The Pentagon considers mix-and-match rockets to solve Ukraine’s ammo shortage as NATO convenes to taunt Russia anew.

(Originally published Nov. 29 in “What in the World“) A shortage of artillery shells doesn’t appear to be slowing the war down in Ukraine.

Russia has redoubled efforts to win the entrenched battle for Bakhmut in Donetsk province as Ukrainian forces solidify control of Kharkiv province. The next big battle could be in southern Kherson province as Russian forces dig in to defend the land bridge to Crimea and Ukraine seeks to press its liberation of Kherson city.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, reiterated his requests for more anti-missile weapons to the foreign ministers of seven Baltic and Nordic nations visiting Kyiv. The U.S. and its fellow members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are starting to run low on artillery shells and missiles for Ukraine to fire at invading Russians.

Washington has rejected sending Ukraine Lockheed Martin’s long-range MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System, or Atacms, which with a range of almost 300km would enable Ukraine to hit targets inside Russia and thereby escalate the war. But Reuters reports that the Pentagon is considering a proposal from Boeing to attach its GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs to Lockheed Martin’s M26 rockets, both of which are in plenty of supply. The hitch: the rockets’ range of almost 150km would enable Ukraine to hit Russian targets well behind the lines, but conceivably also targets in Russia.

All of NATO’s 30 foreign ministers will meet in Bucharest today to reiterate their 2008 pledge to seek Ukraine and Georgia’s inclusion in the alliance. Four months later, Russia invaded Georgia. With diplomacy between Washington and Moscow already at a nadir, Russia has postponed the scheduled re-start of nuclear arms control talks. Discussions to review implementation of the New START treaty limiting each side’s nuclear warheads have been suspended since the pandemic.

Japan, meanwhile, is considering buying Raytheon’s Tomahawk cruise missiles to better defend against potential missile attacks from North Korea.