The United States is by far the largest arms donor to Ukraine since Russia invaded the country on February 24, with more than 16.8 billion in military assistance to kyiv.
But US stocks of some equipment “reach minimum levels necessary for planning and training”, and replenishing stocks to pre-invasion levels could take “several years”, according to Mark Cancian of the Center for strategic and international studies. (CSIS).
Older equipment is available and “they will represent an increasingly important part of the transfers” in the future, added in a recent note this former colonel of the Marine Corps who was responsible for the Pentagon’s arms purchases from 2008 to 2015.
“We are learning lessons” on the ammunition requirements of the American army in a conflict between great powers, which are “far higher” than forecasts, acknowledged an American soldier on condition of anonymity.
The American defense industry, which was forced to cut production drastically in the 1990s when the United States wanted to reap the benefits of peace after the collapse of the USSR, has become ultra- concentrated to absorb the shock.
The number of defense and aeronautical construction groups fell from 51 to 5 in a few years.
Today, the US government must convince the industry to reopen assembly lines and restart production that had been abandoned, such as that of the Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, which ceased production in 2020.
Some of this equipment has become emblematic of the war in Ukraine, such as the Javelin, the anti-tank weapon widely used by Ukrainian forces at the start of the conflict to push back a column of Russian tanks trying to enter kyiv, or the Himars, rocket launchers mounted on light armor, which plays an important role in Ukrainian counter-offensives in the east and south of the country.
“Close to the limit”
American stocks of ammunition needed for the Himars, GPS-guided rockets known as GMLERS, with a range of more than 80 km, are however limited, according to Mr. Cancian.
“If the United States delivered to Ukraine a third of its GMLERS inventory, as it did for the Javelins and Stingers, Ukraine received between 8,000 and 10,000″, a sufficient number for ” a few months”, explains the CSIS expert.
But Lockheed Martin currently produces only 5,000 of these high-precision rockets a year, and even if the US government has released funds to accelerate this production, the United States will take several years to replenish its stocks, he adds.
Washington has delivered to kyiv some 8,500 missiles for Javelin, but the annual production of this armament symbol of the Ukrainian resistance is only 1,000 missiles.
The United States ordered them in May for 350 million dollars from the joint venture between Raytheon and Lockheed Martin which manufactures them, but again, it will take several years before American stocks are replenished.
The US military supplied 880,000 155-caliber shells to kyiv, or three-quarters of the NATO-standard ammunition delivered to Ukraine by all Western countries, according to Pentagon figures.
“That’s probably close to the limit of what the United States is willing to give without risk to its own defense capabilities,” Cancian said. But many countries are manufacturing the ammunition around the world and deliveries to Ukraine are unlikely to stop, he adds.
US defense industrial production is “accelerating”, the official responsible for Russia in the US Department of Defense, Laura Cooper, assured Tuesday that the United States would continue to provide assistance to Ukraine “as long as necessary”.