Options for Fielding 

Ground-Launched 

Long-Range Missiles

FEBRUARY 2020

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE
At a Glance

The Department of Defense (DoD) has expressed concern that potential 

adversaries such as Russia and China could prevent the United States from 

easily gaining air and naval superiority in future conflicts, which could hinder 

its ability to prosecute military campaigns in certain scenarios in the Baltic 

region or the South China Sea. The Congressional Budget Office identified 

several existing weapon systems that DoD could adapt relatively rapidly, at a 

cost of about $1 billion to $6 billion (in 2020 dollars) for seven batteries, to 

give U.S. ground forces some limited long-range capabilities in those scenarios: 

• Option 1: A Cruise Missile for Attacking Land Targets. DoD could 

procure and field a ground-launched Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile–

Extended Range (JASSM-ER). Option 1 has the lowest estimated up-front 

cost, $1.3 billion, of the four options CBO examined, but the JASSM-ER 

would have minimal value in either a South China Sea or a Baltic scenario.

• Option 2: An Antiship Cruise Missile. DoD could procure and field a 

ground-launched Long-Range Antiship Missile (LRASM) at an estimated 

up-front cost of $2.2 billion. The LRASM could be quite valuable in 

a South China Sea scenario but would have much less value in a Baltic 

scenario, where Russian naval forces present less of a threat.

• Option 3: An Air Defense Missile. DoD could procure and field a groundlaunched Standard Missile 6 (SM-6), as well as an air and missile defense 

radar for each battery, at an estimated up-front cost of $4.6 billion. The 

SM-6 could have some limited value in a South China Sea scenario, 

supplementing existing U.S. forces and assisting in defending allies. In a 

Baltic scenario, the SM-6 could provide significant value, denying Russian 

forces some advantages.

• Option 4: A Combination of Antiship and Air Defense Missiles. DoD 

could procure and field both a ground-launched LRASM and a groundlaunched SM-6 at an estimated up-front cost of $6.3 billion, the most 

expensive of the four options. Buying both missiles would provide longrange capabilities in both scenarios and would allow DoD to deploy a mix 

of missiles as appropriate: the LRASM in a South China Sea scenario and 

the SM-6 in both South China Sea and Baltic scenarios.

www.cbo.gov/publication/56068
1

2

Contents

Summary 1

Using Ground-Launched Long-Range Weapons to Address Potential Threats 1

Options for Ground-Launched Long-Range Weapons 1

Chapter 1: The Current Threat Environment 5

A2/AD Strategies and Asymmetric Warfare 5

Scenarios That Concern U.S. Defense Planners 9

BOX 1-1. THE KILL CHAIN 10

Existing Capabilities of U.S. Forces 13

BOX 1-2. THE RESILIENCE OF GROUND FORCES 15

Chapter 2: Options for Improving the Capabilities of U.S. Ground Forces 17

Elements Common to All Options 17

BOX 2-1. LAUNCHING LONG-RANGE MISSILES FROM THE GROUND 18

Option 1: Purchase a Ground-Launched Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile–Extended Range 20

Option 2: Purchase a Ground-Launched Long-Range Antiship Missile 21

Option 3: Purchase a Ground-Launched Standard Missile 6 23

Option 4: Purchase Both a Ground-Launched LRASM and an SM-6  27

Appendix: How CBO Developed Its Cost Estimates 29

Costs for Missiles and Radars 29

Costs for Ground Equipment 29

Annual Operation and Support Costs 29

List of Tables and Figures 30

About This Document 31
Notes

All years referred to in this report are federal fiscal years, which run from October 1 to 

September 30 and are designated by the calendar year in which they end.

Costs are expressed in 2020 dollars, adjusted for inflation with the Congressional Budget 

Office’s projection of the gross domestic product price index.

On the cover: A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptor test launch. Photo 

courtesy of the Department of Defense’s Missile Defense Agency.
Summary

In recent conflicts, the U.S. military has focused on 

rapidly establishing air and naval superiority. During 

the first Gulf War and operations against Serbia in the 

1990s, as well as during operations in Afghanistan and 

Iraq in the 2000s, the United States and its allies rapidly 

attained air superiority, which they then used in the fight 

against hostile forces on the ground.

For future conflicts, however, the Department of Defense 

(DoD) has expressed concern that potential opponents 

such as Russia and China could prevent the United 

States from easily gaining air and naval superiority, which 

could hinder its ability to prosecute military campaigns.1

In this report, the Congressional Budget Office examines 

some of the challenges U.S. forces might face in the current threat environment and the extent to which DoD 

could mitigate those challenges by procuring and fielding 

ground-based long-range missiles. Such missiles could 

counter the advantages that Russia and China have in 

certain scenarios and would be more difficult for them to 

suppress than air or naval assets. The missiles could also 

create some of the same challenges for potential adversaries that U.S. military planners currently face.

CBO identified several existing weapon systems that 

DoD could adapt to launch from the ground and could 

procure and field to give U.S. ground forces long-range 

capabilities: a cruise missile for attacking land targets, 

an antiship cruise missile, an air defense missile, or a 

combination of antiship and air defense missiles. By 

adapting missile systems already or soon to be in the 

U.S. military’s inventory, CBO estimates, DoD could 

acquire those ground-based capabilities relatively rapidly 

at an up-front cost of $1 billion to $6 billion, depending 

on the system. Of course, the Army or the Marine Corps 

could also develop and build new weapons specifically 

for those missions, but this report focuses on less costly, 

short-term solutions that are consistent with DoD’s goal 

of responding quickly to emerging threats.

1. See Department of Defense, Summary of the 2018 National 

Defense Strategy of the United States of America (2018), 

https://go.usa.gov/xV4SE (PDF, 434 KB).

Using Ground-Launched Long-Range 

Weapons to Address Potential Threats

Future conflicts with Russia or China could involve 

scenarios in which the United States and its allies would 

have difficulty achieving air and naval superiority. For 

this report, CBO examined two such possibilities: 

• A conflict with Russia in the Baltic region, and

• A conflict with China in the South China Sea. 

In both types of scenarios, the United States would face a 

much more technologically adept adversary than it has in 

recent conflicts. Because both China and Russia would 

be operating much closer to their own borders than the 

United States would be, they would have more options 

for projecting force than the United States would. As a 

result, either adversary could prevent the United States 

and its allies from securing air and naval superiority and 

impede their fight against hostile forces on the ground.

To address such scenarios, the United States could 

increase its capability to launch conventional missiles 

from the ground, which it could use to disrupt its opponents’ operations even without air and naval superiority. 

The ground forces launching those missiles would be 

more difficult for a technologically sophisticated adversary to destroy than air and naval forces, because ground 

forces are often dug in and dispersed over a wide area. 

Although U.S. ground forces do not currently operate 

any of the ground-launched missiles examined in this 

report, those missiles have all been, or will soon be, 

fielded by other U.S. military services and would require 

only modest changes to be launched by ground forces. 

Options for Ground-Launched 

Long-Range Weapons

CBO examined four options that DoD could pursue to 

provide U.S. ground forces with ground-launched longrange weapons. For each option, CBO assumed that the 

Army would field seven batteries of missile launchers and 

purchase 550 missiles of the relevant missile type. The 
2 Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles February 2020

batteries would be comparable in size and mobility to 

the existing seven batteries of the Terminal High Altitude 

Area Defense (THAAD) missile system. In addition, 

the Army would need to integrate all the missiles with 

broader U.S. systems for detecting and engaging targets 

at long range, and it would need to procure air and missile defense radars for options that include such missiles. 

The operating costs for all four options would be roughly 

the same because each would provide for seven batteries 

of about the same size, but up-front costs to purchase the 

specific missiles and radars would differ (see Summary 

Table 1).

Option 1: A Cruise Missile for Attacking Land Targets

In Option 1, DoD would procure and field a groundlaunched Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile–Extended 

Range (JASSM-ER). The Air Force’s air-launched 

JASSM-ER, an extended-range version of its JASSM, is 

already in production. A cruise missile with low-observable 

features—making it stealthy and difficult to detect—the 

JASSM-ER is intended to strike fixed ground targets. A 

ground-launched JASSM-ER would need a booster motor 

added to accelerate it to an appropriate speed and altitude. 

CBO estimates that this option would have the lowest 

up-front cost, $1.3 billion (in 2020 dollars), of the four 

options it examined. In the agency’s assessment, however, 

the ground-launched JASSM-ER would have minimal 

incremental value in either a South China Sea or a Baltic 

scenario. Army ground forces could strike valuable 

land targets with JASSM-ERs in both scenarios, but 

air-launched JASSM-ERs could also strike those same 

targets because U.S. aircraft could launch their missiles 

from outside the range of the adversary’s air defenses. 

Although a ground-launched option might add value as 

a deterrent or reduce the workload of air-launched missiles, it would only supplement existing capabilities.

Option 2: An Antiship Cruise Missile

In Option 2, DoD would procure and field a groundlaunched Long-Range Antiship Missile (LRASM). The 

Air Force and the Navy already have an air-launched 

LRASM; it is a variant of the JASSM-ER, but it has a 

different seeker that allows it to find and strike ships 

rather than hit fixed ground targets. To make the missile 

capable of being launched from a ship, the Navy is developing an LRASM variant with a booster motor attached. 

A ship-launched LRASM could also be launched by 

ground forces.

Option 2 would have an up-front cost of $2.2 billion, 

CBO estimates. Ground-launched LRASMs could be 

quite valuable in a South China Sea scenario, possibly 

denying Chinese forces the ability to operate surface 

warships in the area or blockading Chinese commercial 

shipping. Ground-launched LRASMs would have much 

less value in a Baltic scenario because Russian naval 

forces present less of a threat there.

Option 3: An Air Defense Missile

In Option 3, DoD would procure and field a groundlaunched Standard Missile 6 (SM-6), as well as an air 

and missile defense radar for each battery. The SM-6 is 

a Navy surface-to-air missile that can destroy aircraft, 

Summary Table 1.

Ground-Launched Missile Options

Up-Front Cost 

(Billions of 

2020 dollars)

Annual Cost 

(Millions of 

2020 dollars)

Missile Range 

(Kilometers) Intended Target

Value in South 

China Sea 

Scenarios

Value in Baltic 

Scenarios

Option 1: JASSM-ER 1.3 300 925 Static ground targets Minimal Minimal

Option 2: LRASM 2.2 300 600a Ships Significant Minimal

Option 3: SM-6 4.6 300 240 Aircraft, missiles Limited Significant

Option 4: LRASM and SM-6 6.3 300 600a and 240 Ships, aircraft, missiles Significant Significant

Source: Congressional Budget Office.

JASSM-ER = Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile–Extended Range; LRASM = Long-Range Antiship Missile; SM-6 = Standard Missile 6.

a. The exact range of the LRASM has not been publicly disclosed. For this analysis, CBO used a notional range of 600 km, roughly the midpoint 

between the publicly disclosed lower bound of the missile (370 km) and the range of the JASSM-ER on which it is based.
SUMMARY Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles 3

cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles. Designed to be 

launched from a warship, the SM-6 is already capable of 

being launched by ground forces.

By CBO’s estimate, Option 3 would have an up-front 

cost of $4.6 billion. Ground-launched SM-6s would 

not have a long enough range to fully prevent Chinese 

air forces from operating in the South China Sea, but 

they could supplement existing U.S. forces and assist in 

defending allies. Ground-launched SM-6s could, however, deny Russian air forces some advantages in a Baltic 

scenario.

Option 4: A Combination of Antiship and 

Air Defense Missiles

In Option 4, DoD would procure and field both a 

ground-launched LRASM and a ground-launched SM-6. 

Although Option 4 would be the most expensive option, 

with an estimated up-front cost of $6.3 billion, buying 

both missiles would provide long-range capabilities in 

both scenarios and would allow DoD to deploy a mix 

of missiles as appropriate: the LRASM in a South China 

Sea scenario and the SM-6 in both South China Sea and 

Baltic scenarios.

CHAPTER

1

Chapter 1: The Current Threat Environment 

The United States has relied heavily on its air and sea 

forces in conflicts since World War II, and its ground 

forces have almost always possessed air superiority. That 

superiority comes both from the Air Force and from 

U.S. naval forces, which include aircraft carriers and 

their associated air wings and battle groups and, in more 

modern times, cruise missiles fired from submarines and 

surface combatants.

Currently, the most demanding planning scenarios envisioned by the Department of Defense involve conflicts 

with Russia and China. Both countries have invested 

heavily in weapon systems that could prevent the United 

States from freely using its potent air and naval forces 

in areas near their borders. Those weapons, collectively 

referred to as antiaccess and area-denial (A2/AD) systems, aim to nullify the strengths of the United States 

in the air and at sea and exploit its dependence on those 

domains to project power. 

If U.S. ground forces had new long-range weapon systems, they would be more capable of operating without 

air and naval support in hostile threat environments 

against Russia and China and could also assist U.S. air 

and naval forces. Those weapons might also allow U.S. 

ground forces to challenge Russian and Chinese A2/AD 

systems and deny them their objectives, even in the 

absence of U.S. air and naval superiority. Such capabilities could reduce the effectiveness of attacks on U.S. 

air and naval forces, help counter enemy strategies, and 

bolster deterrence in both regions.

Currently, the U.S. military’s ground-launched missile capabilities are limited, in both the type and the 

range of the weapon systems used. In this report, the 

Congressional Budget Office examines several near-term 

options for expanding those capabilities with longerrange missiles, which would give U.S. ground forces 

more opportunities to contribute in the scenarios that 

DoD envisions.

A2/AD Strategies and Asymmetric Warfare

The United States relies on the strength of its air and 

naval platforms, which have sophisticated munitions 

designed to devastate opponents’ air and naval forces 

and then conduct strikes and support U.S. ground 

forces. A2/AD strategies against the United States rely on 

long-range air defense and antiship missiles to reduce its 

advantage in those areas, rendering it less able to establish air and naval superiority and to support U.S. ground 

forces or strike key targets. Such strategies are a form of 

what is known as asymmetric warfare.1 For the past two 

decades, that term has been most commonly used to 

describe insurgencies carried out through guerrilla warfare.2

 In a broader sense, however, the term refers to warfare conducted in ways that prevent an opponent from 

capitalizing on its particular strengths—such as when a 

U.S. adversary favors guerrilla action over open battle.

Asymmetric strategies are intended to be difficult for 

existing U.S. forces to counter, making “more of the 

same” responses less effective. For example, although 

a larger Navy would be more capable of dealing with 

antiship missile threats, deploying a larger force would be 

a relatively ineffective response compared with responses 

that would be less vulnerable to those antiship missiles. 

Responses that exploit an opponent’s vulnerabilities are 

generally preferable. For example, U.S. antiship missiles 

would be a relatively effective response against Chinese 

antiship missiles intended to deny U.S. ships the ability 

to contest the South China Sea and prevent Chinese 

ships from operating there.

Although the United States often describes the combat 

methods of opponents and potential opponents as asymmetric warfare, from an external perspective it practices 

1. In particular, the United States has concentrated much of its 

ability to project power in aircraft carriers and their battle groups. 

U.S. defense planners have long been concerned about the 

vulnerability of aircraft carriers to attack, which could be a key 

factor in any hypothetical conflict.

2. See the RAND Corporation’s research on asymmetric warfare at 

www.rand.org/topics/asymmetric-warfare.html.
6 Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles February 2020

asymmetric warfare as well. It has invested heavily in air 

and naval forces because it prefers to use its economic 

and technological strength against hostile ground forces 

rather than engage in large-scale, protracted battles of 

attrition against opponents with relatively large numbers 

of troops and recruits (such as Japan or Germany during 

World War II, China during the Korean War, North 

Vietnam during the Vietnam War, or the Soviet Union 

in any potential conflict in central Europe during the 

Cold War). In more recent decades, the United States has 

routinely capitalized on its ability to freely use cruise missile strikes, air strikes, and remotely piloted aerial vehicle 

strikes against opponents with limited or no air defenses.

Much like guerrilla warfare, A2/AD strategies are 

intended to be difficult for existing U.S. systems to 

counter. A2/AD strategies that pose significant challenges 

to U.S. forces involve long-range surface-to-air missiles, 

long-range antiship missiles, land-attack cruise missiles, 

ballistic missiles, and those missiles’ sensor and command 

and control systems. Especially when combined, longrange air defense and antiship systems can prevent U.S. 

forces from accessing a theater (that is, from accessing 

the ports, air bases, and other infrastructure they need to 

project power) and from using broad areas of the theater 

for military operations (area denial).

Long-Range Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (SAMs)

Russia has widely exported its latest air defense systems, the S-300/400 family; China’s major systems are 

largely domestic versions of the same technology. Both 

systems combine multiple types of advanced radars 

with multiple types of long-range SAMs, all mounted 

on mobile platforms, and some integrate shorter-range 

(point-defense) systems as well. Russia’s longest-range 

missiles purportedly can reach 400 kilometers (km), 

or roughly 250 miles, although those missiles have not 

been produced, fielded, or exported as widely as missiles 

with ranges between 150 km (95 miles) and 200 km 

(125 miles).

Traditionally, the tactics the United States uses to suppress enemy air defenses (SEAD missions) combine two 

types of weapons carried by aircraft. Extended-range 

antiradiation missiles (ARMs) lock onto signals from 

air defense radars and attempt to destroy them. Shorterrange direct-attack weapons are usually cluster munitions that disperse many smaller bomblets over an area 

to destroy soft targets (targets that are not protected or 

armored and therefore are easy to destroy with small 

munitions).

Aircraft engaged in SEAD missions approach hostile air 

defenses at low altitude, using ground terrain to avoid 

being detected by radar, and then fire their ARMs at 

hostile radars from an extended range. Defenders must 

choose whether to continue to use their radars—and risk 

having them destroyed by the ARMs—or to power them 

down, leaving the air defense system unable to find and 

engage targets. Powering down also leaves the air defenses 

in a vulnerable position because attacking aircraft know 

the location of the radars and can use direct-attack 

weapons to strike them, as well as any missile launchers or 

command and control sites they can locate, with relatively 

low risk of retaliation. 

The United States has developed significant expertise 

in SEAD tactics since the Vietnam War and has repeatedly improved the technical systems needed to use them 

successfully (including ARMs, extended-range cluster 

munitions, advanced sensors to detect hostile radars, 

and low-observable aircraft). Many of those successes, 

however, have been against opponents with older and 

less advanced air defense technologies, such as Iraq and 

Libya. Against a more sophisticated opponent, such as 

Serbia during the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 

(NATO’s) Operation Allied Force in 1999, the U.S.-led 

air campaign suppressed but never completely destroyed 

the air defenses. 

Since the Soviet era, Russian forces have treated air 

defense as a critical need and have focused their designs 

on deflecting U.S. attacks. The long range of Russian 

SAMs allows their A2/AD systems to threaten SEAD 

aircraft before they are close enough to their targets to 

fire their ARMs. Because the SAMs are mobile, they can 

disperse and change positions, making a direct attack 

more difficult, particularly from long-range weapons with 

lengthy flight times. In addition, point-defense systems 

capable of shooting down incoming munitions may blunt 

the effects of ARMs or standoff cluster munition attacks.3

Russian air defenses include a variety of radars operating 

in different frequency ranges, making low-observable 

aircraft easier to detect. Suppressing such a system would 

3. Standoff weapons are missiles or bombs that are launched at a 

distance sufficient to allow attacking personnel to evade defensive 

fire from the target area.
CHAPTER 1: THE CURRENT THREAT ENVIRONMENT Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles 7

involve more risk, difficulty, and time than SEAD 

campaigns the United States has previously undertaken. 

At the same time, the long range of those systems could 

threaten U.S. air operations across much of any potential theater, especially if the conflict included enemy 

fighter aircraft, attacks on U.S. air bases in the theater, 

and potential attacks on U.S. aerial refueling tankers 

operating close to defended airspace, all of which could 

prevent U.S. aircraft from engaging freely in many types 

of missions.

Air warfare has a relatively straightforward attrition 

logic: If it is sustained for long enough, almost any level 

of aircraft loss can render air forces incapable of combat. Modern aircraft cannot be replaced fast enough for 

replacement to be relevant in the potential high-end 

conflicts with Russia or China envisioned today, and 

the level of attrition that makes air forces incapable of 

combat is low enough that effective use of air forces 

requires complete or near complete air superiority. In 

other words, modern air forces cannot operate for any 

extended period of time in the face of effective defenses.4

For that reason, even if ground-based air defenses do not 

successfully shoot down many aircraft, they can seriously 

complicate and protract air operations by forcing SEAD 

missions to continue for extended periods of time, tying 

up many aircraft that could otherwise be used for other 

missions.5

Long-Range Antiship Missiles (ASMs)

Most modern ASMs are cruise missiles—that is, they 

have internal jet engines and fuel supplies; they fly 

horizontally, much like conventional airplanes; they can 

4. The most common way to think of attrition logic is to posit 

aircraft as having risk p per unit of time of being destroyed. The 

fraction of the force that will remain combat effective at some 

future point in time is then modeled as (1-p)^units of time. The 

compounding nature of this attrition is dramatic because modern 

aircraft may easily fly two combat sorties per day. If they face a 

1 percent risk of loss on each sortie, two-thirds of the force would 

be lost within three weeks. Such logic—that even a 1 percent 

risk of loss on each sortie is unsustainable—dictates that modern 

air forces, which typically have a relatively small number of 

technically sophisticated aircraft, cannot operate in the face of 

meaningful air defenses for any extended time.

5. For a discussion of the challenges associated with conducting 

a broader air campaign while also conducting a SEAD 

campaign, see Daniel Baltrusaitis, “Quest for the High Ground: 

The Development of SEAD Strategy” (thesis, School of 

Advanced Airpower Studies, Maxwell Air Force Base, 1997), 

https://go.usa.gov/xygQ4 (PDF, 458 KB).

be launched from a variety of platforms; and their ranges 

can extend to several hundred kilometers. Traditional 

cruise missiles fly at subsonic speeds and typically carry 

their own radar seekers to detect ships. More modern 

cruise missiles fly at supersonic speeds and can accept 

targeting information from other platforms but still have 

their own seekers. An advanced Chinese weapon system that has captured much attention, the DF-21, may 

combine a ballistic missile’s speed, range, and ability to 

penetrate defenses with the ability to target ships. The 

DF-21D is credited with a range of about 1,500 km 

(930 miles) and a flight time of about 10 minutes.

There has been relatively little actual combat with ASMs, 

so it is not well understood how modern naval combat 

with large numbers of warships and cruise missiles would 

occur in any hypothetical scenario (although the United 

States was deeply concerned about Soviet ASMs during 

the Cold War). There is, however, a rough but generally 

accepted theoretical framework for how ASM attacks on 

naval platforms would play out. 

ASMs can acquire, hit, and destroy naval vessels if they 

have useful targeting information; even a single ASM 

hit can inflict enormous damage. Although few nations 

possess many warships—the U.S. fleet is the largest 

with about 300—ASMs are comparatively cheap and 

can be purchased and fielded in much larger numbers. 

Defenses against ASMs can and do fail, and naval vessels 

engaged in combat with them face both “leakage” and 

“saturation.” Leakage occurs when many ASMs are fired 

against imperfect defenses, because it is always possible 

for at least one ASM to penetrate those defenses and 

cause damage. Saturation refers to the finite capacity of 

even a perfect defense system to engage incoming ASMs, 

because it is possible to fire more ASMs than that system 

can engage. Thus, although the effectiveness of modern 

ASMs against modern warships is not known, the mere 

presence of many ASMs and an effective targeting system 

would probably preclude surface warships from operating in a theater within range of those ASMs.

In planning to counter ASMs, the United States has 

focused on attacking their targeting systems. However, 

Russia and China have fielded a range of sensors that can 

acquire targets, including airborne systems, long-range 

and over-the-horizon radars, and satellite-based sensors, 

making it more complicated for the United States to 

target them. Suppressing satellite-based sensors would 

be difficult because the United States has signed treaties 
8 Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles February 2020

banning the use of weapons in space, and it depends 

on satellites to such a degree that attacking an adversary’s assets in space could have many disadvantages. In 

addition, ground-launched ASMs may not emit easily 

detectable sensor signals because they rely on external 

targeting systems rather than their own sensors; they can 

also be mounted on trucks to take advantage of terrain 

and camouflage. In naval scenarios such as a potential 

conflict in the South China Sea, the credible threat of 

ASM attack could prevent U.S. surface warships and 

carrier strike groups from accessing the theater.

Land-Attack Cruise Missiles (LACMs) and 

Ballistic Missiles

Modern land-attack missiles like the ones that Russia 

and China have fielded can be either cruise or ballistic 

missiles launched from a variety of platforms.6 Each has 

its own technical advantages. In general, such missiles 

are difficult, but not impossible, to defend against and 

are best suited to attacking a relatively small number of 

high-value, immobile land targets.7 LACMs are typically 

not considered a major threat to ground forces in the 

field because those forces are mobile and usually highly 

dispersed, and attacking them effectively would require 

far more missiles than any potential opponent could 

afford. LACMs can effectively attack critical infrastructure, however, such as air bases, supply depots, or 

command and control sites, and they can attack civilian 

targets—a tactic some analysts believe China might use 

in a conflict over Taiwan.

In some scenarios, effective use of land-attack missiles 

could significantly impair the U.S. military’s operations. 

In the Pacific, the United States relies on a relatively 

small number of air bases that lack thick concrete aircraft 

hangars and secure storage areas for fuel and weapons. 

A large-scale Chinese ballistic missile attack on those 

air bases could destroy U.S. aircraft on the ground, and 

repeated attacks over the course of a conflict could curtail 

6. Ballistic missiles are named for their ballistic trajectory; rocket 

motors propel them up along a predictable, parabolic path, and 

gravity brings them back down.

7. Although such missiles can carry nuclear warheads, this study 

focuses on nonnuclear missiles. The use of nuclear weapons 

would vastly complicate the scenarios examined in this report 

because they would signal a significant escalation in a conflict. 

That latent nuclear threat exists in any conflict with Russia or 

China, but the point at which U.S. actions would lead to the use 

of nuclear weapons is unknown.

or disrupt U.S. operations from those bases. Similarly, 

in a high-end ground conflict with Russian forces in the 

Baltics, U.S. ground forces would require massive logistical support involving large fuel, supply, and ammunition 

depots and accessible ports for their delivery. Attacks on 

logistics sites could severely degrade the ability of U.S. 

ground forces to sustain effective combat operations.

Like ASM defenses, effective LACM defenses cannot 

escape the problems of leakage and saturation. Unlike 

leakage of ASMs, however, the leakage of a few conventionally armed land-attack missiles does not usually 

cause massive damage. A single ASM can destroy a 

warship, but a single LACM is unlikely to neutralize a 

ground target. The United States often uses dozens of 

cruise missiles to attack a single site; the 2017 strike 

on Syria’s Shayrat Airbase, for example, involved about 

60 Tomahawk cruise missiles. Ground targets are typically more dispersed than warships, and they are more 

resilient: It is easier to fight fires on land, sinking is not 

a danger, and concrete is inexpensive and can absorb 

explosive blasts effectively. As a result, LACMs cannot 

prevent U.S. ground forces from operating in a theater in 

the same way that SAMs or ASMs can prevent U.S. air 

or naval forces from doing so. In both Operation Desert 

Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, U.S. ground forces 

operated in theaters under active ballistic missile threats.

Enabling and Supporting Systems

Long-range weapons like SAMs, ASMs, and LACMs 

require extensive support from sensors to detect and 

track targets and from communications and command 

infrastructure to provide information about those targets 

to decisionmakers and weapon platforms. The U.S. 

military often describes all the steps involved in effectively using a weapon—from searching for targets to 

assessing battle damage after an attack—as a kill chain 

(see Box 1-1).

Although some types of antiaccess weapons combine 

sensors, command and control, and weapons into a 

single platform or relatively compact unit (such as a ship 

with its own radar, commander, and missile battery), 

such systems often use distributed sensors and weapon 

platforms to achieve maximum effects. For example, 

although the most modern Russian SAMs have their own 

radars to detect and track targets, they rely on additional 
CHAPTER 1: THE CURRENT THREAT ENVIRONMENT Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles 9

sensors—such as aircraft with airborne early warning 

radars—to extend their range.8

Both Russia and China have extensive networks of 

sensors, including radar satellites, imaging satellites, 

airborne early warning aircraft, and air defense radar 

networks, that help them use their weapon systems effectively. With less technologically advanced opponents, the 

United States has often attempted to destroy the sensors 

that supply information to A2/AD weapon systems, thus 

reducing their utility. With more advanced opponents 

whose sensors are more sophisticated, however, such 

operations are less likely to be fully successful.

Scenarios That Concern 

U.S. Defense Planners

Two types of scenarios are of particular interest in planning the U.S. military’s defense against A2/AD systems: 

those involving the Baltic region and the South China Sea.

Baltic Scenarios

In Baltic scenarios, it is assumed that Russia attacks 

one or more of the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and 

Lithuania). Although many versions of such a conflict 

are possible, they can be broadly divided into fast scenarios, in which Russian military forces cross the border and 

make a rapid push to seize and hold terrain, and slow 

scenarios, in which Russian aggression is less overt—

through the use of local proxy forces, or “little green 

men,” as in the conflict with Ukraine.9

8. Radar, like visible light, has a horizon below which it cannot 

detect targets. Because of the curvature of the earth, at long 

ranges this horizon increasingly restricts radar’s ability to detect 

targets below a certain altitude, and that altitude increases with 

distance. Airborne radars, because of their high elevation, have a 

much lower horizon than ground-level radars. NATO describes 

the range of its airborne warning and control system (AWACS) 

aircraft radars against low-flying targets as 400 km (250 miles) 

from normal cruising altitude, a value that agrees with calculated 

values. See North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “NATO AWACS 

Surveillance Aircraft Support to the Counter ISIL Coalition” 

(fact sheet, February 2017), https://tinyurl.com/yxdx26hj. For 

comparison, a ground radar would typically be able to detect 

low-flying targets from no more than 40 km to 50 km (25 miles 

to 30 miles) away.

9. The term “little green men” has become a shorthand reference 

for a purported style of Russian infiltration and destabilization of 

its neighbors through plausibly deniable means. See U.S. Army 

Special Operations Command, “Little Green Men”: A Primer on 

Modern Russian Unconventional Warfare, Ukraine 2013–2014 

(2016), https://tinyurl.com/y2wdcvjo (PDF, 8.78 MB).

In fast scenarios, Russian forces would use their proximity to the Baltic capital cities, access to Belarussian 

territory, and the very limited presence of NATO forces 

to quickly overrun the Baltic states. NATO would either 

have to accept Russian aggression as successful and 

establish a new status quo or mount a counterattack to 

liberate the Baltic states from Russian forces.

A variety of factors, including the geography of the Baltic 

theater and the types of Russian forces present there, 

would make it difficult for NATO to defend, or counterattack into, the Baltic states:

• The small size of the Baltic states, their proximity to 

Russia, the Kaliningrad exclave (the noncontiguous 

portion of Russian territory on the Baltic between 

Lithuania and Poland), and Belarussian alignment 

with Russia make the Baltic states easily accessible to 

Russian ground forces but not to other NATO states 

(see Figure 1-1 on page 12). Russia could fire longrange land-attack missiles at almost any NATO target 

of interest in the theater.

• Attempting to use NATO’s naval assets in the Baltic 

Sea would be very risky. Russia has significant ASM 

capabilities, and the Baltic Sea is relatively small and 

enclosed, offering NATO’s naval forces limited ability 

to maneuver away from that ASM threat.

• The Baltic states do not have large military forces, and 

no major NATO forces are permanently stationed 

there. The United States has recently been rotating 

battalion-sized units into the Baltics as a deterrent, 

but those forces could not halt a major Russian 

ground offensive.

• Russian air defenses, including those in the 

Kaliningrad enclave and outside Saint Petersburg, 

cover the entire theater, and the Kaliningrad defenses 

could threaten much of Poland’s airspace as well 

(Figure 1-1 on page 12). Using NATO’s airpower 

in support of its ground forces would be dangerous 

until NATO forces could conduct a successful 

SEAD campaign against Russian air defenses. But 

such a campaign would probably require strikes on 

Russian territory, which Russia could view as highly 

escalatory. 

• Russian and Soviet forces have traditionally used 

heavy but less accurate artillery fires to damage 
10 Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles February 2020

opposing ground forces. In the conflict with Ukraine, 

however, Russian forces used remotely piloted 

aerial vehicles and other intelligence, surveillance, 

and reconnaissance assets to direct their artillery 

much more precisely, causing extensive damage to 

the Ukrainian forces. In a Baltic conflict, NATO 

ground forces would probably also incur significant 

casualties unless NATO forces could prevent Russia 

from using those assets and present their own robust 

counterbattery capability.10

10. Counterbattery fire refers to the use of artillery systems to 

attack an opponent’s artillery systems. U.S. artillery is equipped 

A fast scenario—in which Russian forces rapidly seize 

the Baltic states and NATO mounts a counterattack to 

liberate them—thus poses many military challenges. 

Russia’s long-range air defenses and ASMs would greatly 

inhibit the ability of NATO’s air or naval forces to assist 

in the campaign. NATO’s air forces would be required to 

first begin a challenging SEAD campaign (which might 

with specialized radars that can detect artillery projectiles in 

midair, calculate the position those shells originated from, and 

transmit that information to artillery firing batteries, which 

would typically respond by quickly firing rockets at those firing 

positions.

Box 1-1.

The Kill Chain

In modern military operations, the kill chain refers to the full 

sequence of actions between finding targets and confirming 

their destruction. The term can describe many types of engagement, including some civilian ones. The overarching idea is 

that using any weapon system effectively involves identifying 

targets, determining their precise location, deciding to engage 

them with a particular weapon, gathering information from 

internal and external sensors before attacking, using the 

weapon system, and assessing the effects after its use.

In the context of relatively simple engagements, such as an 

infantry firefight, the steps in the kill chain may happen very 

rapidly, with little coordination between different parts of 

the force. For example, an infantryman sees possible enemy 

combatants, observes their location and behavior, and uses 

suppressive rifle fire while alerting the squad leader. With longrange weapons such as antiaccess and area-denial (A2/AD) 

systems, however, the entire kill chain may require different 

systems to perform several complex steps in coordination. 

Crucially, interfering with an attacker at any step along the 

kill chain can impede its ability to effectively use its weapons. 

The farther away the target, the more effective such interference can be. For example, an attack on a hostile ship might 

rely on radar satellites to alert military commanders to the 

presence of a hostile ship as a potential target. Aircraft with 

radar would confirm the ship’s location and identity and track 

it as commanders decide whether to launch antiship missiles 

from ground launchers within range of the location the aircraft 

provided. If so, the missiles would be launched and fly to their 

targets, and commanders would use sensors to determine if 

they achieved the desired effect or if a subsequent engagement, such as a second attack, was necessary. If that ship had 

not been detected in the first place, if its position could not be 

confirmed or it could not be tracked, if commanders could not 

agree to engage it, if they lacked suitable weapons, or if the 

attack left the commanders unaware that subsequent engagement would be needed, the ship would survive.

In general, U.S. military doctrine prefers to disrupt attacks 

against U.S. forces as early in the kill chain as possible. U.S. 

warships, for example, have point-defense guns intended to 

shoot down incoming antiship missiles, but those are viewed 

as last-resort weapons. Instead, the Navy prefers to operate 

its ships so that they are as difficult to detect and target as 

possible—for example, by remaining far from potential threats, 

curtailing the use of communication systems or active sensors 

like radars that would reveal their position, striking with longrange weapons and aircraft, and using submarines.

One influential idea among many U.S. military professionals is 

that the best way to blunt the effect of hostile A2/AD systems 

is to aggressively attack the entire kill chain that enables 

the use of those systems. In that view, although it would be 

almost impossible to destroy all hostile antiship missile ground 

launchers, such an action would be unnecessary and pointless 

as long as all the sensors that fed them useful targeting information could be attacked. Such sensors might also be fewer in 

number and easier to target, and having had “their eyes shot 

out,” the remaining missiles would present a minimal threat 

to U.S. forces.1 The United States has achieved success with 

this approach—for example, with the suppression of enemy air 

defenses (SEAD) campaign in Operation Desert Storm, which 

1. For an exposition of this point of view that describes a plan of operations 

with an explicit blinding campaign against opposing sensors and networks, 

see Jan van Tol and others, AirSea Battle: A Point-of-Departure Operational 

Concept (Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2010), 

https://tinyurl.com/y3v9np4q (PDF, 4.59 MB).

Continued
CHAPTER 1: THE CURRENT THREAT ENVIRONMENT Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles 11

require striking targets on Russian territory) against one 

of the most sophisticated hostile air defense systems in 

the world. NATO’s ground forces would be required 

to begin a ground campaign with their logistical and 

command and control nodes threatened by Russian 

land-attack missiles, without the benefit of full command 

of the air. In some cases, NATO’s ground forces might 

themselves be exposed to Russian air attack or powerful 

Russian artillery strikes.

But Russia would also face significant difficulties. If 

NATO chose to strike targets in Russia with cruise missiles, for example, Russian forces would need to defend 

a very large territory against those strikes. If NATO 

forces established air superiority, its ground forces would 

probably prevail over Russian ground forces in direct 

combat. And although Russia has long invested heavily 

in artillery systems, the United States has long invested 

heavily in counterbattery systems. According to some 

reports, Russia perceives the possibility of NATO cruise 

missile attacks or land invasions as sufficiently worrisome 

to consider using nuclear weapons to deter them.11

11. See Scott Boston and Dara Massicot, The Russian Way of Warfare: 

A Primer (RAND Corporation, 2017), www.rand.org/pubs/

perspectives/PE231.html; and Thomas R. McCabe, “The Russian 

Perception of the NATO Aerospace Threat,” Air and Space Power 

Journal, vol. 30, no. 3 (Fall 2016), https://tinyurl.com/y2q49aa8

(PDF, 206 KB). The possible use of nuclear weapons makes any 

conflict between any two nuclear-capable countries highly risky 

and dangerous, although most nuclear countries have official 

policies and doctrines forswearing the use of nuclear weapons for 

conventional warfare. It is unclear how true that is for current 

Russian nuclear policy, particularly if Russian territory was under 

attack. The same risks exist with China in a South China Sea 

scenario. The presence of nuclear weapons makes conflicts like 

the ones in the scenarios that CBO examined complex, even if 

nuclear weapons are never used or brandished. For that reason, 

some analysts argue that large-scale conventional conflicts like the 

ones in DoD’s scenarios are unlikely.

prioritized air defense radars and command sites rather than 

surface-to-air missile launcher sites.

Other U.S. military professionals warn that kill-chain disruption 

may not be feasible against a large, competent opponent such 

as Russia or China.2 Both of those potential opponents, for 

example, may have radar satellites capable of locating naval 

targets in the near future.3 Attacking those satellites could be 

viewed as highly escalatory and could expand a conflict into 

space, where the United States also has many assets that are 

potentially vulnerable to attack.4 Similarly, attacking command sites within Russia or China could be considered highly 

2. In recent years, U.S. planners have debated about air-sea battles, 

associated with kill-chain disruption, versus multidomain battles, the idea 

that against near-peer competitors the United States will need to defeat 

enemies in multiple domains and will not be able to rely on a blinding 

campaign. See, for example, the discussion of defeating enemies in armed 

conflict in U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Multi-Domain Battle: 

Evolution of Combined Arms for the 21st Century (2017), section 3-5, https://

go.usa.gov/xyPzN (PDF, 2.23 MB).

3. The purpose and status of some current Chinese and Russian satellites are 

unclear. China has radar satellites with ostensibly civilian missions currently 

in orbit. Russia does not, but it has developed and launched several series 

of radar satellites in the past and is developing another series.

4. There has also been speculation about the vulnerability of the United States 

to a potential surprise attack on its space and cyber assets (sometimes 

called Space Pearl Harbor or Cyber Pearl Harbor), which could affect its kill 

chain and which it might view as highly escalatory.

escalatory; moreover, large and competent opponents typically 

have more robust command structures with more redundancy.

Although the United States has invested in robust sensors and 

communications links that allow U.S. forces to gather much 

information about theaters of operations and effectively use a 

wide range of weapons against them, the long-range missile 

options considered in this report would all require some additional elements to fully enable their own kill chains: 

• Air and missile defense weapons would need their own 

radars, capable of acquiring and tracking targets. Even 

when those systems were expected to engage targets 

beyond the range or horizon of their own radars, an organic 

ability to detect targets would be useful for self-defense as 

well as to minimize the burden placed on other assets.

• All long-range weapon systems would require integration 

with the larger sensor networks that the United States 

employs. For example, in a South China Sea scenario, longrange ground-launched weapons would need to be able to 

accept targeting information from Navy aircraft. Fortunately, 

many of those systems already exist today. The Navy has a 

communications network through which one Navy aircraft, 

such as an E-2D Hawkeye, can direct the fire of other Navy 

aircraft or ships. In addition, those sensors and networks 

would need to be in appropriate locations for long-range 

ground-based systems to be effective.

Box 1-1. Continued

The Kill Chain
12 Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles February 2020

South China Sea Scenarios

In South China Sea scenarios, it is usually assumed that 

China attempts to use its possession of disputed islands 

(in particular, the Paracel and Spratly Islands, as well 

as Scarborough Shoal) in the South China Sea to exert 

control over neighboring states that are allied with the 

United States. In such an event, either China or the 

United States could initiate armed conflict. Some observers have suggested that China could initiate a strong surprise attack to cripple U.S. military bases in the western 

Pacific with ballistic and cruise missiles; conflict could 

also arise if a country such as the Philippines or Vietnam 

asked the United States for aid during a crisis with 

China.12 Conflicts over control of the South China Sea 

would most likely involve control of the disputed islands 

12. See Sam Goldsmith, “U.S. Conventional Access Strategy: 

Denying China a Conventional First-Strike Capability,” 

Naval War College Review, vol. 72, no. 2 (Spring 2019), 

https://tinyurl.com/y3ndkv38; and David C. Gompert, Astrid 

Stuth Cevallos, and Cristina L. Garafola, War With China: 

Thinking Through the Unthinkable (RAND Corporation, 2016), 

www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1140.html.

Figure 1-1.

Approximate Range of Russian Air Defenses in the Baltic Region

250 mi

600 kilometers

Hungary

Latvia

Lithuania

Luxembourg

Moldova

Netherlands

Norway

Poland

Romania

Kaliningrad, Russia

Russia

Serbia Bosnia and

Herzegovina

Slovakia

Slovenia

Sweden

Baltic

Sea

North

Sea

Black

Sea

Norwegian

Sea

Switzerland

Ukraine

Austria

Belarus

Belgium

Croatia

Czechia

Denmark

Estonia

Finland

France

Italy

Germany

Source: Congressional Budget Office.
CHAPTER 1: THE CURRENT THREAT ENVIRONMENT Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles 13

in the region, as well as the degree to which U.S. and 

Chinese forces could prevent each other from operating 

effectively within the theater.

A combination of many factors, including the geography 

of the South China Sea theater and the types of Chinese 

forces located there, would make any conflict in the 

region challenging for the United States:

• China currently exercises de facto control over 

several of the disputed islands and has been rapidly 

converting them into military outposts capable of 

projecting power throughout the theater, which is 

relatively close to the Chinese mainland.

• The so-called first island chain, stretching from 

Japan to Taiwan, the Philippines, and the Indonesian 

archipelago, could allow countries surrounding 

the South and East China Seas to isolate China 

from maritime access to the rest of the world (see 

Figure 1-2). Although much of the island chain is 

composed of countries allied with the United States, 

U.S. military presence in the region is modest and 

mostly concentrated around the East China Sea in 

the north.

• China has spent decades investing heavily in its navy, 

as well as in cruise and ballistic missiles. Chinese 

forces on the mainland could credibly attack U.S. air 

bases anywhere in the region with ballistic missiles 

and could threaten naval forces within much of the 

theater.

• The Chinese have domestic versions of modern air 

defense systems similar to the Russian S-300 series 

and have purchased Russian S-400 series air defense 

systems. Efforts to use U.S. airpower in support of 

U.S. naval operations would be quite dangerous 

until U.S. forces successfully suppressed Chinese air 

defenses.

• With ASMs and air defenses located on the 

militarized islands, China could deny U.S. air and 

naval forces access to almost the entire South China 

Sea (see Figure 1-2). 

• U.S. forces would have limited ability to destroy 

or seriously degrade China’s power projection over 

the South China Sea without striking the Chinese 

mainland directly, which China could view as highly 

escalatory.

• There is no feasible scenario in which the United 

States could use its ground forces to invade the 

Chinese mainland to accomplish its objectives in such 

a conflict.

The United States would thus have few options to prevent China from asserting control over the South China 

Sea, other than to seize the disputed islands and attempt 

to destroy enough Chinese air and naval forces that 

China would accept the new status quo. Such an attempt 

would be highly risky for U.S. forces because it would 

have to be undertaken by U.S. air and naval forces that 

would be highly vulnerable to Chinese A2/AD systems 

in the theater. The sheer number of Chinese ASMs, as 

well as the difficulty involved in destroying groundlaunched ASMs, would probably make it impossible for 

U.S. naval forces to operate freely in the western half of 

the South China Sea. 

At the same time, however, China would have limited 

ability to project power beyond the first island chain. 

One possible outcome of a conflict in the South China 

Sea is mutual denial, in which the United States and 

China each prevent the other from operating freely. 

Alternatively, because any South China Sea scenario 

would almost certainly involve other countries in the 

region (such as Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, 

or Singapore), another possible outcome might hinge on 

China’s ability to coerce those countries to concede their 

claims to disputed islands, refuse to cooperate with the 

United States, or in some other way accede to Chinese 

regional dominance.

Existing Capabilities of U.S. Forces

Russia and China both have substantial A2/AD capabilities based on ground-launched platforms intended 

to counter the advantage the United States has in its air 

and naval platforms. Ground-launched platforms are 

intrinsically cheaper than air or naval platforms, and 

both countries are capable of projecting power in the 

relevant scenarios from their own territory—unlike the 

United States, which would have to deploy its forces by 

air and sea to foreign territory. Ground forces are also 

intrinsically resilient in a way that air and naval forces are 

not, because they are more difficult to destroy with air or 

naval attacks (see Box 1-2).
14 Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles February 2020

By contrast, the United States has concentrated its 

antiair, antiship, and long-range land-attack capabilities 

on air and naval platforms, often paying a premium 

for platforms that can project power far from home. 

Establishing air and naval superiority is typically considered a prerequisite for gaining access to a theater, and 

U.S. air and naval assets have long been capable of providing powerful support to U.S. ground forces engaged 

with opposing ground forces. In a theater in which the 

air and sea domains are contested, however, an opponent 

might be able to use A2/AD systems to deny the United 

States access to those domains, but the United States 

might not be able to deny its opponent access to them.

The converse of the United States’ preference for concentrating those antiair, antiship, and long-range land-attack 

capabilities on air and naval platforms is that its ground 

forces have fairly minimal capability in each respect. U.S. 

ground forces have no dedicated antiship capability at 

all, and their antiair and land-attack capabilities have a 

relatively short range compared with those of the Russian 

and Chinese forces. U.S. ground forces would be largely 

Figure 1-2.

Approximate Coverage Areas of Potential Chinese Air Defenses in the South China Sea 

If Deployed on Militarized Islands

500 mi 1,000 kilometers

China

Taiwan

Thailand Laos

Vietnam

Malaysia Malaysia

Philippines

Paracel

Islands

Pacific

Ocean

Philippine

Sea

South

China

Sea

Sulu

Sea

Cambodia

Spratly

Islands

Source: Congressional Budget Office.
CHAPTER 1: THE CURRENT THREAT ENVIRONMENT Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles 15

Box 1-2.

The Resilience of Ground Forces

Compared with land warfare, air and naval warfare typically 

concentrate many military capabilities into a relatively small 

number of high-cost platforms, operating in a relatively simple 

environment—that is, an environment in which terrain and civilians play a relatively limited role. Those characteristics make 

air and naval forces easier to target than ground forces, and 

they can be destroyed by striking far fewer aim points. A single 

successful attack can destroy a major weapon platform that 

represents a significant amount of military power. By contrast, 

ground forces are more resilient against attacks by high-end 

conventional weapons such as cruise or ballistic missiles. 

Even a fairly small ground combat unit, such as an Army 

brigade combat team, can easily include more units and platforms than all the air and naval platforms present in a theater 

combined. An armored brigade combat team, for example, 

includes about 300 armored vehicles and 600 wheeled vehicles. In most operations, the sheer number of separate ground 

combat units allows them to be dispersed over large areas of 

terrain. Dispersion helps protect ground combat units from the 

firepower of modern weaponry; it is, in most cases, impossible 

to destroy a major ground combat unit with a single attack. 

Moreover, because cruise and ballistic missiles are relatively 

expensive, attempts to destroy ground forces in the field with 

such weapons can be prohibitively costly.

In addition to being dispersed, competent ground forces 

engaged in land warfare can use features of the terrain, as 

well as camouflage, decoys, and other measures, to conceal 

their location and increase their chances of survival. Almost 

all ground forces use terrain to resist attack, either by seeking 

cover behind it or entrenching themselves within it. The more 

complex the terrain, the more opportunities defending ground 

forces typically have to use it to their advantage. During World 

War II, for example, Japanese forces occupying some islands 

in the Pacific were able to survive extended air and naval bombardments; urban areas provide similar advantages. Even fixed 

ground installations, such as those protected by reinforced 

concrete, can often absorb explosive blasts.

Two recent U.S. combat operations illustrate the challenges 

of attacking ground units. During Operation Desert Storm, the 

United States sent hundreds of aircraft over several weeks 

to locate and destroy a relatively small number of Iraqi Scud 

missile launchers in a barren desert environment. When the 

hostilities ended, the United States could not confirm that it 

had destroyed any mobile Scud launchers.1 During Operation 

Allied Force, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s bombing 

campaign against Yugoslavia, U.S. and allied forces could 

not significantly degrade the Yugoslavian air defense system. 

Although they suppressed the Yugoslavian air defenses, they 

could not destroy most of them and could not operate freely for 

the duration of the conflict. In both situations, the United States 

had significant advantages in technology and airpower, but 

the relatively small enemy ground forces were able to avoid 

destruction and continue to operate, although less effectively.

Because of such considerations, U.S. military planners do 

not generally believe that an adversary’s ground-launched 

antiaccess and area-denial (A2/AD) systems can be reliably 

or quickly suppressed or destroyed; indeed, those systems 

would not be a concern if they were vulnerable. Because air 

attacks are unlikely to eliminate ground-launched antiship 

missiles (ASMs), no feasible means currently exist to ensure, 

for example, the complete destruction of truck-mounted ASMs 

in a theater that has many of those defenses. Such a threat 

requires either ground forces to seize the territory where the 

ASMs are located or a separate campaign to destroy the sensors that provide them with information about distant targets. 

Antiair defenses, however, remain a partial exception to this 

principle. As Operation Allied Force demonstrated, modern air 

campaigns can reliably suppress competent and mobile hostile 

air defense systems—for example, by forcing them to turn their 

radars off and remain concealed—but it is difficult to destroy 

them completely.

If the United States adopted A2/AD systems for its own use, 

it could obtain similar benefits. Although existing U.S. air and 

naval platforms that can fire ASMs might be highly vulnerable 

to enemy A2/AD systems, new ground-launched systems would 

have the same advantages against missile attack that hostile 

A2/AD systems do. By deploying ground-launched long-range 

missile capabilities, the United States could pose the same 

challenges for its potential adversaries that U.S. military planners currently face.

1. DoD’s retrospective on Operation Desert Storm states, “Once again, 

there is no indisputable proof that Scud mobile launchers—as opposed to 

high-fidelity decoys, trucks, or other objects with Scud-like signatures—

were destroyed by fixed-wing aircraft.” See Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot 

A. Cohen, Gulf War Air Power Survey Summary Report (Department 

of Defense, Defense Technical Information Center, 1993), pp. 89–90, 

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a273996.pdf (14.1 MB).
16 Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles February 2020

unable to support U.S. air and naval forces in any contest for control of the air or sea.

The Army, in particular, has recognized the limitations 

of its forces in these possible scenarios and has begun 

programs to enhance its antiair, antiship, and long-range 

land-attack capabilities.

Antiair

The Army’s existing air defense systems are divided 

between short-range air defense (SHORAD) systems and 

high- and medium-range air defense (HIMAD) systems. 

The SHORAD systems are mostly based on the Stinger 

missile, which has a fairly limited capability.13 The Army 

has launched several initiatives to improve its SHORAD 

capability. The Marine Corps currently operates the same 

Stinger missile-based systems that the Army does and 

also has tactical aircraft for directly engaging opposing 

aircraft.

The Army’s HIMAD systems include the Patriot and 

the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense. The THAAD 

system is intended exclusively for ballistic missile 

defense, whereas the Patriot system was originally developed for medium-range air defense, but its most recent 

variants have been largely intended for ballistic missile 

defense. The Army has not pursued new long-range air 

defense capabilities in this area as actively as it has with 

SHORAD.

Antiship

Historically, the Army has not had any dedicated antiship systems since it disbanded the coastal artillery after 

World War II. Although cannon and rocket artillery 

can attack ships, their effectiveness and range would be 

limited without the addition of specialized sensors and 

guidance systems. Army and Marine Corps helicopters 

13. The Stinger was originally developed in the 1970s as a small, 

shoulder-fired missile with a correspondingly short range and 

small warhead.

can attack unarmed ships, and the Marine Corps has 

tactical aircraft capable of performing this role as well.

The Army is upgrading some of its Army Tactical Missile 

System (ATACMS) missiles, the longest-range ballistic 

missiles in its current inventory, into an antiship variant. The ATACMS missile is no longer in production, 

however, and the Army plans to develop a new Precision 

Strike Missile that will have an antiship variant when it is 

eventually fielded.

Long-Range Land Attack

The Army and Marine Corps both assume that most 

long-range strikes will be carried out by air. They both 

also have attack helicopters that can perform long-range 

strikes. During the Cold War, the Army fielded several 

types of ballistic missiles, culminating in the Pershing 

II, which had a range of about 1,800 km (1,120 miles) 

and carried a nuclear weapon. After ratification of the 

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with the 

Soviet Union in 1988, however, the Army was required 

to destroy all surface-to-surface missiles with ranges 

above 500 km (310 miles). The United States has withdrawn from the INF treaty, and the Army is exploring 

new systems that would again allow it to field missiles 

capable of striking beyond 500 km.14

The Army has an inventory of ATACMS missiles, a ballistic missile with a range of up to 300 km (185 miles) in 

its most recent version, but it has some limitations: The 

ATACMS missile was originally designed to carry a large 

payload of cluster munitions a relatively short distance, 

with limited guidance, and it has been out of production 

for more than a decade. Although the Army has remanufactured much of its inventory to carry unitary (single) 

warheads guided by modern sensors, it intends to replace 

the ATACMS missile with the new Precision Strike 

Missile, which is expected to have improved capabilities 

and a longer range.

14. The Administration announced its withdrawal from the INF 

treaty in August 2019, citing alleged violations by Russia.
CHAPTER

2

Chapter 2: Options for Improving 

the Capabilities of U.S. Ground Forces

The Congressional Budget Office examined several 

approaches that the Department of Defense could take 

to procure and field ground-launched systems that would 

help U.S. ground forces respond relatively quickly to 

antiaccess and area-denial challenges in the Baltic and 

South China Sea scenarios. The U.S. military has a wide 

array of potential means to address A2/AD challenges 

in those scenarios, but CBO did not attempt to survey 

them all.1 The agency focused on existing long-range 

systems that, with some adaptations, ground forces could 

use relatively quickly to address gaps in specific areas: a 

ground-launched land-attack cruise missile, an antiship 

cruise missile, and a long-range surface-to-air missile. 

CBO also explored an option in which DoD would 

purchase both an antiship cruise missile and a surface-toair missile.

After surveying potential solutions for each mission, 

CBO determined that the most suitable near-term 

candidates for ground-launched systems are either Navy 

missiles intended for use in the Navy’s Vertical Launch 

System (VLS, a standardized missile launcher that 

can hold and fire many different Navy munitions) or 

Air Force missiles that could be adapted to the Navy’s 

VLS. As a result, CBO’s options include a standardized 

ground launcher that would use VLS-type weapons. (See 

Box 2-1 for technical considerations related to launching 

long-range missiles from the ground.)

CBO evaluated other missiles in the U.S. inventory and 

determined that they are less suitable candidates for 

ground-launched systems. Broadly, those other missiles 

represent systems with older technology (some of which 

are being replaced by systems that CBO included), 

systems that have been or are being discontinued, and 

1. In particular, CBO did not explore options that would disrupt 

the kill chain that enables hostile A2/AD systems to operate 

effectively, such as attacking sensors, communications networks, 

or command and control sites. Such options may be feasible but 

would differ from the options considered here.

systems that do not have the capabilities needed for the 

relevant missions.

For example, the Navy’s Tomahawk land-attack cruise 

missile, a relatively slow missile with no low-observable 

features, has become less effective at penetrating 

defended airspace, a capability that is likely to be a 

prominent feature of A2/AD scenarios. As a result, the 

Navy has been attempting to shut down the Tomahawk’s 

production line for several years, but it keeps extending 

production to replace missiles that are used in combat. 

Similarly, the Army Tactical Missile System missile—a 

land-attack ballistic missile with a relatively short range, 

typically 150 kilometers (95 miles), though a variant 

with a 300 km (185-mile) range was also produced—was 

originally designed to disperse cluster munitions and has 

not been in production since 2007.2 By contrast, the 

Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile–Extended Range 

land-attack cruise missile is currently in production for 

the Air Force, and it incorporates many advances over 

previous systems—most notably, low-observable features 

that can assist in penetrating defended airspace.

Elements Common to All Options

To determine the number of systems that would be 

purchased under each option, CBO selected the Army’s 

current Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile 

system to represent the level of commitment needed to 

provide meaningful but limited military capabilities. The 

THAAD program has procured enough equipment to 

field seven batteries and 553 missiles—specialized systems and units that would not be spread throughout the 

force. An individual THAAD battery can launch at least 

48 interceptors, and it includes additional vehicles for 

2. The United States is not a party to the Convention on Cluster 

Munitions, but U.S. policy has deemphasized the use of those 

weapons. Cluster munitions, which contain many smaller 

bomblets, can disperse unexploded devices over large areas, 

leading to both military issues and humanitarian concerns. Some 

of the Army’s ATACMS inventory is being modified to have a 

unitary (single) blast warhead.
18 Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles February 2020

command and control and for fire control, as well as a 

large radar to detect and track targets. Although different 

missions might call for other missiles to have larger or 

smaller batteries, or more or fewer batteries or missiles, 

this level of commitment—as with THAAD—would 

provide at least two batteries for deployment to potential 

conflict zones during peacetime and would offer a significant military capability.

Each option CBO considered would feature a common 

core of systems, including trucks, firing batteries, and 

command and control systems. For all options, DoD 

would need to procure ground vehicles to transport and 

fire the missiles, as well as other support vehicles for 

command and control, communications, fire control, 

and other functions. Vehicles would be based on the 

family of heavy tactical vehicles (FHTV) trucks used by 

the THAAD batteries that the Army currently fields.

Along with procuring those vehicles, DoD would need to 

establish and maintain enough firing batteries, with about 

100 military personnel each, to provide a significant military capability. Again, such batteries would be similar to 

the THAAD batteries that the Army currently fields.

Since all the options CBO considered are missiles 

capable of fitting within the Navy’s standardized VLS 

cell (and have comparable dimensions, weights, power, 

Box 2-1.

Launching Long-Range Missiles From the Ground

Launching long-range missiles from the ground involves three 

major technical considerations: whether the missile is capable 

of being launched from the ground, whether vehicles can be 

developed to support the missile system, and whether the 

system can receive targeting information.

Missiles

The missiles currently used by the Air Force and the Navy often 

require certain environmental conditions, such as acceptable 

temperature or humidity ranges, to function most effectively. 

Ground-launched missiles might need engineering changes 

to cope with varying environmental conditions or the vibration 

caused by off-road driving.

Unlike air-launched missiles, ground-launched missiles require 

an additional missile stage or booster. Typically, a small rocket 

motor accelerates the missile to the speed and altitude its 

onboard engine needs to operate and fly the missile. The Navy 

has already successfully integrated such motors into shipbased launches of its Long-Range Antiship Missile, but they do 

add some cost, weight, and complexity to the missile compared with the air-launched version.

Ground Vehicles

The heaviest missile option that the Congressional Budget 

Office considered, the Standard Missile 6 (SM-6), weighs 

1,500 kilograms (kg) per missile. A 4-cell transporter-erectorlauncher (TEL) would thus need to accommodate 6,000 kg 

of missile payload, which is well within the payload range of 

existing THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) TELs. 

The Army’s heaviest trucks, the M1075A1 Palletized Load 

System (PLS) vehicles and their derivatives, can transport 

payloads up to 15,000 kg. The current vehicles used in the 

THAAD battery carry payloads of 8 missiles on a smaller Heavy 

Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck A4–derived truck or 10 missiles on a larger M1075A1 PLS–derived truck. A THAAD interceptor weighs 900 kg, which suggests that missile payloads of 

7,500 kg to 9,000 kg are feasible on those vehicles.

Some additional weight is also required for launch canisters, 

which hold and protect the missiles, and the structures that 

elevate and fire the missiles. The Navy’s missile canisters are 

extremely heavy (more than 1,500 kg for the SM-6 canister) 

compared with typical Army missile canisters, however, so 

using the Navy’s existing missile canisters might preclude 

a 4-cell TEL (which would require 12,000 kg of payload for 

the missiles and canisters) but would still permit a 3-cell TEL 

(9,000 kg of payload for the missiles and canisters). Alternatively, the Army could develop a lighter canister more in line 

with typical Army needs and weights.1

Developing TELs has not posed major technical challenges 

for similar programs in the past, and the THAAD program 

experienced no major issues with its ground vehicles. In 

addition, the Air Force uses a 4-cell Tomahawk missile TEL 

1. In general, the difference in scale between naval weapon systems (which 

are fielded on ships displacing 8,000 tons to 10,000 tons) and ground 

weapon systems (which are fielded on vehicles weighing at most 60 tons to 

70 tons) leads to different emphases on features and weight. For example, 

the Navy’s 155-millimeter cannon fielded on its DDG-1000 guided-missile 

destroyers has a turret weight of over 100 tons, with additional ammunition 

storage and management within the ship’s hull. The Army’s 155-millimeter 

cannons are mounted on armored vehicles that weigh approximately 

30 tons.

Continued
CHAPTER 2: OPTIONS FOR IMPROVING THE CAPABILITIES OF U.S. GROUND FORCES Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles 19

and handling requirements), a common FHTV-based 

transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) could be developed 

to carry and fire all three of the missiles CBO considered. 

The Navy’s VLS modules are far too large and heavy for 

use on trucks, and they include many systems that are 

essential on ships but would be unnecessary for ground 

units, such as armoring, cooling, suppressing fires, and 

managing the hot exhaust gases from the missiles during 

launch. However, the Army’s existing heavy trucks are 

large enough to carry a pack of four lighter VLS-sized 

cells in a TEL configuration.

Like the THAAD batteries, the batteries in the options 

CBO considered would have 10 heavy trucks and about 

100 personnel and would require annual operation and 

support costs of about $300 million per year, including overhead costs.3

 The cost to supply all batteries 

with ground equipment similar to THAAD ground 

equipment would be about $500 million. The cost of 

3. A 4-cell TEL design would carry fewer missiles than an 

equivalent THAAD battalion if it used the same number of 

TELs; THAAD batteries have 8- or 10-cell TELs, allowing 48 to 

60 missiles to be ready for use. As a practical matter, the military 

could choose between adding more TELs to the batteries or 

reloading TELs as needed. The costs of TELs and their associated 

personnel are very small compared with the cost of acquiring 

the missiles to arm the TELs, so budgetary constraints would be 

more likely to affect missile purchases than TEL purchases.

for its ground-launched cruise missile program, the BGM-109. 

Like the missiles that CBO considered, the Tomahawk uses 

a vertical launch system, and the United States has already 

demonstrated the technical capacity to develop and field such 

vehicles.

Targeting Information

Any missile system intended to attack targets at ranges 

beyond its own ability to detect them must receive targeting 

assistance. The United States has extensive experience in 

providing targeting information to land-attack missiles striking 

fixed targets, developed over decades of using the Tomahawk 

missile system in many strikes. In general, targeting fixed 

ground sites poses no major technical challenge; mission plans 

can be developed by higher-level commands and transmitted 

electronically to missile launchers with relative ease.

Attacking ships is a more difficult challenge, because they are 

mobile and time-sensitive targets. Ships move fast enough 

that antiship missiles (ASMs) are typically fired toward the area 

where target ships are predicted to be, and then the ASM’s 

onboard sensors detect ships in that area. Except for having 

a time-sensitive target, however, the technical challenge of 

transmitting a location to attack is not significantly different 

from that of attacking ground sites. Integration of any groundlaunched ASM system into the Navy’s Cooperative Engagement 

Capability network, which transmits targeting information 

between ships, would allow for effective use of that system.

Intercepting aircraft and ballistic missiles requires constant 

targeting updates and sometimes radar support because they 

move at high speeds and can maneuver. The Naval Integrated 

Fire Control–Counter Air communications network allows sensor platforms, such as the Navy’s E-2D airborne warning and 

control system aircraft, to pass targeting information to other 

platforms equipped with long-range missiles, such as ships or 

fighter aircraft. That system already works with Navy SM-6 missiles, and integrating ground-launched SM-6 missiles into the 

system would be the most straightforward way to use those 

missiles effectively.2 An organic radar for surface-to-air missile 

batteries would reduce that system’s dependence on external 

support, however, and allow it to engage in the missile defense 

role relatively independently, though it would still benefit from 

warnings about missile launches.

Systems CBO Considered

CBO met with representatives from the contractors responsible 

for the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile–Extended Range, 

Long-Range Antiship Missile, and SM-6 missile programs to 

discuss whether there were any likely technical impediments 

to producing ground-launched variants of the missiles. Each of 

the contractors stated that a ground-launched variant would 

not pose any serious technical challenge and that they are 

already exploring ground-launched variants of the missiles.

2. Reportedly, the Navy has already considered integrating Army ballistic 

missile defense assets into its Naval Integrated Fire Control–Counter Air 

network and believes the task to be technically feasible. See Sydney J. 

Freedberg Jr., “We Can Tie Army, Navy Missile Defense Networks: Navy 

Experts,” Breaking Defense (February 24, 2017), https://tinyurl.com/

y6kkm9ko.

Box 2-1. Continued

Launching Long-Range Missiles From the Ground
20 Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles February 2020

the missiles (or radar, if needed) would be additional 

and would depend on the missile (or radar) chosen (see 

Table 2-1).

Option 1: Purchase a Ground-Launched 

Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile–

Extended Range

Option 1 would provide U.S. ground forces with a 

stealthy land-attack cruise missile that is already in 

production and that could strike a limited number of 

ground targets at long ranges.

Details

For this option, DoD would procure enough ground 

vehicles for seven batteries, as well as 550 JASSM-ERs 

adapted for ground launch. Those quantities would 

enable the Army to deploy at least two batteries (with 

24 missiles each) to potential conflict zones and four 

to six batteries to an actual conflict, similar to what the 

Army expects for its seven THAAD batteries.

The JASSM-ER is an air-launched cruise missile developed by the Air Force with low-observable features and a 

range of about 925 kilometers (575 miles). It has a new 

engine and additional fuel capacity that extend its range 

beyond the original JASSM’s 370 km (230 miles).

To be launched from the ground, the JASSM-ER would 

need a booster motor to accelerate the missile to an 

appropriate speed and altitude to engage its turbofan 

engine. Such boosters are a relatively common and 

simple technology that the military has developed and 

deployed to allow other air-launched missiles to be 

launched from ground or naval platforms. (For example, 

the Navy uses a booster motor for the ship-launched 

variant of its Harpoon missile.) The Navy has fitted 

the Long-Range Antiship Missile, a missile derived 

from the JASSM-ER, with a booster motor to test-fire 

it from Navy ships, which suggests that modifying the 

JASSM-ER with a booster motor would be relatively 

straightforward.

The Air Force is currently engaged in full-rate production of the JASSM-ER, but it has ended production of 

the JASSM, which forecloses the possibility of purchasing that shorter-range missile in this option.

Effects

Army forces with the ability to launch JASSM-ERs from 

ground units could conduct long-range strikes on highvalue, static ground-based targets even without air or 

naval support. In a Baltic scenario, Army ground forces 

operating without the benefit of air superiority could 

conduct strike missions that would otherwise not be possible. In a South China Sea scenario, if U.S. allies allowed 

the missiles to be stationed in their territory, the United 

States might be able to strike targets in mainland China.4

In addition to allowing strikes on Russian and Chinese targets, a ground-launched JASSM-ER could provide a deterrent effect if deployed to either theater before the onset of 

4. For example, much of northern China would be within range of 

JASSM-ER missiles stationed in South Korea.

Table 2-1.

Onetime Procurement and Annual Operation 

and Support Costs of the Four Missile Options 

CBO Considered

Millions of 2020 Dollars

Costs

Option 1

Onetime procurement

JASSM-ERs (550 missiles) 800

Ground equipment (7 batteries) 500

Total 1,300

Annual operation and support 300

Option 2

Onetime procurement

LRASMs (550 missiles) 1,700

Ground equipment (7 batteries) 500

Total 2,200

Annual operation and support 300

Option 3

Onetime procurement

SM-6s (550 missiles) 2,300

Ground equipment (7 batteries) 500

Missile defense radar (7 radars) 1,700

Total 4,600

Annual operation and support 300

Option 4

Onetime procurement

LRASMs (550 missiles) 1,700

SM-6s (550 missiles) 2,300

Ground equipment (7 batteries) 500

Missile defense radar (7 radars) 1,700

Total 6,300

Annual operation and support 300

Source: Congressional Budget Office.

JASSM-ER = Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile–Extended Range; 

LRASM = Long-Range Antiship Missile; SM-6 = Standard Missile 6.
CHAPTER 2: OPTIONS FOR IMPROVING THE CAPABILITIES OF U.S. GROUND FORCES Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles 21

hostilities. During the early phases of a conflict, it could 

also reduce the workload of U.S. aircraft, allowing them to 

undertake missions other than JASSM-ER delivery.

The JASSM-ER already has sufficient standoff range 

to allow U.S. aircraft to fire it at relevant targets from 

beyond the range of Russian or Chinese air defenses. In 

a Baltic scenario, a ground-launched JASSM-ER could 

allow Army ground forces to strike targets farther behind 

Russian air defenses because, unlike aircraft, they could 

launch from within the area denied by those air defenses. 

But that capability would provide a relatively small direct 

benefit to the United States in a conflict under way.

Like most land-attack cruise missiles, the JASSM-ER is 

intended to attack a few high-value fixed sites. Typically, 

the United States uses cruise missile and other attacks 

as part of an opening salvo intended to destroy enemy 

air defenses, thus allowing U.S. aircraft to strike a wide 

array of militarily relevant targets. Modern Russian and 

Chinese air defenses are mobile systems mounted on 

trucks, however, and they are unlikely to remain in a location long enough for the United States to detect them, 

plan a strike mission, and execute that mission. (It takes a 

JASSM-ER roughly an hour to reach a target that is near 

the edge of its range.) Although the theater has other fixed 

targets, ground-launched JASSM-ERs could not effectively attack the most urgent threats in Baltic scenarios.

The Army has already begun to develop a different 

missile, the Precision Strike Missile, intended as a tool to 

suppress enemy air defenses. Although still early in development, the Army’s plans are for a missile with a range of 

up to 499 km (310 miles), fired from existing MultipleLaunch Rocket System and High-Mobility Artillery 

Rocket System launchers, with warheads and seekers 

optimized for detecting and destroying enemy radars and 

mobile vehicles. If the Army developed and fielded this 

system, it would perform the highest-priority mission for 

long-range missiles envisioned for a Baltic scenario.

Another consideration for this option is that the 

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, from which 

the United States has withdrawn, prohibited parties 

from fielding ground-launched cruise missiles with 

a range between 500 km (310 miles) and 5,500 km 

(3,420 miles). The JASSM has a range of 370 km 

(230 miles) and would thus have been permitted, but 

the JASSM-ER and any ground-launched version, with 

a range of 925 km (575 miles), would have been prohibited. Fielding such missiles might reduce the likelihood 

of a future agreement between the United States and 

Russia to restrict intermediate-range weapons, although 

it might also perform a role similar to that of the 

Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missile systems 

in the 1980s, which helped convince the Soviet Union 

that it would gain by agreeing to restrict such missiles.

Costs

CBO estimates that the cost to purchase and equip 

seven batteries of ground launchers with 550 JASSMERs would be about $1.3 billion (in 2020 dollars; see 

Table 2-1). The cost to operate and sustain that force 

would be about $300 million each year, assuming that 

the system would require expanding the size of the Army 

to field additional units rather than having it replace 

another system. (See the appendix for a discussion of 

how CBO developed its cost estimates.)

Option 2: Purchase a Ground-Launched 

Long-Range Antiship Missile

Option 2 would provide U.S. ground forces with a 

stealthy antiship cruise missile that is currently in production and that could attack ships at long ranges.

Details

For this option, DoD would procure enough ground 

vehicles for seven batteries, as well as 550 LRASMs 

adapted for ground launch. Those quantities would 

provide at least two batteries (with 24 missiles each) to 

deploy to potential conflict zones in peacetime and four 

to six batteries for an actual conflict.

The LRASM is an air-launched cruise missile developed 

for the Air Force and Navy and based on the JASSM-ER. 

Like that missile, it includes low-observable features, 

but it has a different seeker (designed to find ships) and, 

like the JASSM-ER, could have a range of up to 925 km 

(575 miles).5 The LRASM is intended to search for naval 

targets autonomously and is also capable of receiving 

targeting information from external sources, including 

5. The Navy describes the LRASM as having a range of more than 

200 nautical miles (370 km), but the actual range of the missile 

is classified. Public sources assume that because the LRASM is 

based on the JASSM-ER, it has a similar range; other sources 

acknowledge that changes in the size of the warhead or sensor 

package may have resulted in a missile with a shorter range. 

The JASSM-ER itself is based on the 370-km-range JASSM but 

with changes to that missile’s engine and fuel supply. The exact 

range of the LRASM does not affect CBO’s findings, however; 

any range between the Navy’s lower bound and the JASSM-ER’s 

range would provide similar capabilities.
22 Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles February 2020

other LRASMs. To make the missile capable of being 

launched from a ship, the Navy has begun developing 

a variant of the LRASM with a booster motor attached 

to accelerate the missile to an appropriate speed and 

altitude to engage the turbofan engine of the primary 

missile.

The Navy is currently purchasing a limited quantity of 

air-launched LRASMs as an interim solution to meet its 

goal of acquiring a new antiship cruise missile. Under 

this option, the Army would purchase the Navy’s variant 

of the missile for ground forces.

Effects

Russian naval forces do not present a significant threat in 

a Baltic scenario, and it is unlikely that ground-launched 

LRASMs would give the United States any additional 

capabilities in such scenarios.

If Army forces could launch LRASMs from ground units 

on bases accessible to the United States at the beginning 

of any potential conflict in the South China Sea, they 

could deny Chinese surface warships access to much 

of the theater. In a scenario in which the United States 

attempted to seize and defend the militarized islands in 

the South China Sea, moving ground-based LRASM 

launchers to any seized islands could prevent Chinese 

forces from operating surface warships or commercial 

shipping within the South China Sea.

Ground-based LRASMs would also assist the United 

States if it chose instead to impose a blockade against 

Chinese shipping in a South China Sea scenario.6

Although Chinese air, naval, and missile forces would 

make a traditional close blockade of Chinese ports a 

difficult military task, the geography of the South China 

Sea requires Chinese shipping to pass through several 

choke points to access overseas markets (see Figure 2-1).

• Northern routes that head toward North America. 

These routes pass by three treaty allies of the United 

States—Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. The United 

States has many bases in this region capable of 

projecting power into the surrounding waters.

6. For a detailed technical analysis of the feasibility of using groundlaunched ASMs to enforce a blockade on China, see Terrence 

K. Kelly and others, Employing Land-Based Anti-Ship Missiles in 

the Western Pacific (RAND Corporation, 2013), www.rand.org/

pubs/technical_reports/TR1321.html. CBO’s discussion of the 

possibilities for enforcing such a blockade relies heavily on that 

report. 

• Central routes that pass through the Philippine 

archipelago. Chinese claims to the South China Sea 

that conflict with Filipino claims to the area are a 

possible cause of a South China Sea conflict. The 

United States has a mutual defense treaty with the 

Philippines, and the Filipino government allows the 

United States to operate from five air bases there, one 

of which (Antonio Bautista Air Base) is near one set 

of Chinese militarized islands.

• Southern routes that head toward the Indian Ocean. 

The Strait of Malacca is one of the busiest shipping 

channels in the world. The United States has a longstanding defense relationship with and Navy presence 

in Singapore, which is near the Strait. Other routes 

to the Indian Ocean pass through Indonesian waters, 

however, and the United States does not have a 

significant defense relationship with Indonesia.

With sufficient cooperation from local allies, the United 

States could enforce a distant blockade on Chinese 

shipping by stationing air and naval forces around those 

choke points. Such a strategy would face several constraints, however: First, Indonesia is not an ally of the 

United States and would not be expected to help blockade the southern shipping routes. Second, some allies 

might choose not to participate in any conflict. Third, 

some of the bases that the United States would need to 

enforce a blockade are themselves credibly threatened by 

Chinese attacks.

Ground-based LRASMs could help alleviate these problems. If located at sites in the Philippines and Singapore, 

the LRASM has a long enough range to threaten Chinese 

ships attempting to use southern routes toward the 

Indian Ocean. The LRASM’s range is also long enough 

that the United States might be able to compensate if 

an ally declined to allow the use of its territory during 

a conflict. For example, the United States could locate 

LRASMs on Okinawa and Luzon if Taiwan declined 

to allow the use of its territory. LRASMs located in the 

territory of U.S. allies and possible partners might deny 

Chinese access to sea lanes (see Figure 2-2).

Although the central and northern routes are well within 

range of potential Chinese counterattacks, the presence 

of ground-based launchers in key locations such as 

Okinawa could deny China the use of those shipping 

lanes, even if its forces executed effective attacks against 

other U.S. assets in the region. Ground-based launchers are intrinsically more difficult to attack and destroy 
CHAPTER 2: OPTIONS FOR IMPROVING THE CAPABILITIES OF U.S. GROUND FORCES Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles 23

than fixed infrastructure such as air bases, which may be 

vulnerable to cruise or ballistic missile attacks. 

Costs

CBO estimates that the cost to purchase and equip seven 

batteries of ground launchers with 550 LRASM missiles 

would be about $2.2 billion, and the cost to operate and 

sustain that force would be about $300 million each year 

(see Table 2-1 on page 20).

Option 3: Purchase a Ground-Launched 

Standard Missile 6

Option 3 would provide U.S. ground forces with a 

surface-to-air missile that is in production and that could 

destroy aircraft, cruise missiles, and some shorter-range 

ballistic missiles at long ranges. The missile also has a 

limited ability to attack ships.

Figure 2-1.

Major Chinese Sea Lanes

1000 mi

1,000 kilometers

Russia

Mongolia

China

Taiwan Hong

Kong Guangzhou

Myanmar

Thailand

Laos

Vietnam

Cambodia

Malaysia

Indonesia

Philippines

South

Korea

North

Korea

Japan

Malacca

Strait

Sunda

Strait Lombok

Strait

Pacific

Philippine Ocean

Sea

South

China

Sea

Java Sea

Source: Congressional Budget Office.
24 Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles February 2020

Details

For this option, DoD would procure enough ground 

vehicles for seven batteries, seven THAAD-like radars, 

and 550 SM-6s adapted for ground launch. Those levels 

would be sufficient to provide at least two batteries (with 

24 missiles each) to deploy to potential conflict zones 

and four to six batteries for an actual conflict.

The SM-6 is a Navy surface-to-air missile with a range 

of at least 240 km (150 miles) that is designed to destroy 

aircraft, cruise missiles, or ballistic missiles at long ranges.7

7. The Navy has not published a range for the SM-6. However, 

numerous public sources state that the SM-6’s range is greater 

than 240 km (150 miles).

Figure 2-2.

Potential Effects of Ground-Launched Antiship Missiles on China’s Access to Sea Lanes 

1,000 kilometers

Russia

Mongolia

China

Taiwan

Myanmar

Thailand

Laos

Vietnam

Cambodia

Malaysia

Indonesia

Philippines

South

Korea

North

Korea

Japan

Malacca

Strait

Pacific

Ocean Philippine

Sea

South

China

Sea

Java

Sea

Source: Congressional Budget Office.

The exact range of the Long-Range Antiship Missile (LRASM) has not been publicly disclosed. The shaded circles show a notional range of 600 km, 

roughly the midpoint between the publicly disclosed lower bound of the missile (370 km) and the range of the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile–

Extended Range, or JASSM-ER, that the LRASM is based on.
CHAPTER 2: OPTIONS FOR IMPROVING THE CAPABILITIES OF U.S. GROUND FORCES Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles 25

In addition, the Navy has tested the SM-6 as an antiship missile in a potential secondary role (although 

its warhead, at 140 pounds, is much smaller than the 

1,000-pound warhead on the LRASM, and CBO did 

not consider the SM-6 in the antiship role).8 As a Navy 

missile launched from warships, the SM-6 is already 

capable of being launched from surface platforms. By 

comparison, the Army’s Patriot system has a range of 

100 km (60 miles) or less, depending on the type of 

missile and role. The Army’s THAAD system, although 

it has a longer range, is only for ballistic missile defense, 

not defense against aircraft or cruise missiles.

The SM-6 has been designed to operate with the Navy’s 

Naval Integrated Fire Control–Counter Air system to 

allow it to receive targeting information from aircraft or 

ships other than the ship firing the missile. This ability 

is particularly important for a missile with a range as 

long as the SM-6’s because the limitations of the radar 

horizon prevent the launching ship from detecting many 

aircraft or cruise missiles at the ranges at which the SM-6 

is capable of engaging targets. The Navy has already 

demonstrated that an E-2D airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft can direct an SM-6 missile 

to destroy a target beyond the range at which its launching ship could detect the target.

It may be undesirable to have ground-launched 

SM-6 batteries wholly reliant on external targeting, 

however. Unlike land-attack or antiship missiles, most 

surface-to-air missiles cannot acquire their own targets, 

and not having an organic radar system would make the 

system unnecessarily dependent on other forces.9 To provide the most benefit, such batteries would need a radar 

8. Technically, almost all members of the Standard Missile family 

have that capability, as did their predecessor systems. All those 

missiles had a semi-active radar homing mode, in which the 

missiles would home in on reflected radar signals, allowing them 

to attack ships if those ships were illuminated by an appropriate 

fire control radar. With the SM-6, however, the Navy has chosen 

to emphasize this capability—possibly because the SM-6, unlike 

prior systems, also has a fully active seeker that does not require 

illumination by a fire control radar. As a result, it can be used in 

an antiship role with fewer limitations than earlier systems, which 

were limited by the radar horizon to much shorter engagement 

ranges.

9. An organic air defense radar could acquire targets above the radar 

horizon, which would be a much shorter range than the full 

range of the SM-6 missile for most aircraft and cruise missiles, 

thus limiting the system’s capability. But it would be the same 

range for ballistic missile defense because the high trajectory of 

ballistic missiles makes radar horizon considerations less relevant.

for air defense missiles that could perform both air and 

missile defense, comparable to the THAAD radar (which 

costs about $245 million per radar). CBO included such 

a radar for each battery in this option.

Effects

With the ability to launch SM-6 missiles from ground 

units, Army forces could deny Russian forces many 

advantages in a Baltic scenario:

• Russian aircraft would not be able to operate freely 

beneath their own protective A2/AD air defense 

system and could not subject U.S. ground forces to 

an unfettered aerial attack.

• Russian forces would not be able to provide AWACS 

support to their own air forces and thus would not be 

able to use the extended range of their surface-to-air 

missiles against most targets other than the North 

Atlantic Treaty Organization’s AWACS aircraft.10

Without AWACS support, Russian aircraft would 

also be greatly inhibited in their ability to conduct 

counterair campaigns against NATO aircraft.

• With a reduced Russian air defense threat, U.S. 

aircraft could mount a successful campaign to 

suppress enemy air defenses against Russian SAMs 

and other air defenses, freeing the United States 

to use its own AWACS support. In particular, the 

extremely long ranges of Russian SAMs would be 

largely irrelevant without AWACS support, as it 

would be impossible for them to identify targets at 

long range.

• With a successful suppression of enemy air defenses 

campaign and AWACS support, U.S. aircraft could 

mount a counterair campaign and support U.S. 

ground forces in combat against Russian ground 

forces.

• Russian artillery would be significantly less effective 

if it could not use aerial assets to locate appropriate 

targets. The more rapidly the United States could 

10. Very-long-range SAMs such as the SM-6 and the Russian 

S-400 system require external targeting assistance (typically from 

AWACS aircraft) to be able to take advantage of their range. The 

effectiveness of those systems’ own ground-based radar is limited 

by the radar horizon and the altitude of potential targets. For 

AWACS aircraft to perform their mission effectively, however, 

they must fly at high altitude and actively emit radar signals, 

making them easy to detect at a distance.
26 Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles February 2020

begin an air campaign, the more rapidly it could 

deny Russian forces useful targeting information.11 In 

addition, the United States could use tactical aviation 

to assist in destroying Russian artillery units.

Having the SM-6 available for ballistic missile defense 

could also assist U.S. forces in a Baltic scenario. If 

Russian forces attempted to strike NATO air bases, 

command and control nodes, or logistics stockpiles with 

their large inventory of short-range ballistic missiles, 

SM-6 missiles could reduce the risk of those strikes being 

successful.

If Army forces could launch SM-6 missiles from ground 

units, they could deny Chinese forces several advantages 

in a South China Sea scenario:

• If the United States attempted to seize and defend the 

militarized islands in the South China Sea, moving 

ground-based SM-6 launchers to any seized islands 

would reduce China’s ability to use the surrounding 

airspace to threaten U.S. forces with air or cruise 

missile attacks. The SM-6 does not have sufficient 

range, however, to fully prevent Chinese air forces 

from acting within the theater.

• Similarly, the United States could use ground-based 

SM-6 launchers to defend any seized islands against 

counterattacks. Importantly, that defensive capability 

would allow more vulnerable assets, such as Navy 

ships, to remain at a safer distance from the Chinese 

mainland.

• Even if the United States did not move groundbased SM-6 launchers to any seized islands, the 

sheer volume of Chinese cruise and ballistic missiles 

would make additional air and missile defense units 

in the theater valuable. The United States has a 

limited number of those assets, so any additional 

11. Without accurate targeting information, Russian forces could 

use their traditional artillery tactics—including area fire, which 

involves firing enough ordnance into a grid to be reasonably sure 

of damaging everything within that area. Such tactics impose a 

huge logistics burden because they expend much larger quantities 

of ammunition than targeted strikes do; that burden also slows 

a force’s advance considerably and presents many vulnerable 

targets, such as ammunition supply areas, the trucks moving 

that ammunition, and the zones from which the artillery fires. 

Counterbattery fire is significantly easier against opponents that 

fire more often because counterbattery radars detect the artillery 

shells fired and extrapolate the location of the firing platform 

from the shells’ ballistic trajectories.

assets that allowed it to defend more locations, with 

additional redundancy at key sites, would be valuable. 

In particular, the credible fear of retaliation from 

Chinese ballistic missile attacks is often considered a 

vulnerability of the U.S. alliance system in East Asia, 

which is largely composed of bilateral agreements 

with the United States rather than a collective defense 

treaty such as NATO. The ability to reassure U.S. 

allies who are not directly involved in any dispute in 

the South China Sea (such as Japan or Korea) that 

they would be defended if they allowed the United 

States to use bases in their territory would be highly 

valuable.

• The SAM systems that the United States currently has 

are not oriented to providing wide-area air defense 

for its regional allies.12 The ability to position credible 

wide-area air defenses in the theater before hostilities 

occur would be a useful deterrent and would reassure 

U.S. allies that their territory would be less vulnerable 

to Chinese retaliatory strikes. For example, three 

SM-6 batteries located within the Philippines could 

provide reasonable air defense coverage for the entire 

country.

Although the SM-6’s secondary mission—performing 

antiship roles—could help defend against Chinese naval 

forces, its range is not sufficient to fully prevent Chinese 

naval forces from acting in the South China Sea, and 

that role is limited compared with the capabilities of 

missiles designed for the antiship role.

Arguably, this option’s value is less relevant in a South 

China Sea scenario than in a Baltic scenario because the 

capability it offers—long-range air defense—would supplement the SM-6 missiles on Navy ships that would be 

deployed in the region during a conflict. In a Baltic scenario, however, long-range air defense is a new capability 

that existing Patriot or THAAD batteries do not have.

Costs

CBO estimates that the cost to purchase and equip seven 

batteries of ground launchers, seven THAAD radars, and 

12. The Army’s Patriot missile batteries effectively provide pointdefense coverage of military installations against ballistic missile 

attacks. Defending the entire territory of a U.S. ally—or a 

substantial portion of it—against missile attacks requires 

longer-range missiles. At present, that requires stationing either 

a THAAD battery (of which the Army has a limited supply) or a 

Navy missile defense warship (which could be highly vulnerable 

to cruise missile attack in a South China Sea scenario) near that 

ally. THAAD is not intended to provide air defense.
CHAPTER 2: OPTIONS FOR IMPROVING THE CAPABILITIES OF U.S. GROUND FORCES Options for Fielding Ground-Launched Long-Range Missiles 27

550 SM-6s would be about $4.6 billion, and the cost to 

operate and sustain that force would be about $300 million each year (see Table 2-1 on page 20).

Option 4: Purchase Both a Ground-Launched 

LRASM and an SM-6 

Option 4 would provide U.S. ground forces with a mix 

of antiship cruise missiles and surface-to-air missiles that 

are currently in production and that could destroy ships, 

aircraft, cruise missiles, and some ballistic missiles at long 

ranges.

Details

This option would combine elements of Options 2 and 

3, taking advantage of the common launcher. DoD 

would procure enough ground vehicles for seven batteries and seven THAAD radars but twice the number of 

missiles: 550 LRASM missiles adapted for ground launch 

and 550 SM-6 missiles adapted for ground launch. 

Those quantities would be sufficient to provide at least 

two batteries (with 24 missiles each of either or both 

types) to deploy to potential conflict zones and four to 

six batteries for an actual conflict.

Because the ground-launched JASSM-ER offers minimal 

benefits compared with LRASMs and SM-6s, this option 

would not include any JASSM-ER purchases. If the 

United States decided that a ground-launched cruise missile capability was valuable, however, it could incorporate 

that capability with the missiles this option includes.

The ground-launch equipment for Navy missiles, 

including the LRASM and SM-6, can be designed to the 

common standard that the Navy uses in its VLS launchers, so the missile loads of the ground-based launchers 

could be tailored to the needs of a particular theater or 

threat assessment. Since both the LRASM and the SM-6 

would be useful in a high-end conflict, the Army could 

maintain an inventory of both types of missiles to deploy 

as appropriate. For example, a South China Sea scenario 

might call for a mix of missiles, but a Baltic scenario 

might require only the SM-6. Purchasing both types of 

missiles would offer the benefits of each.

Effects

With the ability to launch both LRASMs and SM-6s 

from ground units, Army forces could assist in both 

Baltic and South China Sea scenarios, as discussed in 

Options 2 and 3. 

In a Baltic scenario, Army units would probably use 

SM-6s, which would provide the same benefits as in 

Option 3: denying Russian air forces the ability to 

operate freely beneath their own air defense umbrella, 

threatening Russian AWACS, supporting a U.S. SEAD 

campaign, and defending U.S. infrastructure from 

Russian ballistic missile attacks.

In a South China Sea scenario, Army units would probably use a mix of LRASMs and SM-6s, which would 

provide the same benefits as in Options 2 and 3. Those 

include denying use of the South China Sea to Chinese 

surface vessels, defending captured militarized islands 

from a counterattack, and enabling a distant blockade of 

Chinese shipping, as well as providing additional ballistic 

missile defenses for key U.S. bases.

Costs

CBO estimates that the cost to purchase and equip seven 

batteries of ground launchers, seven THAAD radars, 

550 LRASM missiles, and 550 SM-6 missiles would be 

about $6.3 billion, and the cost to operate and sustain 

that force would be about $300 million each year (see 

Table 2-1 on page 20).

The cost of Option 4 would be less (about $540 million 

less in purchases of ground equipment and $300 million 

less in annual operating costs) than the combined cost 

of Option 2 and Option 3, because the Army would 

buy and operate seven batteries of ground equipment 

instead of the total of 14 batteries encompassed by the 

combination of Option 2 and Option 3. The batteries 

under this option would be more flexible than under 

either of the single options because they could use either 

type of missile. But with seven batteries, the Army would 

not be able to deploy as many missile launchers under 

this option as it could if it pursued both Option 2 and 

Option 3.

Appendix: How CBO Developed Its Cost Estimates

In this report, the Congressional Budget Office used 

three methods to develop the costs for missiles and 

radars, ground equipment, and annual operation and 

support.

Costs for Missiles and Radars

The missiles in CBO’s options are all currently in production, and CBO used their known production costs, 

as documented in the Department of Defense’s budget 

materials. For Options 3 and 4, CBO used the cost of 

the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) 

program’s missile defense radar as a proxy for the cost of 

a missile defense radar; the THAAD radar is also currently in production.

Costs for Ground Equipment

CBO relied on budget documentation for the THAAD 

program, the most recent U.S. weapon system to require 

development of comparable ground vehicles for large, 

sophisticated ground-launched missiles. The cost of producing ground equipment for seven batteries of missile 

launchers was displayed separately in budget materials 

from the other components of the THAAD program. 

CBO’s options would all require ground equipment very 

similar to that of the THAAD program, making it the 

most relevant program for comparison.

Annual Operation and Support Costs

For this report, CBO used the same methodology that 

it did in The U.S. Military’s Force Structure: A Primer 

(www.cbo.gov/publication/51535). That methodology 

provides estimated per-person costs for military personnel, including the costs of providing essential support 

functions, the costs of operating and maintaining units, 

and the costs incurred by defensewide agencies such as 

the Defense Health Program. 

Each option in this report calls for seven batteries. 

Existing THAAD batteries—the closest analogue for 

such launchers in today’s force—require about 100 military personnel. CBO estimated that those 100 personnel 

would require an additional 400 military personnel to 

support them, for a total of about $300 million per year 

in annual operation and support costs.
List of Tables and Figures

Tables

S-1. Ground-Launched Missile Options 2

2-1. Onetime Procurement and Annual Operation and Support Costs of the 

Four Missile Options CBO Considered 20

Figures

1-1. Approximate Range of Russian Air Defenses in the Baltic Region 12

1-2. Approximate Coverage Areas of Potential Chinese Air Defenses in the 

South China Sea If Deployed on Militarized Islands 14

2-1. Major Chinese Sea Lanes 23

2-2. Potential Effects of Ground-Launched Antiship Missiles on China’s Access to Sea Lanes 24
About This Document

This Congressional Budget Office report was prepared at the request of the Chairman and 

Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. In keeping with CBO’s mandate to 

provide objective, impartial analysis, the report makes no recommendations.

Adam Talaber prepared the report with guidance from David Mosher and Edward G. Keating. 

Robert Reese and F. Matthew Woodward provided helpful comments, as did Eric Lindsey 

of Northrop Grumman, David Shlapak of the RAND Corporation, and Lloyd Thrall of the 

University of Colorado, Boulder. (The assistance of external reviewers implies no responsibility for 

the final product, which rests solely with CBO.) Adebayo Adedeji fact-checked the report.

Jeffrey Kling and Robert Sunshine reviewed this report. The editor was Rebecca Lanning, and the 

graphics editor was Robert Rebach. The report is available on CBO’s website (www.cbo.gov/

publication/56068).

CBO continually seeks feedback to make its work as useful as possible. Please send any comments 

to communications@cbo.gov.

Phillip L. Swagel

Director

February 2020