of each side.

The paper finds that the deterrent and competitive effects of long-range strike outweigh their impact in conflict. While militaries often do find ways to weather the impact of long-range strike (as well as interdiction from the air – which is separate but related), doing so is disproportionately costly. Moreover, narratives regarding the impact of strike have an independent effect on military behaviour.

In Russia’s case, the country’s military thinkers have long been invested in the idea that the ability to dislocate an opponent at depth is of decisive importance on the modern battlefield. True or not, this will influence Russian decision-making in two ways: first, the speed at which forces can be dislocated in depth incentivises forward deployment and readiness, both of which run counter to scaling; and second, layered air defences against missile threats can be prohibitively costly in terms of interceptors.

Compounding this challenge is the fact that Russia has lost strategic depth, meaning that missiles which would previously have been understood as being effective at tactical ranges can now impact operationally and even strategically relevant targets. Russia can surmount this, but at a considerable opportunity cost in terms of layering air defences. This means that relatively anodyne strike capabilities such as short-range ballistic missiles can have a disproportionately competitive effect for NATO.

Equally, the Alliance faces its own competitive challenges. Chief among these is that both protecting critical military capabilities and providing security to a wide range of civilian targets will stretch NATO’s surface-based air defences beyond the limits of their capacity. In addition, the currently federated space-based infrastructure of Allied nations will become an economy of force target for Russia if it wishes to avoid running an arms race on unfavourable terms.

This paper discusses how the Alliance can use its own competitive advantages to shape Russian decision-making, and how it can mitigate the risk of Russia doing the same thing in return.

Introduction

Militaries have placed increasing emphasis on the ability to see and strike in depth since the latter stages of the Cold War, when Western concepts of operations, such as Follow-on Forces Attack, placed a heavy emphasis on the ability to engage the Soviet second echelon at operational and even theatre depths. Capabilities including guided multiple-launch rocket systems (GMLRS), Gryphon ground-launched cruise missiles and Pershing-II intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) were, in tandem with fixed-wing aircraft, intended to disrupt and attrit Soviet forces and dislocate the USSR’s command-and-control (C2) structures before contact on the Forward Line of Own Troops (FLOT). The Soviets in turn believed that the convergence of high-fidelity sensors, processing power and deep strike were driving, in the words of Marshal Ogarkov, a “military technical revolution”, in which forces would be able to find, fix and engage each other at increasing speeds and distances. This drove the development of capabilities such as the OTR-23 Oka (a predecessor of the Russian Iskander short-range ballistic missile, SRBM).

In parallel, the threat posed by deep-strike capabilities reinforced an existing institutional emphasis on both ground-based air defences and methods of disrupting adversary kill chains in both the USSR and post-Soviet Russia. By contrast – and despite initial similarities with Soviet/Russian approaches – much Western thinking about the idea of a revolution in military affairs for the two decades immediately after the Cold War placed considerable emphasis on the ability to use presumed access to both ISR and precision strike (albeit in the form of airpower, rather than long-range missiles) as a scalpel with which to engage elusive targets in politically complex terrain. On the other side of the coin, layered air and missile defence capabilities were assumed to be a requirement for achieving a high probability of kill against a well-defined and numerically limited number of threats, so as to offset the risk of chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear use by opponents with weaker conventional weapons.

This dynamic has changed considerably in Europe, where a number of militaries have returned to emphasising the importance of achieving deep interdiction. The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has reinforced this, prompting significant investments in both air-to-surface and surface-to-surface strike capabilities, as well as integrated air and missile defence (IAMD) capabilities.

In light of this, there are grounds for an examination of the way in which the ability to prosecute both the offensive and defensive components of a modern strike campaign can reinforce deterrence and competitive advantage in Europe. The question bears examining as both air defence and strike – despite their utility – require complex enablement and exquisite systems, and incur opportunity costs with respect to the ability to invest in other capabilities. In particular, some observers have questioned the military advantage of being able to see and strike deep.

Key Areas

The purpose of this paper is to examine three key areas of enquiry. First, it provides an examination of the utility of deep-strike capabilities in the context of the operating environment in Europe. Second, it provides a net assessment of Allied and Russian strengths with respect to their ability to both prosecute strike campaigns and defend against them. Finally, the paper provides a set of principles which might be used to guide Allied procurement.

The major hypothesis of the paper is that the capacity for deep interdiction is of strategic significance but, paradoxically, is unlikely to be militarily decisive. Its significance pertains to both its deterrent value and its value as a competitive tool that forces an opponent to take on costly countermeasures. As a consequence, procurement of both strike and IAMD capabilities should be guided by a logic of relative cost imposition – the degree to which one’s own force and Russia’s are compelled to accept opportunity costs to mitigate the risks that deep-strike capabilities create – rather than by a purely military logic that examines the offensive or defensive utility of a given tool in conflict.

This paper intends to contribute to the development of a conceptual foundation through which the roles of deep strike and IAMD as tools of deterrence, competition and warfare can be understood. The paper focuses on the balance of forces between NATO members on one side (with a particular focus on the Alliance’s European members) and Russia on the other. The authors’ deductions emphasise the competitive approach, which should guide Allied efforts at generating deep-strike and IAMD capabilities, but the programmatic questions of how capability should be delivered are beyond the paper’s remit.

Methodology

The methodology of this paper includes desk research, operations analysis and a review of 15 years of Russian military journals such as Военная Мысль (Military Thought), Вооружение и экономика (Armaments and Economy) and Современная авиация (Modern Aviation.) The purpose of this review was to identify patterns in Russian thinking about the risks posed by Allied strike capabilities and the counterinvestments Russia should make. The research also used a support tool developed by a partner organisation, DIEM Analytics, which uses deep neural networks to forecast an actor’s behaviour, based on both formative experiences and past behaviour.

While the outputs of the paper are not definitive with respect to procurement choices, they seek to shed light on the following questions:

• What are Russian leaders likely to see as the opportunities and challenges they face in the contemporary deep battle?

• What are the strengths and limitations of any effort to achieve deep effects?

• Where do these efforts add value and when do they present an opportunity cost?

• Which principles should guide NATO efforts to offset the Russian threat beyond the FLOT?

I. The Utility of Striking at Depth

It would appear that the ability to strike in depth is useful, but rarely decisive. The historical record of efforts to do so, whether through airpower or surface-to-surface capabilities, is mixed at best.

Deep Strike for Battlefield Interdiction

Battlefield interdiction (historically provided by airpower) played an important role in the Vietnam War (during Operation Linebacker I) and the 1991 Gulf War, but the most important effects air assets provided were in the close battle. Longer-range US airpower failed to close the Ho Chi Minh trail, and theLinebacker II raids did not stop the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) from moving into position. In the absence of US close air support in subsequent battles, the NVA would have overwhelmed the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. Although air strikes on railheads caused initial backlogs, the NVA was able to rely on forward-positioned stockpiles and then pivot to a truck-based system (which was capable of moving 10,000 tons of goods by road) to resource attacks such as its assaults on Qang Tri and An Loc, with the latter assault supported by 78,000 artillery rounds. By contrast, close air support against NVA forces in combat did prove critical, inflicting the majority of casualties incurred by the NVA.

Similarly, during the 1991 Gulf War, US strategic interdiction as part of Operation Instant Thunder did not have the desired effect of paralysing the Iraqi C2 system to the point that it could not coordinate troop movements. Subsequent interdiction operations inflicted considerable losses on units redeployed from depth (largely from the Iraqi Republican Guard), but none of these units was degraded to the point of non-functionality. Supply-line disruptions caused by air strikes on 126 highway and rail bridges were generally circumvented much more rapidly than might have been expected, through the use of ferries, pontoons and dredging. Similarly, attacks on truck convoys were accommodated through the use of smaller convoys. However, this is not to say that the ability to strike in depth had no impact on Iraqi supplies. Although well supplied, the Iraqi military lost much of its capacity to redistribute supplies in a rational manner, leading to uneven distribution.

More recently, in the war in Ukraine, the impact of long-range strikes (albeit at tactical ranges) to achieve supply-line interdiction has been more positive, although still mixed. Both Russia and Ukraine have employed strike platforms capable of engaging targets at up to corps depth, including the HIMARS rocket system in the case of Ukraine, and the Russian Tornado-S. The HIMARS’s initial effect on the Ukrainian battlefields was dramatic, with the ability to strike the munitions storage sites and C2 structures of an artillery-centric Russian army playing a major role in the culmination of the Russian offensive in the Donbas, which began in July 2022. However, the Russian army adapted to the threat of the extended-range GMLRS in a number of ways, including moving ammunition storage further to the rear of its lines and adapting its approach to electronic warfare to account for the threat posed. In theatres such as Kherson, reliance on the Antonivka bridge – which was rendered unusable – forced the Russian military to supply forces through a costly and time-intensive effort involving ferries and barges, which compelled its withdrawal from the city. However, the impact on Russian logistics, while significant, was not critical. Russian rates of fire across the frontline steadily rose after the initial shock of exposure to precision fire and, at the time of writing, amounted to approximately 10,000 shells a day. Interdiction of supplies in depth has imposed high levels of friction on the Russian army, but it has not prevented it from delivering large volumes of personnel and materiel to the frontline. The results, while important, fall short of operational paralysis.

Targeting Command and Control and Communications

A second approach to the use of deep-strike capabilities is as a means of targeting C2 nodes and undermining an opponent’s broader capacity to communicate. Here, the ability to strike at depth appears to have achieved some effects (although the sample size is smaller, since the ability to reliably target C2 nodes is largely a product of the era of precision strike).

In the Gulf War, a key objective of Operation Instant Thunder was to separate Iraq’s political leaders from frontline units and Iraqi society more broadly. Despite the significant levels of disruption achieved, neither the Iraqi political system nor its military were paralysed. The Iraqi military was, however, compelled to emplace a network of field cables to enable a degree of communication (but not coordination) and to limit communication between units more generally. This does not seem to have affected the Iraqi army’s ability to deploy or coordinate its forces at the operational level, but it does appear to have slowed the tactical responsiveness of Iraqi forces.

In Ukraine, the effectiveness of missiles such as Storm Shadow in tactical terms seems to have been high, at least based on what can be gathered through open source literature. However, the desired operational-level effects have been less clearly visible. It is apparent, for example, that the ability to target Russian command posts beyond 90 km did not decisively alter the course of the Ukrainian counter-offensive – which might be attributed to the fact that the sequencing of strikes and offensive activity was not tightly coordinated. One reason for this may be that a considerable amount of shaping activity goes into individual strikes, and that cruise missile attacks are often preceded by days of attacks with lower-cost UAVs to saturate and dislocate surface-to-air-missile (SAM) systems. The heavier the burden of enablement, the harder it becomes to sequence effects, given that this adds a layer of complexity to planning.

In a NATO context, staff at an Allied air component command will have their duties divided between missions such as offensive counter-air, suppression of enemy air defences (SEAD), defensive counter-air, close air support, and interdiction (with the allocated proportions varying over time). Currently, tasks such as intermediate target development are highly time consuming (as reflected in the 72 hours it takes to generate an air-tasking order), and this challenge will need to be overcome if dynamic strikes at a high tempo are to be delivered at operational depth. In ground formations that control strike assets such as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), the challenge of target development might in some ways be simplified by a unit’s narrower geographical focus and the fact that it is synchronising fewer capabilities, but it will also have fewer personnel available to plan strikes, and more limited access to ISR from higher echelons.

Russian Deep Strike

Russia’s own deep strike campaign has a similarly mixed record. The Russian military’s long-range strike campaign in Ukraine has employed a range of weapons, including ballistic missiles (the KH-47M2 Kinzhal and the 9M723), cruise missiles (such as the 3M-14, the KH-101 and the KH-22) and cheaper one-way attack UAVs. In the initial phases of the war, the Russian aim appears to have been paralysis of the Ukrainian system and in particular its C2 structures – an approach that delivered limited results, and ultimately gave way to a process that placed much heavier emphasis on targeting critical national infrastructure (CNI) and Ukraine’s energy grid in particular. Russia’s own relatively slow planning process, in which targets selected by the military district-level command had to be fed into Akatsia-M (Russia’s battle management system) at the national defence management centre to create the equivalent of a Joint Priority Integrated Targeting List (JPITL) over the course of 48 hours, is likely to be the reason for its failure to strike dynamic targets.

Russia has tactically employed capabilities such as the Iskander and the Tochka-U ballistic missiles. In many instances, these systems have been used in the Donbas against targets such as SA-11 TELs (transport erector launchers) and GMLRS, among other systems, using feeds from UAVs coordinated via Strelets. However, in late 2022 the balance of Russia’s efforts shifted heavily in favour of striking fixed targets. The Russian strike campaign against Ukrainian energy infrastructure has been a qualified failure. At no point has the Ukrainian energy grid suffered systemic failure (despite coming very close at several points), and strategic bombing has not proven destructive to national morale. Nonetheless, the campaign has had the effect of forcing the allocation of Ukrainian SAM systems to the defence of CNI – limiting the cover for frontline units against the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) over time. Moreover, the Ukrainian network of SAM systems, despite being Europe’s most robust before the war and having been augmented with Western systems, has seen increasing shortfalls in interceptor capacity.

Thus far, then, there is only limited evidence that the ability to strike at operational and strategic depth can have a transformative effect, despite its utility as a means of enabling other assets (for example by forcing the allocation of ground-based air defences away from the frontline).

Precision Strike as a Competitive Tool

Despite the limitations described above, the capacity for deep interdiction has a strategic significance that extends beyond its battlefield utility. This mismatch between strategic significance and battlefield utility is understood with respect to other capabilities (most obviously nuclear weapons), but is often omitted from discussions of conventional deep strike. There are a number of reasons for reframing how precision strike is viewed.

First, there is a widespread perception (including in Russia) that improvements in pervasive ISR, processing power and availability of strike capabilities may be on the cusp of making deep strike decisive, even if it has not been thus far. Whether this is true or not, Russia is likely to make strategic decisions based on this assumption. Second, while militaries can offset the impact of strike, this often involves both financial and operational costs that are disproportionately burdensome. Finally, building a military to offset the effects of strike narrows the force design options available to an actor. For example, the Soviet Union and then Russia responded to the risk of deep interdiction by emphasising forward positioning, readiness and layered organic air defences. For post-Soviet Russia, this necessitated, however, a smaller force that could be made highly ready and thus enabled. For Russia, as it contemplates increasing the size of its military under the plan of former minister of defence Sergei Shoigu, the requirement to counter deep strike would necessitate considerable force design trade-offs.

Additionally, as noted, the past military performance of efforts at deep interdiction may not be predictive of the future. In discussing the course of the conflict in Ukraine, Russian authors have assessed that the interval between Western satellites passing over Russian positions is around 15 minutes. While US efforts to deliver space support during the conflicts of the early 21st century were deemed to have been supported by too few satellites to enable a major strike campaign, many Russian authors have assessed that the growth of the commercial space sector has fundamentally changed this dynamic. Moreover, the challenge of false positives is described by A S Scherbakov and N C B Nikulin as transient, and will probably be resolved if a combination of multispectral imaging and databasing of target signatures are used over time. The resolution of commercial multispectral satellites such as DigitalGlobe’s Worldview-3 sensor means they can generate images with a 1.2-metre resolution (each pixel represents a 1 metre by 1 metre square on the ground, which is what some Russian authors estimate to be the resolution at which targets such as armoured personnel carriers can be reliably classified). Moreover, the existing commercial systems of companies such as Maxar can generate sufficiently reliable information for points of interest to be identified. Combined with a range of automated tools for classification, many of which already exist under the aegis of Project Maven, the scope and diversity of space-based ISR may bring to fruition the kind of reconnaissance strike complex that was envisioned in the 1980s.

Furthermore, a range of other tools with adequate processing power can be more fruitfully used. For example, in 2011 the UAVs employed by the US military generated 327,000 hours of footage, most of which has not been used; tools to sift relevant data from noise in peacetime could significantly abet tasks such as advanced target development and pattern-of-life analysis. Similarly, aspects of planning, such as the generation of a JPITL within a Combined Air Operations Centre, can be accelerated through automated network analysis to identify key nodes in an opposing system. Greater processing power, meanwhile, can accelerate and augment targeting processes in ways that enable forces to exploit the growth of available data. To use a practical example, the US XVIII Airborne Corps estimates that processing times can be reduced to around two minutes.

Another reason why the competitive utility of deep strike may increase is that the existence of relatively scalable second-tier precision strike capabilities offers the promise of increasing the tempo at which a modern strike campaign can be prosecuted. There is an inverse relationship between the cost of being wrong and the willingness to rely on partial data or probabilistic inferences. For example, the major limiting factor on the tempo of Ukrainian strike operations has been the requirement to use a limited number of long-range strike capabilities judiciously. The emergence of systems such as one-way attack UAVs and reductions in the cost of some components (such as microelectronics) can change this dynamic. This is not because new systems are necessarily cheap – the IAI Harop loitering munition, for example, costs almost as much as a cruise missile, and while the Iranian Shahed-136 costs significantly less, this comes at a price in terms of functionality (lacking a seeker, for example). Rather, the absence of key long lead-time items, such as turbofan engines, makes it easier to increase the scale of a given capability. The more available a system is, the less elaborate the process of target development enabling its employment needs to be. The scale and tempo of a strike campaign can thus be increased, as seen in the case of the employment of UAVs in the war in Ukraine.

Irrespective of whether their battlefield utility dramatically increases, deep strike capabilities have several important competitive functions with respect to shaping how an opponent prepares to fight. Athough the ability to see and strike at strategic depth rarely wins wars on its own, it can play an important role in dislocating an opponent’s capabilities. The existence of systems capable of striking at either tactical or strategic depth imposes opportunity costs in terms of the practical allocation of air defences. During the Gulf War, roughly half of all Iraqi SAM systems, including longer-ranged SA-6 and SA-8 SAMs, were committed to the defence of rear areas. In the case of the 1972 Easter Offensive, NVA forces were well supported, but it is nonetheless notable that the North Vietnamese integrated air defence system (IADS) expended more missiles over Hanoi during the Christmas bombings than they did on the frontline over the course of the Easter Offensive (and expended 68 SAMs for every bomber struck, which eventually led to the depletion of their SA-2 stocks ahead of the Paris Peace Accords).

In Ukraine, the requirement to defend cities and CNI against Russian cruise missiles, one-way attack UAVs and ballistic missiles has resulted in challenges for the Ukrainians with respect to providing ground-based air defence (GBAD) to the frontline – in turn allowing the VKS to operate more freely against Ukrainian forces. The effect in terms of resource allocation is likely to be accentuated for Russia, because Russian military literature demonstrates a systematic fear of strategic paralysis inflicted by strikes on C2 nodes. Indeed, although the effects of Operation Instant Thunder were marginal in the context of Operation Desert Storm, their impact on Russian decision-makers was considerable. Examples of this include the emphasis placed by figures such as Russia’s Chief of General Staff General Valery Gerasimov (among several others) on the impact of non-contact warfare in conjunction with information operations as a means of dislocating a state’s control. While the poor record of this theory of victory in Ukraine might drive a reassessment, articles published in military journals since the invasion appear to double down on this logic. This reflects the fact that organisations often learn first-order lessons about implementation more readily than they reassess fundamental assumptions.

There is also a subjective element to any evaluation of the utility of long-range precision fires and other deep strike capabilities. As with any military tool, the way in which an opponent views and responds to it is of considerable importance when evaluating its competitive utility. For example, while the military utility of the US Strategic Defence Initiative was questionable, its subjective impact on Soviet policymakers’ assessments of the military balance was considerable.

Russian Perspectives on Long-Range Strike

In Russian thinking, long-range strike serves several functions. First, long-range precision strike is viewed as an important enabler of a state’s ability to prosecute an extended conflict by targeting the defence industrial capacity of a rival state or coalition. Efforts to target infrastructure critical to the successful prosecution of a protracted conflict, including (but not limited to) key components of a state’s energy grid and defence industrial facilities, are deemed to be an integral part of both Russian military planning and Russian assumptions regarding how an Allied strike campaign might progress. The template for this is the Allied air campaign against Serbia during the Kosovo war, which is assessed by a number of Russian authors as having inflicted crippling damage on the Serbian energy grid. The ability to both inflict damage and deflect efforts to eliminate Russia’s own productive capacity is viewed as central to the ability to demonstrate the capacity to win a protracted war and thus force war termination.

Second, long-range precision strike has a crucial role in the Russian concept of deflecting strategic aerospace attacks. Russian military authors describe combined (and primarily US-led) aerospace attacks involving the convergence of cruise missiles, hypersonic weapons, UAVs and fixed-wing aircraft aimed primarily at knocking out targets such as airbases and C2 nodes. Russia assesses its own air and missile defences as insufficient to deflect this presumed integrated aerospace threat, which in turn necessitates the ability to strike adversary airbases and conduct (rather vaguely defined) “counter submarine-launched cruise missile” operations on the open oceans. The “air-space” theatre is described as a critical and integrated independent theatre of operations in which strike and air defence must be coordinated. It is also of some note that all US investment in prompt global strike capabilities is interpreted as being, at a minimum, a challenge against which Russia must hedge, and that Allied precision strike capabilities are viewed as an extension of US assets. As such, the regional allocation of US capabilities to a given combatant command (for example, US Indo-Pacific Command) may play a limited role in how Russia assesses the balance of forces.

Russia effectively faces two challenges, which draw on the same resource base. At operational-strategic depth, the perceived risk of paralysis will, as discussed, weigh heavily on the minds of Russian decision-makers. Equally, however, Russian military assessments of the threat posed by airpower at tactical depth correctly assume that Allied advantages in the air pose considerable risk to Russian ground forces. It has previously been assumed that assault by 50–70 tactical aircraft will inflict 50% attrition on an advancing Russian motor rifle brigade. Defence against both types of attack – which requires many of the same defensive SAM and EW systems – has depended on strategic buffer zones provided by client (or at a minimum neutral) states on legal instruments such as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and on the assumption that Russia would commit its forces on a pre-emptive basis. As things stand, two out of Russia’s three lines of defence have effectively disappeared.

It follows that Russia will expend outsized resources on long-range strike and IAMD as it reconstitutes its military – a pattern of investment that characterised Russia’s last state armament programme. President Vladimir Putin’s 2023 claim that Russia is producing three times as many SAM systems as the US, even if spurious, illustrates the extent to which Russia views this as a priority area for investment. And even with this claimed rate, it is notable that massing air defence systems on the 1,200-km frontline in Ukraine has required other frontiers to be effectively stripped bare of SAM systems. Assuming that a comparable or greater production rate is viewed as being at least an aspiration, and as a prerequisite for deploying forces effectively, maintaining this rate of production will necessarily compete with other avenues for expenditure, including the recruitment and training of additional forces, while air defence systems will draw on inputs such as solid fuel propellant and microprocessors that are employed in other systems. This would, in turn, incentivise something along the lines of the Serdyukov-era force structure – a smaller Russian military that can be made ready more quickly and be protected. Confronting such a force structure would prove easier for the Allied force design envisioned under NATO’s force model, which is being built to emphasise readiness, but which would struggle to sustain attritional combat against an echeloned Russian force comparable to the one envisioned under the plans laid out by Shoigu, which included 14 additional divisions.

The results from the DIEM Analytics model show a slightly different pattern. There is no obvious relationship between Russian defence investments and the degree to which long-range strike is discussed in Russian military literature. Investments in long-range strike (in terms of ground forces that can operate in the close battle) appear to correspond with periods in which Russia has engaged in low-intensity fighting. This could reflect two possibilities. First, long-range strike is viewed as a means of cost saving, much in the way that nuclear weapons sometimes were during the Soviet era (for example, during the Khrushchev era, when the need for nuclear weapons was used as a basis for reducing conventional forces). Whenever a greater desire to focus on small-scale operations at reach has characterised Soviet and Russian thinking, this has typically led to attempts to deter through an economy of force effort in the European theatre.

A second possibility is that Russia views adversary long-range strike as part of a single problem set alongside low-intensity “local wars” on its periphery. This latter view is best captured in an article co-authored by V Selivanov, a senior academic at the Russian Academy of Rocket and Artillery Sciences, which postulates that the threat of long-range strike represents a means of paralysing Russia’s response to local conflicts on its periphery with states aligned with or allied to the US, and of setting the conditions for Russia’s own allies worldwide to be supplanted. In this context, the balance of long-range strike capabilities is the basis for strategic freedom of action.

Potential Shifts in Russian Thinking about Precision Strike and Force Design

Following the large-scale conflict in Ukraine, Russia might re-envision its approach to force design, emphasising a more traditional mass-based force model, comparable to the one outlined by Shoigu – and this is what the DIEM Analytics model suggests. This in turn would imply a greater emphasis on the close fight, an assumption that the capacity to win a protracted conflict (rather than triumph in short, sharp wars) is critical, and a relative de-emphasising of the importance of deep strike.

However, this depends on the lessons Russia learns from the Ukraine conflict and on its view of how Allied forces are modernising. At the time of writing, Russian publications produced since the conflict in Ukraine began still place considerable emphasis on non-contact warfare, and it is not clear that the Russian military views the Ukrainian conflict as a template for the type of force design needed to confront NATO (as opposed to a large but local conflict where NATO’s major contribution to Ukraine has been the provision of standoff capabilities and ISR). A continuation of pre-existing assumptions would not be surprising, since institutionalised views are resistant to change, except in periods of acute crisis

If Russia can be induced to re-emphasise fighting the deep battle at the expense of other capabilities, this is not without its own challenges for NATO, which currently faces considerable shortfalls in IAMD capabilities, particularly if American systems (which will likely be in considerable demand in the Pacific) are unavailable in large numbers. Russia has a competitive strategy of its own here. The threat of a Russian SODCIT (strategic operation to destroy critically important targets) could drive Allied investments in air and missile defence for both civilian and military targets, which could easily prove unaffordable. This would, moreover, impose the same opportunity costs as those Russia could be forced to face.

In effect, then, the successful side will be the one that invests in deep strike and IAMD in ways that minimise its opportunity costs and maximise those of the opponent, rather than the side which generates enough capacity to “win” in strictly military terms.

II. A Net Assessment of Allied and Russian Weaknesses in a Strike Campaign

There are fundamental asymmetries between the challenges that NATO members and the Russian military will face when they consider the defence of their operational rear areas and their defence at strategic depth. It should be noted that, conceptually, this distinction is somewhat less clear for NATO than it is for Russia: for frontline states on the Alliance’s eastern flank, the two categories overlap almost entirely. However, a subdivision of threats into range categories and an effort to keep critical capabilities beyond the reach of more numerous short-ranged threats, where possible, will probably characterise Alliance planning as well. In light of this, this paper uses this range-based terminology, despite the fact that it does not overlap entirely with the doctrinal lexicon of the Alliance.

For NATO, capacity in areas such as GBAD (and interceptor stockpiles more broadly) represents a challenge. Moreover, the structure of NATO’s IAMD architecture, in which Allies allocate national resources to an Alliance-level C2 structure, is an additional limiting factor. This having been said, the expenditure of air defence interceptors in the context of Ukraine is an imperfect proxy for the Alliance’s requirements, insofar as the temporal window within which an IAMD capability must be at its most effective is determined by the duration of an Allied SEAD campaign (rather than being an open-ended commitment). Once Russian air defences had been suppressed, the launch platforms for missiles would become significantly more vulnerable. As such, from a purely military standpoint, the Alliance should not face an open-ended air defence commitment in the way Ukraine has – it needs to defend critical targets such as airbases for long enough to ensure that a SEAD campaign succeeds.

However, as discussed below, the interceptor expenditure in this more limited context will be considerable, and Russia’s chosen approach can complicate this challenge. It is likely that Russia intends to combine early attacks to suppress Allied airpower with a SODCIT aimed at NATO infrastructure. The demands of defending both civilian and military infrastructure could quickly become unsustainable, and could draw surface-based systems from more militarily critical missions. Ensuring that this occurs would be Russia’s best competitive strategy.

However, NATO members can, collectively, field considerably more air assets than the VKS, and the platforms fielded are generally technically superior to their Russian counterparts. Indeed, it is this asymmetry that has driven the Russian focus on ground-based SAM systems, which, while not unsophisticated, are considerably less complex than aircraft, and which in a defensive role provide much less coverage. For example, at the time of writing, to maintain persistent MIG-31BM orbits in Ukraine without adequate tanker support, the VKS has had to mount 96 sorties a day – effectively employing a significant portion of Russia’s MIG-31BM fleet in a comparatively small theatre.

The mobility of air-based systems allows them to close off larger channels with smaller numbers of systems in aggregate compared with GBAD capabilities, and can enable intercepts with comparatively short-ranged interceptors. However, three factors will affect the Alliance. The first will be the degree to which airpower can be deployed in a contested and denied environment. For NATO as a collective, for example, the FLOT and areas at least up to corps depth (90 km) will (in the initial stages of a conflict) be locations where all but fifth-generation aircraft will operate at risk, creating a greater demand for ground-based systems in these areas. Second, the ability of aircraft to operate from airbases close to the Alliance’s eastern flank will to some extent be contested by Russian long-range precision fires. For example, Iskander SRBMs operating from Kaliningrad and Belarus can cover much of Poland. Beyond this point, airbases remain vulnerable to suppression, although this would require Russia to place high-value platforms such as bombers and guided-missile submarines at risk, since firing cruise missiles (Russia’s primary option for suppressing airbases at theatre depth) at their maximum ranges restricts their manoeuvrability and provides defenders with ample warning time. Consider, for example, Russia’s failure to suppress the Ukrainian air force’s 7th Air Brigade, which operates Storm Shadow missiles, despite multiple strikes on its western airbase of Starokostyantyniv. The distances Russian cruise missiles need to traverse to reach western Ukraine mean that their targets are typically able to disperse ahead of the strike’s arrival. There are, however, supporting capabilities that are harder to move, such as autonomic logistics information system terminals and mission programming computers, so the threat to air assets remains. Moreover, a Russian IRBM capability, such as the RS-26 Rubezh, will substantially increase the challenge of airbase defence at depth.

Additionally, since aircraft are inherently multirole systems, they will be drawn between multiple tasks, with defensive counter air (DCA), as a matter of convention, being allocated 35–40% of available airpower in the first five days of a conflict. Any growth in this requirement, or the allocation of this proportion of Allied airpower for longer periods, will have considerable knock-on effects on planning for other tasks such as offensive counter air (OCA) and SEAD.

The second facet of defensive operations which must be considered is that layering can only be achieved over limited areas. While the mobility of airpower can allow for zonal defence of wide areas, it is likely that the ground-based systems needed for ballistic missile defence (BMD) will need to be prioritised. This will probably result in politically difficult trade-offs between defending critical military facilities (against which it is likely that ballistic missiles will be used) and civilian infrastructure.

Optimising Capability Laydown

To examine the question of what the most efficient capability laydown for NATO’s Area of Responsibility (AOR) might look like (with efficiency defined as limiting interceptor expenditure to the greatest extent possible), the authors ran a 1,000-run Monte Carlo simulation to examine the various force laydowns that could be achieved in the Allied AOR. The assumptions underpinning the model were that the coverage of aircraft roughly corresponds to that achieved in the context of the April 2024 Iranian attack on Israel, and that the single shot probability of kill (SSPK) of individual interceptors across category types was 0.8 (based on the test standard demanded of US and Allied systems). It is also assumed that three intercept attempts per object are required in the final defensive layer (assuming a ripple firing shot doctrine) and that one intercept can be attempted in the first layer for both BMD and intercepts of air-breathing threats. The function for assessing the number of interceptors allocated to each layer isx + dqx, where d is the number of intercepts required in the second layer and x the number in the first. It is presumed that the coverage of the first (airborne) layer of air defence considerably exceeds the second (by a factor of 5:1). The availability of aircraft is presumed to vary by up to 50% (to account for both readiness and the effects of suppression) and their ability to patrol 100 km from the FLOT is presumed to not exist, since all but fifth-generation aircraft are likely to be unable to do so freely in the early days of a conflict. The composition of the Russian missile threat is based on the first two months of the conflict in Ukraine, as well as on the two most intensive periods of bombardment in 2023–24. BMD interceptors are subdivided into longer-ranged interceptors, such as Aster-301NT, and dual-use hit-to-kill interceptors, such as PAC-3. Running a simulation based on these (admittedly very simplified) assumptions yielded the results shown in Table 1.

▲ Table 1: Ratio of Different Interceptor Types Used

The advantages that NATO enjoys in the air mitigate (but do not eliminate) the requirement for a large number of surface-based BMD-capable interceptors, and the number of squadrons committed to DCA in this context represents a considerable portion of Allied airpower (although the proportion of airpower this represents becomes far smaller if the readiness of Allied aircraft increases). Notably, despite the fact that air intercept accounts for a considerable portion of the overall interceptions achieved, a comparable number of GBAD interceptors and a proportionately larger number of BMD interceptors are still required. This could reflect the fact that IAMD closer to the FLOT has to be provided by surface-based systems, and that the variable availability of aircraft must be accounted for. Moreover, all BMD is presumed to be surface-based. It is also of note that the shoot-look-shoot approach to surface-based BMD presumes long-range radar comparable to the AN/TPY-2 or the Green Pine, which can track quasi-ballistic threats but which do not exist in large numbers within the Alliance. Where such radar do exist (for example, as part of the NATO BMD system), they are not integrated with the IAMD mission, for policy reasons.

Notably, if a higher availability of aircraft is presumed, the results are effectively inverted, and considerably fewer squadrons are allocated to DCA, as illustrated in Table 2.

▲ Table 2: Ratio of Different Interceptor Types Used Assuming Higher Aircraft Availability

This has several implications. First, it might reasonably be presumed that NATO airpower considerably mitigates the effect of lower availability of surface-based defensive systems. This presumes, however, that sufficient early warning and point defences are available to ensure a higher number of available of airframes, particularly in the context of a significant ballistic missile threat. Second, the Monte Carlo runs assume a rate of interception that can only be achieved if aircraft are equipped with up-to-date radar (such as the AESA radar, which is due to be fitted to the UK’s Typhoon fleet) and enabled by AWACS or long-range early warning radar. Third, AWACS themselves will face unacceptable risks until the IADS in Kaliningrad is suppressed, since systems such as the S-400 can operate at their maximum ranges against high-flying targets. This in turn would imply that the requirement for surface-based systems closer to the frontline will be considerable; any nationally driven reallocation of these assets to defend civilian targets could prove dangerous. Equally, national or multinational efforts to deliver defences against the Russian missile threat to both civilian and military targets across the theatre could quickly prove prohibitively costly (given the costs of defending critical military targets) and would impose opportunity costs elsewhere.

The key deduction from the results might be that the adequate enablement of airborne DCA capabilities represents the fastest and cheapest way for NATO to mitigate the air threat (as presently constituted) beyond distances of 500 km, while surface-based capabilities should be prioritised for the defence of forces (rather than of CNI) in the early stages of a conflict, given that the areas in which deployed forces operate will see the greatest demand for surface-based air and missile defences (in view of the difficulty of flying many air assets in these areas), and the unaffordability of generating layered defences for both the frontline and rear areas. Several pathways to achieving this suggest themselves, including role specialisation among states that do not operate large numbers of fifth-generation aircraft (and which will therefore not operate within an IADS early in a conflict).

The Alliance can considerably reduce the strain on interceptor stockpiles by both ensuring aircraft readiness and allocating limited GBAD capabilities to force protection. This does not reduce the strain of surface-based ballistic missile defence, which is invariant, but Russia is likely to have limited numbers of ballistic missiles (which represent no more than 13% of Russian missiles used in Ukraine), and most Russian ballistic missiles will have tactical ranges for the short to medium term. It does, however, presume the availability of AWACS support and of suitable aircraft that can distinguish between elusive targets in clutter. The latter represents a capability gap in many Allied air forces, including the RAF, which is yet to upgrade the radar on its fourth-generation Typhoon aircraft to AESA radar. Equally, an increase in either the volume or range of the Russian ballistic threat can considerably increase the strain on both first-layer surface-based BMD systems (which, outside the maritime domain, are entirely American) and dual-capable systems such as PAC-3. Moreover, the number of interceptors expended for BMD missions increases eightfold in the absence of longer-range surface-based radar such as the AN/TPY-2. Notably, Allied BMD radar, such as the SPY-1 systems in Poland and Romania, can already play this role, but do not do so (for policy rather than technical reasons).

The difficulties faced employing AWACS in locations such as Poland can potentially be offset through the employment of other elevated sensors, which can serve as a stand-in until the suppression of Kaliningrad. An example might be the use of elevated sensors on aerostats, which was pursued under the JLENS programme (a tethered aerial detection system, with demonstrated effectiveness – its major challenge was the tethers, not sensor fidelity). As such, the outcome of an effort to suppress Kaliningrad will also have considerable effects for the deep battle, and not just for operations in a theatre such as the Baltic states.

It should also be noted that, past the early stages of a conflict, Russia will face its own challenges, since many of the launch platforms on which its deep-strike capabilities depend are either non-survivable (such as surface vessels) or relatively limited in number. Russia’s bomber fleet, for example, would operate at some risk on NATO’s northern flank once a maritime component command was set up. This might be less of a challenge when striking civilian infrastructure (which can be engaged at the limits of a missile’s range from within Russian airspace), but against time-sensitive or defended targets, cruise missiles need to be fired at ranges which leave spare fuel capacity for the missile to manoeuvre, while ballistic missiles need to be fired on energy-efficient trajectories – all of which requires bomber personnel to place themselves at risk. Russia can, of course, mitigate this risk through a greater reliance on ground launchers, although this introduces its own challenges: soft-skinned TELs need to be distributed from their operating bases early to avoid suppression, which can rob a force of early operational surprise and complicate communication and the coordination of salvos.

NATO members thus face relative challenges in terms of capacity, but these can be mitigated through an effort to better leverage airborne sensors and effectors and by a level of prioritisation that eschews efforts to deliver unachievable levels of magazine depth. In the early stages of a campaign, NATO’s primary risks will emerge from the potential suppression of airbases – suggesting a rationalisation of GBAD capabilities is necessary to prioritise this function. Over time, the risk to a broader target set will grow, but if the IADS in Kaliningrad is suppressed, airborne sensors that allow the risk to be more readily mitigated can be employed. The need for elevated sensors that can be employed during the period in which AWACS cannot be easily used will require individual Allies to invest more heavily in alternative elevated sensors.

Russia’s Geography and the Growing Cost of Integrated Air and Missile Defence

On the offensive side of the ledger, several asymmetries will pose conundrums for Russia in addition to ISR advantages.

The first challenge that Russia will face is that the changing territorial extent of the Alliance makes the distinction between “tactical-operational” and “operational-strategic” missiles, which the Russian military has historically used in its lexicon, less clear cut. From Finland, for example, an SRBM such as the precision-strike missile can reach a number of targets that the Russians would dub “strategic”, such as Severomorsk and Olenya Guba. Many of these systems can be launched from otherwise “tactical” systems such as HIMARS and M270. While Russia does not lack air-defence systems (although its BMD capabilities are more limited), uncertainty regarding adversary targeting will impose complications Russia has not faced in Ukraine, where there has been less of a problem deciding whether to allocate capabilities at tactical or strategic depth since, barring intermittent UAV attacks, there has been only a marginal threat at strategic depth.

Second, Russia may face specific challenges with respect to defending against ballistic missiles. Even though BMD has been viewed as a core function for the S-300V series and a role for the S-400, it is notable that neither is especially effective in this role. In the case of the S-400 it is likely that the seekers on the 40N6 and 9M96 do not operate at a frequency higher than Ku band. The decision to opt for a blast fragmentation solution and a Ku band-seeker imposes costs with respect to the BMD mission compared with higher-frequency Ka band-seekers. The higher the frequency of a seeker, the lower its position error and the greater the granularity of its returns, which enables the use of more reliable hit-to-kill interceptors. The use of a solution comparable to the PAC-2 GEM-T could reflect a decision to focus on air-breathing targets, but may also reflect either challenges with seeker design or the fact that the Elbrus-800 computer on the S-400 is slower to process the trajectory of fast-moving targets. In the latter case, a lower-frequency (and thus longer-ranged) seeker tends to be required to scan a wider area, since the difference between the estimated and real location of a target is likely to be greater.

While it cannot be ascertained with certainty which of these hypotheses is correct, it is of note that experts with prior experience of Russian and Soviet SAM systems have suggested that these systems have historically faced challenges with processing speed and overheating. Importantly, newer Russian systems, such as the S-500, will carry a hit-to-kill BMD capability in the form of the 77N-6. The A-235 interceptor, fielded as part of the Moscow BMD system, will also carry a hit-to-kill interceptor. As such, the window of vulnerability to ballistic missiles could be closing, although this would require Russia to procure both systems and interceptors at scale, adding additional strains to an already heavily burdened complex weapons pipeline.

The intersection of geography and BMD is important here, since systems such as the A-235 and S-500 were procured with a view to defence against more limited numbers of intermediate- and long-range ballistic missiles. In the present operating environment, Russia will face a dual challenge against air- or surface-launched SRBMs: its IADS performs poorly against ballistic targets, and its loss of strategic depth will make it difficult to ascertain whether SRBMs are being used tactically or strategically. This being said, NATO members field relatively few tactical ballistic missiles, although this may change with the prospective purchase of both ground- and air-launched systems by several member states. Russia does have other options for tactical BMD, such as the S-300 V4, but the X-band seeker on the 9M82 likely provides limited granularity (which is traded for range) and a lower integration rate for returns, which potentially explains the modest claim of 0.5 probability of kill against tactical ballistic missiles.

Third, defence against low-flying targets such as UAVs and cruise missiles is at least partially dependent on more limited numbers of airborne enablers, such as AWACS and interceptor aircraft like the MIG-31BM. A defence against low-flying objects can still be prosecuted without these capabilities, but at a cost in terms of the warning times available to ground-based systems. This can be overcome by layering short- and longer-ranged systems to create overlapping zones of radar coverage, even though this represents a relatively inefficient means of employing systems that are likely to be needed elsewhere. Moreover, airborne systems are more visible – and thus more vulnerable to suppression – than ground-based TELs. Air defence is possible without an over-reliance on airborne assets but, as discussed, this is a resource-intensive task for ground-based systems, which Russian forces will need near the FLOT.

Fourth, emerging capabilities such as hypersonic weapons are likely to pose a considerable challenge for Russia’s IADS, which currently lacks the means for the (comparatively) simple task of exoatmospheric BMD. The challenge perceived by many Russian authors is that hypersonic weapons would act as a breaching capability to set the conditions for the use of slower cruise missiles, fixed-wing aircraft and UAVs. Russia is certainly not alone in this analysis. The space-based sensor layer needed to enable birth-to-death tracking of hypersonic projectiles, as well as glide phase interceptors, probably exceeds the capacity of most states, bar the US (and potentially China in the future). Moreover, no NATO member other than the US is likely to field hypersonic missiles in the foreseeable future (given the costs and lead times involved), although the US will field the US Army’s Dark Eagle long-range hypersonic weapon in Europe under the 2nd Multi-Domain Task Force. It might be plausibly argued that the limited numbers and high costs of any hypersonic system in Europe will necessarily narrow the target set against which it can be used to a limited number of possible alternatives, and that the provision of localised defence of key targets (for example, national C2 nodes) is in some ways easier against hypersonic glide vehicles than against comparably ranged ballistic missiles (which are typically faster in their terminal phase).

But the presence of hypersonic weapons in Europe would pose a broader question to Russia: how interceptors are allocated. Systems such as the S-500 are allegedly being developed for full spectrum counter-air operations combining new interceptors such as the 77N6-N and 77N6N-1 as well as older interceptors such as the 9M96 and 40N6 – with the system fielding 10 interceptor types in total. However, any given system can only be loaded with a finite number of any type of interceptor. Even if it were assumed that, for example, the 77N6 series is capable of intercepting hypersonic projectiles, it will defend areas that can be simultaneously targeted by SRBMs and cruise missiles, even at what would previously have been regarded as strategic depth. Of course, this challenge can be overcome by layering – allocating the tasks of air defence and tactical BMD to systems such as the S-300V4 and S-400 (as well as shorter-ranged systems) – but this negates the emphasis on multifunctionality, which was meant to ensure that the S-500 did not have to operate with large numbers of accompanying systems as part of a multi-system IADS in which it draws heavily on other systems for self-protection. Furthermore, it is not obvious that the 77N6 series – apparently an updated version of the 9M82 anti-ballistic missile, which did not eventually receive a hit-to-kill warhead – will live up to claims made of it.

In effect, Russia can defend key points against theatre-range missiles, but must either layer shorter-ranged defences around the S-500 to achieve this effect or risk the saturation of these systems by cheaper tactical missiles. Furthermore, the results from the Monte Carlo model show that even small numbers of tactical ballistic missiles can impose prohibitive costs on a single-layer defensive system (eliminating 65 SRBMs requires the expenditure of 624 interceptors, assuming an SSPK of 0.5, for example). Given this, employing longer-ranged interceptors may not be discretionary.

Russia’s Dilemma

The Russian military, then, faces a very specific problem. Its lack of depth would appear to incentivise a force structure built to ensure high readiness and high levels of force protection for both rear areas and frontline units. However, its planned force design would imply the need for a larger force, probably including partially formed “skeleton units”, which would need to be augmented by conscripts in a crisis – a time-consuming process.

Moreover, the greater the requirement for organic force protection, the harder it becomes to adequately protect any element of the force structure in a cost-effective way. In effect, despite the implied lessons that Russia is learning, as forecast by both the DIEM Analytics model and its own planned force design, the need to offset the risks posed by Western precision-strike capabilities would drive it in a different direction, closer in form to the smaller but more heavily equipped force envisioned under the Serdyukov reforms. In effect, then, deep-strike capabilities can impact Russia’s capacity to build a force around an attritional approach intended to leverage superior combat mass.

Russia will also have to choose between the defence of rear areas and frontline forces; and much of its military literature, as discussed, emphasises the former. As a consequence, Russian efforts to defend rear areas can simplify the task of SEAD near the FLOT and thus make the employment of NATO airpower easier (but by no means easy). Relatively short-ranged strike capabilities, then, can serve as an important enabler for NATO airpower – the Alliance’s optimal competitive strategy.

The threat is currently somewhat notional for Russia. European NATO members field relatively limited surface-to-surface fires capabilities and theatre missiles (with the exception of maritime strike capabilities, such as the Tomahawk land attack missile). However, European states collectively field 3,000 air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs) in the 500-km range (although the combat readiness of these missiles is not uniform, and donations to Ukraine have likely impacted stockpiles). Of course, ALCMs will need to be launched at distances that account for the IADS threat, but to pose this threat across an extended frontline, Russia would need to thin out its IADS in ways that affected the defences allocated to its forces at the FLOT. Moreover, the purchase of SRBMs (such as ATACMS) and precision-strike missiles by a number of European countries, including the UK, Poland and the Baltic states, will alter the surface-to-surface threat environment considerably. This is not to suggest that a formidable European strike capability is necessarily on the horizon. Rather, the major deduction is that, in tandem with limited numbers of capabilities that only the US can produce, increases in European stocks of existing relatively short-ranged ballistic and cruise missiles can have a strategic effect.

The Balance of ISR/Counter-ISR Capabilities

As the previous sections suggest, defensive capacity will be a challenge for both Russia and the Alliance, although it is likely that the challenge will compound for Russia over time. While both parties have incentives to win the fight for information, Russia has an especially strong rationale for denying NATO a level of situational awareness that Russia itself is unlikely to be able to generate.

AWACS

Currently, the Alliance has a relative – albeit fragile – ISR advantage both in the air and in space. NATO’s Airborne Early Warning capability is currently in transition. Existing AWACS are being phased out, with some improvements taking place until 2035, when the Alliance Future Surveillance and Control (AFSC) programme comes into place. AFSC is intended to deliver a “system of systems” as part of the wider multi-domain operations effort, drawing on novel capabilities such as AI and uncrewed systems. For now, a limited Allied fleet of 14 Boeing 707 AWACS aircraft is stationed in Geilenkirchen Air Base in Germany. Its maintenance is a continuing problem, while the operational number is decreasing. While AWACS will see upgrades in the meantime, such as to its communication system, the airframe, cited as the “biggest liability concern”, will not be upgraded. This could be an area of vulnerability, which could be partly mitigated simply by having more maintenance personnel and higher availability of necessary resources – some aircraft are reportedly being cannibalised for parts to fix better-maintained aircraft in the fleet. Individual NATO members will, of course, make national contributions in an Article 5 context. However, the risks faced by AWACS near Kaliningrad, and the fact that surface-based IAMD assets cannot process radar tracks from AWACS across the Alliance (and in many cases within countries), pose significant challenges.

Space Assets

In terms of space-based reconnaissance, there are several sovereign systems that can be relied on, including the French CERES (Capacité de Renseignement Électromagnétique Spatiale) satellite constellation, but this represents a federated architecture, rather than an integrated one across which data can easily be shared. NATO is also building a digital constellation, “Aquila”, which is set to benefit from both sovereign space-based ISR capabilities and commercial capabilities, thereby enabling the Alliance to make use of a growing private sector, especially in Luxembourg. While several countries in Europe rely on the space-based ISR capabilities of the US, in the absence of sovereign assets, capabilities are currently being developed and invested in to reduce this dependency; the British ISR constellation ISTARI, for example, was launched in August 2024.

In short, there is a patchwork of different systems that can provide reliable reconnaissance from space, and which can be tasked at short notice. Presently, the US has the most comprehensive constellation, as the success of Aquila proves in terms of information sharing. More broadly, the processes involved in disseminating information pose a challenge. The sharing of information, especially when classified, has often been difficult, even among NATO Allies.

The war in Ukraine, however, has demonstrated how, in an emergency, red tape can be cut and information can be made available. This is especially true given the ability to access commercial capability – for example, the satellite imagery that the US has been able to provide to the Ukrainians. To facilitate this, the US “doubled the commercial electro-optical imagery” over Ukraine and increased its “purchasing power fivefold”, in addition to passing on data gathered from more sensitive assets via US headquarters. The question is whether the lessons learned from such emergency situations can now be applied to make routine processes smoother.

Russia’s Earth observation (EO) and intelligence constellations cannot be compared to the combined Allied capabilities – most Russian assets in orbit are past their expected life expectancy, with limited prospects for replacement. This is especially true in comparison with the commercial offerings that NATO Allies can draw from, where new sensors are being deployed constantly. The fact that Russia relies on satellite imagery, but cannot solely rely on its own assets, is evidenced by Russia having bought satellite imagery on the global market since April 2022. Most commercial providers of imagery are Western, a point noted by Russian authors, and this supply chain may become subject to further restrictions, which might target Russia’s future access to imagery. The fact that the Chinese satellite technology company Spacety was sanctioned for allegedly providing synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery to the Wagner Group may suggest that Russia can – in part at least – also rely on Chinese EO capabilities, which are considerable: figures from 2022 show that China has more than eight times as many remote sensing assets as Russia (262, compared with Russia’s 32). Chinese assets, though, are likely to be positioned primarily to surveil China’s zone of interest: the Indo-Pacific.

Counterspace capabilities are thus likely to be an integral part of the Russian arsenal. This is not new; as a number of authors in journals such as Voennaya Mysl have pointed out, Soviet planning for defeating an aerospace attack also included a heavy emphasis on counterspace operations, and the decision to combine air and space functions under the VKS was primarily driven by the assumption that counterspace operations are inextricable from the deflection of massed aerospace attacks. In particular, Russia has placed great emphasis on its EW capabilities, which can interfere directly with the navigation of precision weapons. In Russian military thinking, EW is considered critical to “force multipliers”, and a firm component of Russia’s asymmetric challenge. There is further evidence that Russia might be developing a space-based jammer satellite (Ekipazh) in addition to its ground-based capabilities. Given the nuclear reactor the satellite is supposed to possess, this asset would allow Russia to continuously jam satellites, and on a wide-reaching basis, as the power source is unlimited and the curvature of the Earth cannot interfere with the range of the signals, as it would on the ground. In terms of the physics, the Earth’s curvature will not obstruct a jamming signal, but that signal must still have sufficient power to block out the power of the signal that the targeted satellite is receiving. The effective radiated power (ERP) of a jamming signal diminishes the further that signal has to travel, meaning it may become ineffective if the targeted satellite is far enough away from the jamming satellite. The jamming satellite could be moved closer to the targeted satellite, but this could expend valuable fuel. Moreover, the ERP of the jamming signal will be limited by the power that the reactor can generate, while also needing to power the jamming satellite’s other signals. In a nutshell, a jamming satellite’s effectiveness would still be constrained by the ERP it can generate and by its proximity to the targeted satellites.

While it should be noted that there is no concrete evidence to suggest that Ekipazh has entered plans for operational deployment, the fielding of such a capability would represent a logical step for Russia, meaning that the question of how communications might be made more resilient remains germane. It is claimed that ground-based EW systems such as the Krasukha-4 and the Murmansk-BN are effective against SAR satellites, although the rate at which Ukraine’s partners have been able to provide Ukraine with data is grounds for some conservatism in assessing the effectiveness of Russian EW in a counterspace role. It seems that further systems are being developed – including an EW system that could prevent optical and radar reconnaissance satellites from imaging by preventing their signals from reaching the relay satellites.

Other Counterspace Weapons

Russia also has an arsenal of kinetic counterspace weapons, for example, the ground-launched ballistic missile Nudol, which was successfully tested in November 2021. Russian BMD interceptors such as the A-235 are also dual-hatted as kinetic anti-satellite weapons. Additionally, Russia employs the Soviet-era 78M6 Kontakt on the Mig-31 interceptor. However, it is unlikely that Russia would make use of its kinetic counterspace arsenal, and especially not in the initial phases of a war. This is because the number of assets that would need to be targeted would effectively render the affected orbit unusable – including for Russian assets. This calculation is particularly important when considering that Russian long-range weapons also rely on satellite guidance – both from GPS and from GLONASS, the Russian GNSS (global navigation satellite service).

Russia has also been developing directed-energy countermeasures against space-based reconnaissance assets for some time, although there is some uncertainty regarding the specifications of emerging systems. One of these systems might be Peresvet, a laser system announced in 2018, which was reportedly designed to prevent the space-based detection of mobile ICBMs. If targeted by Peresvet, the reconnaissance satellite is temporarily dazzled. Furthermore, Russia’s ground-based satellite laser ranging facilities could, in theory, be used for the same purpose.

In addition, Russia’s Krona optical space surveillance systems might be being outfitted with dazzling or blinding capabilities, according to open source investigations that discovered bank guarantees and other reports. There have been conflicting reports about the 1LK222, a laser system attached to an aircraft (as yet unnamed), which would be designed to specifically counter the infrared spectrum – it is currently unclear whether the programme has been cancelled by Russia’s Ministry of Defence. The current evidence of Russia’s laser development is somewhat patchy – but there is precedent for these developments, and the evidence emerging seems to suggest that several lines of effort are being dedicated to the temporary dazzling of optical sensors aboard satellites. However, it is unclear how many of these systems, if any, are fully operational, and whether they would be able to serve the purpose of concealing mobile launcher systems consistently, and at a scale that would bring Russia a genuine advantage.

The Limits of Counterspace Capabilities

Counterspace operations could provide Russia with a cheap means of avoiding an otherwise unwinnable race to develop both air defences and precision-strike capabilities, given its loss of strategic depth and the aggregate force balance. However, there are limits to the effectiveness of counterspace capabilities. This is particularly true with respect to kinetic kill vehicles such as Nudol, which create considerable amounts of debris and are thus an indiscriminate tool.

Attacks at scale with relatively indiscriminate capabilities would necessarily run counter to the aim of fighting a limited war in the service of political aims. While such attacks are more conceivable in the context of a larger-scale conflict, in which second-order effects are less of a consideration, a total conflict is unlikely to be consistent with wider Russian strategic aims. Russia’s non-kinetic options, such as space-based EW and long-range jammers, including the Murmansk-BN, represent a more strategically credible capability. However, the reliability of these systems is open to debate, given Russia’s inability to deny Ukrainian satellite communications and the difficulties Russia has faced in denying Ukraine’s allies the ability to provide it with data from electronic intelligence soaks. The growing diversification of the space-based ISR assets ecosystem, alongside the increasing use of multiple frequencies (including Ka band for communication), mean that ISR and communications disruption on a sustained basis will be increasingly difficult to guarantee with soft kill alone. Much depends on Allied efforts to generate resilience. Russian authors have devoted considerable attention to the possibility of kinetic attacks on ground stations, although a combination of hardening and IAMD can mitigate this risk.

There are a number of technical solutions to the challenge of counterspace capabilities, including frequency hopping, shuttering satellites and adaptive nulling (ignoring parts of the frequency spectrum an opponent is jamming). Millimetre wave communications can also prove highly resistant to jamming – one of the factors to which the Russians attribute Starlink’s success. However, it must be presumed that both ISR and positioning, navigation and timing will be intermittently disrupted.

EW capabilities, including the R770 Zhitl, the Krashuka-3 and the Murmansk-BN, can also be employed against the effector rather than the ISR complex, and EW platforms can be employed to jam radio frequency communications and GPS signals. However, this will probably have greater effect against stand-in munitions, such as JDAM, than against standoff capabilities, which combine GPS with terrain contour matching and digital scene mapping area correlation. In effect, Russia has better options for cost-effective defence in the close area than it does at the army deep and beyond.

This is of greater significance for intermediate target development than for weapons guidance. Western weapons systems might be affected by GNSS jamming or spoofing, although many of them do have fallback options in case of interference. Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG relies on three elements: GPS, INS (inertial navigation system) and terrain referencing, with an infrared seeker for the target approach. Taurus KEPD 350 uses GPS and INS with image-based and terrain reference sensors; its manufacturers consider the weapon “GPS-independent”. The US Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile uses GPS, INS and an infrared seeker for target guidance.

Coordinating a counterspace campaign would also pose challenges for Russia, however. First, the capabilities on which such a campaign depends are expensive and, in some cases, reliant on foreign inputs that can be constrained. Moreover, space-based observation and early warning is of importance to Russia as well, and Russian planners cannot be insouciant about the consequences of a kinetic attack on satellites with which their own early warning systems share orbits. In addition, NATO members can also engage in “strategic binding”, intertwining capabilities either within or across nations in ways that make selective attacks more difficult. For example, EO satellites in geosynchronous orbit (comparable to China’s Yaogan-41) would cohabit an area with early warning systems such as SBIRS, making them more difficult to strike with kinetic capabilities without producing unpredictable effects; this would also have the advantage of providing angles for observing hypersonics, which can otherwise be obscured by thermal clutter.

In effect, then, there would be limits to any Russian effort to use counterspace and counter-ISR capabilities to mitigate the challenge of having to resource a layered defence against deep-strike capabilities while protecting frontline forces.

Allied Counter-C4ISR

In terms of Western countermeasures in the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS), it must be assumed that Europe will continue to rely on US systems. US predominance in the field is best represented by the Navigation Warfare Program, which enables the US to jam and interfere with civilian GNSS signals within a local area of operation – a capability that has already been demonstrated in exercises. It is also likely to be able to jam military GNSS receivers, especially given the money and time spent on EW capabilities. It is, however, difficult to determine from open sources how effective US systems would be in counteracting the jamming or spoofing of military GPS signals.

The picture in Europe is more mixed: while France has incorporated GNSS jamming in its Exercise Black Crow 24, it has been observed that the UK trains its troops in unrealistically permissive environments when it comes to the EMS, which may also be the case for other NATO members. Given US predominance in terms of systems available and its experience, there is likely to be a dependence on US systems in Europe if they are needed.

Russian missiles depend on GNSS signals to varying degrees. Similarly to Western missiles, they rely on different factors, including INS and DSMAC (digital scene matching area correlator). As the stockpile of precision-guided missiles dwindles, not only older missiles but also missiles with different intended purposes have been used for land attacks. It is not inconceivable that Russia would adopt tactics from the Ukraine war, including using anti-ship and air defence missiles for land attacks, specifically where the intention is to terrorise the civilian population, with no intention of carrying out a precision strike. Among the modern variants, the air-launched K-101/Kh-102 used in Ukraine rely on the GLONASS constellation, TV terminal guidance, an electro-optical correction system with terrain maps, and INS. It is not entirely clear which navigation mechanisms are used by the ground-launched 9M729 (SSC-8), but its predecessor, the 9K720 Iskander (SS-26), employs inertial guidance, GLONASS, an optional optical seeker (which also uses DSMAC), and a terminal guidance system. Unlike GLONASS or GPS, INS cannot be jammed, but it needs to be supplemented by further systems to keep the flight path accurate, as it otherwise accrues error over time. Meanwhile, the Shahed-136, one of the most heavily used UAVs during the war, has INS in addition to its GPS system, and employs preset target coordinates.

In general terms, both Russia and the West use deep-strike systems that would be vulnerable to electronic interference. Russia’s advantage lies in the testing of systems during the war in Ukraine, including the patching of vulnerabilities. On the other hand, the GLONASS constellation that is still built into a variety of strike capabilities is more volatile than GPS – not only was deployment of its newest generation of satellites delayed, thereby holding back the update to the system, but also Russian fighter pilots were seen to attach civilian GPS systems to their cockpit instrumentation, which does not inspire confidence in the system.

Escalatory Dimensions of a Strike Campaign

A second relatively cost-effective offset available to Russia to counter opponents’ deep-strike capabilities is the threat to employ sub-strategic nuclear weapons, which would be consistent with Russian nuclear doctrine and recent statements regarding likely revisions. In practice, the threat of a large-scale employment of sub-strategic nuclear weapons could deter a massed air assault on Russia. Making this threat credible would, however, require the mobilisation of Russia’s nuclear arsenal and the placement of tactical nuclear weapons on a hair-trigger warning to account for the effects of C2 disruption. This, in turn, would make the prospect of limited conflict difficult to contemplate – the mechanisms to signal limited intent being effectively removed as a prerequisite for Russian war planning in this context.

The threat to employ sub-strategic nuclear weapons in response to a massed conventional air assault also has implications for Russia’s own concepts for deflecting Allied airpower through the massed use of long-range precision fires. Employing long-range precision fires carries the implicit risk of a response in kind, and by extension the possibility of placing Russia in a position where it must either escalate or invalidate its own deterrent threats. In effect, the threat to employ nuclear weapons as a deterrent against long-range precision fires also constrains Russia’s own capacity to employ precision-strike capabilities. This has ramifications for the close fight, in which Russia’s ability to limit Allied sortie rates (and thus the effectiveness of a SEAD campaign) partly depends on its ability to hold airbases at risk with long-range precision fires. In practice, a change in Russian nuclear thresholds could constrain critical Russian capabilities as much as it does Western ones – or even more so.

An aggressive counter-ISR campaign represents a less escalatory alternative for Russia, particularly if it employs non-kinetic assets. While unlikely to prevent the employment of Allied precision-strike capabilities entirely, such an approach could impact tempo and coordination. The major challenge to a counter-ISR campaign is relative uncertainty about its likely effects – a dynamic best illustrated by the limited effects of Russian counter-ISR in Ukraine. More “brute force” approaches, such as kinetic air-launched anti-satellite missiles, obviate this challenge, but at the risk of incurring wider political costs (since many states’ capabilities are likely to be affected) and capital costs, as a relatively large number of interceptors would be required. Moreover, counter-ISR efforts that could be interpreted as being aimed at strategic early warning are likely only to be employed in extremis, given the mutually catastrophic consequences of targeting early warning systems or being perceived as doing so.

In effect, Russia would face two choices – a large and probably expensive expansion of its air and missile defence architecture, or the adoption of a posture that required it to engage in both counter-ISR and nuclear posturing relatively early in a crisis. Both approaches involve considerable dilemmas for Russian leaders, either at the level of resource allocation or in terms of escalation control.

Conclusion

Several deductions can be made based on the analysis in this paper. First, a net assessment of the balance of capabilities able to affect the army deep and beyond suggests that in many ways Russia may be more disadvantaged than NATO. The changing geographical boundaries of the Alliance mean that the traditional Russian distinction between operational-tactical and operational-strategic missiles no longer holds.

Second, exacerbating this challenge for Russia does not require NATO’s European members to develop exquisite or especially long-ranged capabilities. In many ways, short-ranged (up to 500 km) air-to-surface and surface-to-surface fires can have similar effects, particularly with respect to BMD. This depends, however, on the availability of US capabilities in areas such as hypersonic weapons, since the costs of conventional prompt strike and the lead times associated with developing it make any effort to achieve this on a national basis or at the European level an uncertain enterprise. Off-the-shelf purchases of existing medium-range strike capabilities are probably more cost effective. Where domestic industrial aims are a concern, they might be better served by generating the capacity to produce key bottleneck components (for example, rocket propellant), which can both ensure domestic content and create greater symmetry in transatlantic partnerships.

Nevertheless, the capacity of non-US NATO members to generate targets is both limited and relatively vulnerable to disruption. While the growing scale and diversity of the space-based ecosystem for ISR provision makes counterspace operations difficult, soft-kill options remain a relatively cheap offset in which Russia could invest further. Of equal importance is ensuring the availability of geospatial intelligence and human capital sufficient to enable intermediate target development and advanced target development, for which the Alliance is currently heavily reliant on the US. There is also a question of how systems that can have both tactical and operational roles (for example, the precision-strike missile) fit within Allied C2 structures, and the degree to which their use should be part of an air campaign’s planning, in the way maritime strike assets such as Tomahawk often are. Building the organisational capital to sustain a strike campaign may, then, be of greater significance to NATO than the ability of member states to generate small numbers of relatively exquisite capabilities, such as hypersonic weapons. As things stand, Russia will have to undertake considerable burdens to defend against far more simple threats.

With respect to air and missile defence, the Russian threat as currently constituted is most problematic at the FLOT and up to army deep. Beyond this point, NATO’s considerable advantages in numbers and quality of aircraft can allow it to offset what is primarily a cruise missile threat with a lower rate of interceptor expenditure than might be presumed if only surface-based responses to threats are considered, although this depends on the availability of systems such as the E-7 Wedgetail AWACS.

It is also noteworthy that the demand for hit-to-kill interceptors, per the modelling for this paper, is considerable (and in excess of the demand for air-to-air interceptors in the early days of a conflict). This would become more acute if a Russian IRBM threat developed in Europe (this paper considers a Russian hypersonic glide threat unlikely, since Russia has not yet demonstrated the operational capability of the Avangard, and the Kinzhal is not hypersonic per se). However, as things stand, the relative paucity of hit-to-kill interceptors represents a more acute capability challenge. This is a concern, since much of the serial production of surface-based interceptors being undertaken in Europe is focused on systems such as PAC-2 GEM, rather than on hit-to-kill interceptors, as BMD is an area where the efficiencies provided by Allied advantages in the air are less significant. Equally, the survivability of ground-based TELs will be reduced as a conflict wears on, and if SEAD efforts succeed. Moreover, Russian targeting early in a conflict is likely to be narrowly focused on disrupting air threats, reducing the aperture for defenders. Russian targeting can be made more inefficient if surface-to-surface threats have to be tracked and engaged as part of the effort to deflect an aerospace assault.

In effect, deep-strike capabilities represent an area where the Alliance can both shape the contours of Russia’s force generation, and reinforce specific lessons that Russia believes it has learned from previous conflicts, in ways that result in inefficient resource allocation that will necessarily slow the reconstitution of Russia’s forces.

Sidharth Kaushal is Senior Research Fellow for Sea Power at RUSI. His research covers the impact of technology on maritime doctrine in the 21st century, and the role of sea power in a state’s grand strategy.

Juliana Suess is the former Research Fellow and Policy Lead on Space Security in the Military Sciences research team at RUSI. Her research interests include global space governance, counterspace capabilities and space warfare.