The industry cannot react to the increased demand for weapons caused by the war in Ukraine. Missing rockets, but also tanks
The war in Ukraine was marked by a recurring plea by Volodymyr Zelensky (among others) to Western countries: send us arms. But by that time, Western countries could be without weapons, in this case without missiles to send to Ukraine. Because, according to El Mundo, the sector is unable to respond to the increasing demand for weapons and production does not meet the needs of developed countries.
Take Taiwan, for example, which has ordered and paid for 250 Stinger antiaircraft missiles from the US to defend itself in the event of a Chinese invasion, but will not receive them because the US is without missiles because of the war in Ukraine. But the US lacks not only Stinger, Javelin and NLAW missiles (portable antiaircraft and antitank systems). The 40 M109 Paladin tanks that should be delivered to Taiwan in 2023 may not arrive until 2026, again because of the war in Ukraine.
Last Wednesday, the US House of Representatives approved a $40 billion package for Ukraine, boosting support for Kyiv as announced by President Joe Biden. In that package, $23 million is earmarked for arms alone, six times the military aid Washington has sent to Kyiv since the war began.
According to Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, “The United States has shipped about a third of its javelin to Ukraine” and even said that “the closet is empty.” For its part, the Pentagon guarantees that the eight aid packages to Ukraine did not endanger US defense readiness and will never fall “below the indispensable minimum inventory level”: “We will always maintain the defense capability of this country and protect our interests”, guaranteed the Pentagon.
According to reports by Center for International and Strategic Studies analyst Mark Cancian, cited by El Mundo, the US possesses between 20,000 and 25,000 Javelins, meaning that between 7,000 and 8,000 missiles have been sent to Ukraine. The problem is that the companies that make these missiles, Lockheed Martin and Northrop, can only produce 6,480 missiles a year. In other words, one year is not enough to replace the missiles that the US sent to war.
Britain will have sent 6,200 NLAW missiles, almost half its inventory. The missiles will be made in the UK and the delivery time will be similar to the Javelin.
In the case of the Stingers, the US military stopped buying this type of missile 19 years ago and is now looking for a replacement. The Raytheon company of Tucson in the Arizona desert can only make 250 a year and will take 24 months to deliver the weapon Titan requires. However, the supply of this metal is reduced as Russia is the second largest exporter in the world and Ukraine is the fifth largest exporter.
In summary, the traditional defense sector currently has few companies to respond to the increasing arms demand of countries. According to the Financial Times, the US had 51 suppliers in 1990, while it currently has only five. The number drops when the weapon in question is a tactical missile: out of the 13 companies that made them in 1990, there are now just three.
With the decline in the number of manufacturing companies, increasing production is impossible and manufacturing of systems like the M109 is also resuming. That’s because the US rebuilt Detroit’s auto industry to produce WWII arsenals, but today the city thrives on services and has virtually no factories.
The directors of the companies that supply arms to the US Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics admitted in April that they will benefit from the costs the war has forced on US defense but from the problems the supply chain can hamper efforts to increase production.
The US arms shortage is also a concern in Europe, as European companies produce a wide range of weapons but lack the industrial capacity to meet the required production numbers, according to FT, which cites industry experts.
Mark Cancian of the Center for International and Strategic Studies even says that Eastern European countries are more inclined to buy weapons from the US because they feel that “US companies are embedded in the military and that gives them a different feeling “.