I don’t know what Ukrainian President Zelenskyy asked for when he spoke to President Trump, as discussed on “The Axios Show”, and cited by Preston Stewart on YouTube as “Zelenskyy’s Secret Weapon”. Regardless, I believe that Rapid Dragon, a combination of JASSM-A Missiles and C-130 Transports, could bring Putin to the table, or to defeat and ruin, in a few months. I looked up the area and roughly estimated the dimensions of Crimea after viewing the linked video. Barring calculation errors, most of the Crimean peninsula falls well within the published “greater than or equal” range of the °largely obsolescent° JASSM-A.
The United States has only about 4000 JASSM-A missiles lying in storage waiting to degrade into unusable garbage. So, their current value should fall considerably below the approximately one million pre-Biden dollars initially paid for each one.
(JASSM counts, ranges, and costs from Wikipedia)
C-130s possibly could come from the Ready Reserve at the Davis-Montham AFB Bone Yard. If the Bone Yard Ready Reserve falls short of the ten to twenty C-130s estimated as needed, accelerated retirements of the oldest C-130s scheduled for upgrade or retirement should fill-the-Bill—that could include C-130s slated for replacement by our allies.
Based on public information about Rapid Dragon, and the generalship demonstrated by Ukraine, it would seem likely that 120 JASSMs could keep the Kerch Bridge System closed as long as needed, especially if the United States, Europe, or both provide Ukraine weapons able to target repair crews and equipment with cluster munitions. The Kerch Bridge System once carried virtually all the supplies from Russia to Crimea. Now, a great deal flows in via vulnerable rail lines.
When Ukraine targets the Bridge, additional JASSM-As would simultaneously begin systematically destroying known fuel and ammunition depots in Crimea. Without sufficient ammunition and fuel, troops on the peninsula would have few options except surrender. The loss of the peninsula could in turn bring down Putin.
Assuming all the foregoing all happens, the United States needs a means to manage the “Fall of Putin.” That is a topic for another blog post.
Thus, the effective use of JASSMs by Ukraine could very well return Crimea to Ukraine and likely end the war.
In other news, if JASSMs did force a mass surrender of Soviet forces in Crimea, Xi Jinping might very well “postpone” his plans to invade Taiwan; adding further support to the observation of Justin Bronk that, “It is cheaper to deter a war than to win a war.” A thought for cost conscious President Trump.
