Last July, the Pentagon has announced the deployment of Army long-range missiles to Europe by 2026. The missiles, including Tomahawk cruise missiles and the Long Range Hypersonic Weapon, will be based in Germany. The move was only possible after the U.S. withdrew from a key treaty that prohibited such weapons, after allegations of Russian cheating. The U.S. Army is deploying one of its new long-range missile forces to Europe, where they will be capable of targeting Moscow itself. The Army will deploy the missiles to Germany by 2026, arming a new multi-domain task force that blends both air defense and land attack missiles. The move is in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but was made possible by an error blunder by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The White House, in a rare joint declaration between the U.S. and German governments, said the Army will begin “episodic deployments” of long-range missiles to Germany in 2026. The weapons mentioned include the SM-6 missile, Tomahawk cruise missile, and the new Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), which was jointly developed between the Army and the Navy.
According to the White House , the new weapons “have significantly longer range than current land-based fires in Europe.” Current land-based artillery includes M777 155mm towed howitzers, HIMARS rocket trucks, and M270A1 tracked rocket launchers. The longest-range existing weapon is the GMLRS-ER, or Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System Extended Range, used by both HIMARS and MLRS, with a range in excess of 93 miles. The new weapons roughly classify into two tiers. The first tier, known as Mid Range Capability, includes both the SM-6 missile and Tomahawk. Both missiles are launched from the newly developed Typhon transporter, erector, and launcher system named after a giant in Greek mythology. Typhon consists of four Mk. 41 vertical launch systems, missile launchers used on U.S., Japanese, and NATO warships. Each Mk. 41 can hold one missile. The Tomahawk cruise missile was first deployed in the early 1980s, saw action for the first time in the 1991 Gulf War, and has been used more than 2,350 times. A recent version, Block IV, has a range of 1,035 miles and carries a 1,000 pound high explosive conventional warhead. Block IV can be rerouted in flight, avoiding newly discovered enemy air defenses. It even features an electro-optic camera that can beam images of the target back to mission planners, allowing them to retask the missile to another target if its original target is destroyed before it arrives. The SM-6 missile was originally developed as an air defense missile system, but has demonstrated an ability to attack ground targets. Although SM-6 packs a smaller warhead and has a shorter 287-mile range, it has a top speed of Mach 3.5, nearly four times faster than Tomahawk. This would make SM-6 a better choice for time-critical targets over Tomahawk—provided the target was in range. The second tier deploying to Europe is the new Long Range Hypersonic Weapon, or LRHW. LHRW flies at speeds of up to Mach 17 and has a range of 1,700 miles. In 2020, then-President Trump called it the “Super Duper Missile” and claimed it could hit a target within 14 inches of the bullseye. LRHW is what is called a boost glide missile: After launch, the missile boosts high into the upper atmosphere, then deploys a hypersonic glide body, an aerodynamic projectile that includes the guidance system and warhead. The glide body then straightens out and coasts back to Earth, conducting evasive maneuvers at breakneck speeds to avoid interception.

In 1987, the United States and Russia signed a groundbreaking treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The treaty banned ground-based, surface-to-surface missiles with ranges between 300 and 3,420 miles. The net result was thousands of nuclear-tipped missiles removed from Europe and cut up into scrap metal, a big win for European countries living under the specter of nuclear annihilation. It was also a win for Russia, for it banned nuclear-tipped Pershing 2 missiles that could reach Moscow in six minutes. Russia had no similar means to strike Washington, D.C.

In the 2010s, the U.S. government got wind that Russia was testing a new cruise missile with a range of 1,500 miles, a violation of the treaty. Russia denied, but the U.S., after securing the backing of the rest of NATO, withdrew from the treaty in protest. This left the Pentagon free to develop and deploy new long range surface to surface missiles, and when the rush was on to field hypersonic weapons it quickly developed LRHW. Although the U.S. had withdrawn from the INF Treaty, it did not rush to deploy the new missiles to Europe. That changed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the new geopolitical situation of European NATO countries, faced with this russian operation. Based in Germany, the non-nuclear LRHW can easily strike targets as far away as Moscow. While it is unlikely the Army would launch on any target in Moscow itself, for fear of a conventional attack being mistaken for a nuclear one.

Moscow quickly vowed a response to the coming deployment, stating “missile threats to Russia will not be left without due response on our part.” Russia has two tactical hypersonic weapons, Zircon and Kinzhal, but both are slower than LRHW and have less than half the range. Both have been used in Ukraine, but neither have proved more useful than conventional missiles. Developing yet another hypersonic missile would take years and consume resources Russia would find difficult to spare, so long as its war grinds on. The Super Duper Missile’s imminent deployment to Germany caught Russia flat-footed. While Russia is unlikely to back down and agree to go back to the INF Treaty, it will eventually respond. As Moscow’s resources shrink, it may decide to up the ante by responding in a characteristically over-the-top way involving nuclear weapons.

Russia will certainly decide to shift its nuclear doctrine in response to the West’s « escalation course » in the Ukraine conflict and to revise its nuclear doctrine to reach a new balance in line with the escalation course adopted by the West. Meantime, the present nuclear doctrine for Russia, which was approved in 2020 by President Vladimir Putin, specifies that Russian forces may use nuclear weapons in response to an enemy nuclear attack, or a conventional attack that threatened Russia’s sovereignty. Russia, which sees the West’s full out support for Kiev as a proxy war by the Western countries against the Russian nation, has repeatedly warned of Moscow’s intention to make changes and upgrade its nuclear deterrence forces to balance the new status quo. Russia’s message to the US-led NATO bloc has been clear till now: « Refrain from providing excessive military aid to Ukraine, lest you risk provoking a confrontation with Russia that could rapidly turn into a nuclear conflict. »

This does not bode well for future events, especially as the latest Ukrainian offensive on Russian territory increases the risk of a nuclear escalation. There is still time for a return to de-escalation, and for negotiations between the belligerents on European territory.