[Goose]

Sadly, I think our unwillingness to provide ATACMS to Russia is driven by the fact the President said we weren't going to do so early on in the war. Once he said that, doing so would be arguably "dishonest". The Russians would certainly look at it that way and would play it that way. I think we have convinced ourselves we can't go back on this "pledge", even though that undoubtedly was not what was intended by the statement at the time.

Unless there was some specific agreement such as "No nukes = no ATACMS" (which might be politically sensitive if it became public), it would be very easy to say, "Because of the evidence of war crimes against the citizens of Ukraine and the ongoing attack against the civilian power infrastructure, the US has reluctantly decided to remove the restrictions.  We simply can not stand by and watch these barbaric attacks launched from with Russia."

That might be reasonable if the ATACMS could stop, or even hinder, those attacks. It can't. The range isn't near long enough. It can destroy Russian logistics inside the occupied territories. That is where it mostly can be useful anyway. Almost noplace in Ukraine would be "safe" from such attacks.

UPDATE: Just to illustrate the above point. The following is from the ISW situation report from 16 December.

Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Valery Zaluzhny stated that Ukrainian air defenses shot down 60 of 76 Russian missiles, of which 72 were cruise missiles of the Kh-101, Kalibr, and Kh-22 types, and four guided missiles of the Kh-59 and Kh-31P types.

Ukrainian military officials noted that Russian forces launched most of their missiles from the Black and Caspian seas and the Engels airfield in Saratov Oblast.

Engels is about 300 miles from the Ukrainian border. The others are further. Obviously, none of those locations are in ATACMS range.

The more capable Russian cruise missiles have very long range capabilities. The cheap Iranian drones can be launched from anywhere and don't require infrastructure. There are a few worthwhile targets near Ukraine whose destruction would help a lot. However, at this point even these targets are slightly out of range. The Kerch bridge is probably 40 km too far from Ukrainian controlled territory. Rostov-on-Don is even further. Since Ukraine resorting to attacking the civilian Russian infrastructure is not an option, ATACMS has no role to play in stopping the current Russian attacks.

[Goose]

Sadly, I think our unwillingness to provide ATACMS to Russia is driven by the fact the President said we weren't going to do so early on in the war. Once he said that, doing so would be arguably "dishonest". The Russians would certainly look at it that way and would play it that way. I think we have convinced ourselves we can't go back on this "pledge", even though that undoubtedly was not what was intended by the statement at the time.

Unless there was some specific agreement such as "No nukes = no ATACMS" (which might be politically sensitive if it became public), it would be very easy to say, "Because of the evidence of war crimes against the citizens of Ukraine and the ongoing attack against the civilian power infrastructure, the US has reluctantly decided to remove the restrictions.  We simply can not stand by and watch these barbaric attacks launched from with Russia."

That might be reasonable if the ATACMS could stop, or even hinder, those attacks. It can't. The range isn't near long enough. It can destroy Russian logistics inside the occupied territories. That is where it mostly can be useful anyway. Almost noplace in Ukraine would be "safe" from such attacks.

UPDATE: Just to illustrate the above point. The following is from the ISW situation report from 16 December.

Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Valery Zaluzhny stated that Ukrainian air defenses shot down 60 of 76 Russian missiles, of which 72 were cruise missiles of the Kh-101, Kalibr, and Kh-22 types, and four guided missiles of the Kh-59 and Kh-31P types.

Ukrainian military officials noted that Russian forces launched most of their missiles from the Black and Caspian seas and the Engels airfield in Saratov Oblast.

Engels is about 300 miles from the Ukrainian border. The others are further. Obviously, none of those locations are in ATACMS range.

The more capable Russian cruise missiles have very long range capabilities. The cheap Iranian drones can be launched from anywhere and don't require infrastructure. There are a few worthwhile targets near Ukraine whose destruction would help a lot. However, at this point even these targets are slightly out of range. The Kerch bridge is probably 40 km too far from Ukrainian controlled territory. Rostov-on-Don is even further. Since Ukraine resorting to attacking the civilian Russian infrastructure is not an option, ATACMS has no role to play in stopping the current Russian attacks.