How this U.S.-made, $176,000 anti-tank weapon could change the war in Ukraine

Ukraine’s defense against Russia is being supported by billions of dollars in military aid from NATO countries. One of the most capable and expensive weapon systems supplied is the FGM-148 Javelin, a U.S.-made anti-armor weapon that costs about $176,000 each.

“We don’t know where and when the next kinetic war will be, and producing new weapons, surging production lines takes time,” said Cynthia Cook, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “This may be a time where we might want to think about how we invest in increasing the inventory of precision-guided weapons and other weapons and missiles.”

Although the Javelin has been lauded by the Ukrainian government, the actual effectiveness of the weapon system remains hard to independently verify outside of anecdotal accounts from the battlefield.

“We don’t have folks on the ground, and I think that is a policy decision that we should reconsider,” said U.S. Rep. Mark Waltz, R-Fla., a former U.S. Army Green Beret. “We could help them be actually more effective if we had advisors alongside, but we’d have to do that in very small numbers very selectively, and very quietly.”

Watch the video above to find out what the Javelin is, how it it used and what it will take for the U.S. to produce more of them.