Latvia’s border with Russia is a major concern within NATO, but its close proximity to major Russian military bases could be a source of strength as well as weakness.

Latvia plans to procure Anduril’s Barracuda family of jet-powered cruise missiles—potentially giving the small Baltic NATO member a substantially deeper conventional strike capability as it readies its defenses for a potential conflict with Russia.

Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics highlighted the prospective purchase after visiting Anduril in California and meeting founder Palmer Luckey. To date, Latvia hasn’t disclosed the variant, quantity, price, or delivery schedule of the purchase, so many specifics are still unknown. But the acquisition fits a much larger transformation underway along NATO’s eastern flank. While the Baltic states spent decades relying heavily on larger NATO allies for high-end capabilities, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has pushed the Baltic states towards enhancing their own capabilities—not only with respect to defending their own territory, but striking back.

With the Barracuda, Anduril Has Cracked the “Cheap” Cruise Missile

Anduril developed the Barracuda as a family of relatively low-cost autonomous air vehicles and cruise-missile-like weapons. Designed around modularity and mass production rather than exquisite, ultra-expensive missile construction, the family includes multiple variants, including air- and surface-launched configurations. Larger Barracuda variants can reportedly travel 500 or more nautical miles and reach speeds of 500 knots (575 mph) while carrying payloads of 100 pounds or more.

The Barracuda is subsonic, not hypersonic. The missile’s design subordinates raw speed to range, as well as autonomy, affordability, and the ability to manufacture the missile at scale. Essentially, the Barracuda is a sound example of the US defense industry’s movement away from specialized and costly weapons systems towards cheaper ones that can be purchased and fired in large quantities.

The Barracuda is different from traditional cruise missiles in that traditional weapons are usually quite expensive and quite difficult to manufacture quickly. The per-unit cost of a Barracuda missile is estimated at around $200,000, a small fraction of the cost of a comparable Tomahawk cruise missile.

The dangers of designing arsenals around small inventories of high-end munitions have been exposed in Ukraine and Iran, where high-intensity conflicts consume precision weapons much faster than production rates can sustain. Anduril designed the Barracuda around simpler manufacturing and commercially derived production techniques. The company has also emphasized using dramatically fewer components and tools than conventional missile manufacturing. An open, modular architecture allows for different payloads, software updates, and potentially integration into wider command-and-control networks. The Barracuda is not a single-purpose missile but rather an adaptable family of expendable strike vehicles.

Latvia Borders Russia—That’s a Two-Way Street

Latvia’s geography makes the purchase sensible. Latvia shares roughly 176 miles of border with Russia, as well as 107 miles of border with Russian-allied Belarus. This has long been a source of consternation within Riga, but it could be an unexpected benefit for the Baltic nation and for NATO as well.

Depending on the launch location and variant, a weapon with 500-plus miles of range could easily extend Latvia’s engagement envelope beyond the NATO-Russia border. Latvia’s eastern border is only around 300 miles from Saint Petersburg, Russia’s largest city, and the wealth of surrounding military targets it offers; a Latvian missile attack could feasibly target Russian air bases, ammunition depots, command posts, logistics hubs, air-defense sites, troops, and more. Latvia could retaliate to Russian aggression not just with strikes concentrated at the front, but against rear-area infrastructure, much like Ukraine has done effectively in recent months.

Baltic defense has traditionally been difficult. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are geographically small, with limited strategic depth. Proximity to Russia and Belarus doesn’t help. The Barracuda doesn’t solve Latvia’s geographic vulnerability, or offer any sort of airspace defense. But it does add another deterrence layer, suggesting that it can impose costs deep within enemy territory and possibly making the Kremlin think twice about a border incursion. As the saying goes, sometimes the best defense is a good offense.

About the Author: Harrison Kass

Harrison Kass is a writer and attorney focused on national security, technology, and political culture. His work has appeared in Tablet, City Journal, The Hill, The Spectator, and The Cipher Brief. He holds a JD from the University of Oregon and a master’s in Global & Joint Program Studies from NYU. More at harrisonkass.com.

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