Why Ukraine Lacks the Means, the Infrastructure, and the Strategic Cover to Use US Long-Range Missiles
The proposal to supply Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine functions more as political theatre than as a practicable change in battlefield balance. The weapon’s headline appeal rests on its capacity to strike deep and precisely at range, but missile employment requires specific, high-end launch infrastructure that Ukraine does not possess. Surface ships and attack submarines provided with vertical launch systems perform most Tomahawk launches for American forces. Complex mission-planning, targeting data feeds, and secure communications infrastructures make the missile effective in an integrated naval or joint-force context. Ukraine’s armed forces lack the destroyers and attack submarines that would supply that launch capacity. The gulf between a public promise or suggestion and the hard engineering realities of cruise-missile employment renders the idea operationally hollow without significant supporting transfers.
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