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The Biden administration’s reported controversial decision to allow Ukraine to strike into Russian territory with the US-supplied ATACMS led to heated media speculation about the missiles’ possible impact on the battlefield, with an effective range of up to 300 kilometers (186 miles).
However, annual US Army budget reports painted a different picture. The aging ATACMS appeared to have become more of a financial burden as the US Army sought to upgrade to a newer missile system.
According to the US Department of Defense's annual budget reports on US Army missile procurement, some of the ATACMS in the US inventory had expired as early as 2015.
During fiscal year 2016, which began on October 1, 2015, the US Army had to spend $30.1 million to modify "10 expired [ATACMS] assets and reset their contractual service life," the budget report for fiscal year 2016 said.
Since the ATACMS has a 10-year service life, the 10 missiles modified in 2015 are expected to expire again in 2025.
From fiscal years 2016-2021, the US Army spent a total of $1.22 billion on the modification of 1,075 units of ATACMS.
In addition, the US Army purchased an additional 240 units of ATACMS during fiscal year 2020 to bring the total number of units procured up to 1,575 as of March 2023, when the budget report for fiscal year 2024 was released.
Meanwhile, the US Army has been trying to replace the ATACMS with the newer and more powerful Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) in recent years.
According to the latest budget report for fiscal year 2025, the US military has been gradually adding more units of PrSM to its inventory in the past three fiscal years. The number of new PrSM units bought by the US military went from 42 in fiscal year 2023 to 110 in fiscal year 2024, and to 230 in fiscal year 2025.
While each unit of the ATACMS costs around $1 million, the newer PrSM’s price tag was over $2 million per unit.
This could explain why Ukraine received $33.3 billion worth of weapons through the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), while the US had to spend $45.7 billion to buy new weapons to replenish its stockpile, according to figures from Ukraine Oversight, a website under the special inspector general for Operation Atlantic Resolve.
Washington simply took the opportunity to get rid of expiring weapons, such as the ATACMS, in its inventory and upgraded its weapons systems with the funds labeled as "military aid to Ukraine."
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