Why more American weapons will be made outside America

On the grassy plains of Australia’s vast interior, an industrial evolution in the American war machine is gathering momentum. In munitions factories with room to grow, Australia is on the verge of producing heaps of artillery shells and thousands of guided missiles in partnership with U.S. companies.

Made to Pentagon specifications, the weapons will be no different from those built in the United States, and only some of what rolls off the line will stay in Australia. The rest are intended to help replenish U.S. stockpiles or be sold to U.S. partners in an era of grinding ground wars and threats from major powers.

It is all part of an Australian push essentially to become the 51st state for defense production, an ambitious vision that is now taking shape with a giant yellow mixer for explosives and a lightning-protected workshop for assembling missiles known as GMLRS (for Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System)— or “gimmlers.”

“We’re not buying a commodity; we’re investing in an enterprise,” said Brig. Andrew Langford, the Australian director general responsible for domestic manufacturing of guided weapons and explosives. “And that’s where it’s really novel.”

The embrace of joint production reflects a wider awakening in Washington and other capitals: The United States by itself cannot make enough of the weapons needed for protracted warfare and deterrence. Vulnerable partners such as Taiwan are facing delayed orders for U.S. equipment as China’s military capabilities continue to grow.

So while the Pentagon waits for changes to Cold War-era laws that prioritize protecting military technology, and as the conflicts in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip push U.S. factories to their limits, officials are leading a worldwide campaign to make more U.S. weapons with friendly nations.

Poland, Japan and India are a few of the countries in various phases of production partnerships. But Australia, the closest of U.S. allies, having fought alongside Americans in every conflict since World War I, has gone further and faster with the Defense Department and U.S. contractors such as Lockheed Martin.

Together, they are testing a more collective approach that demands greater trust, investments in the billions of dollars, and cross-continental sharing of sensitive technology for U.S. weapons systems, along with complex production and testing methods.

“We’re really pleased at the momentum and speed we’re generating with Australia,” said Bill Laplante, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment. “Efforts like these act as a kind of blueprint for additional U.S. co-development, coproduction and co-sustainment agreements around the world.”

For Australia, a distant island of 26 million people, going first adds opportunity and stress.

At a time when China’s military keeps leaping forward, with seemingly endless production lines for warships and missiles, Australia’s push into joint production could make the country more of a “porcupine,” with sharper defenses that would deter China or another adversary. It also could create a much bigger weapons export industry with a U.S. stamp of approval; Australian officials have been lobbying for a broad exemption to military export laws, a status only Canada has now.

“We are there to supplement, not supplant, the American industrial base,” said Pat Conroy, Australia’s minister for defense industry, who recently returned from a trip to Washington. “They should see this as an opportunity for us to be a second supply line.”

Some Australian officials worry that their costly bet on America’s cooperation — which accelerated in 2021 with plans for nuclearpropelled submarines — could be endangered by another isolationist Trump presidency.

Analysts argue that weapons co-production will deliver the benefit of greater deterrence only if the manufacturing process advances with alacrity in Australia and around the region.

“There is strength in numbers,” said Charles Edel, the Australia chairman and a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “but only if those numbers materialize rapidly and in sufficient quantity to give Beijing pause.”

Mulwala is a hub of Australia’s public-private explosives industry. It’s where the volatile materials that fill artillery, bombs and rifle rounds are made.

Most of the 2,500-acre site is managed by Thales, a multinational defense contractor, which also oversees munitions production at a second location nearby in Benalla. Both sit on government land that could allow for expansion during what Australian officials described as the “crawl, walk, run” process of collaborative manufacturing.

First, the United States and Australia are finalizing joint production of unguided 155 mm artillery shells, which Pentagon officials described as “an early win.”

Next, Lockheed Martin will start assembling GMLRS with U.S. components at a location where other missiles are maintained, ramping up from a few units to a few hundred.

And as walking turns to running, Australia expects to be producing about 3,000 GMLRS per year with at least some local parts — most likely those that rely on “energetics,” a term that includes the explosives that are used to fly a missile and blow up its target.

The weapons would be at least partly American. They just won’t have all come from America — and that may make avoiding a war or fighting one a lot easier.

“The West has a great opportunity to harness its collective industrial base, to ensure we maintain a rules-based global order,” said Air Marshal Leon Phillips, Australia’s most senior military official in charge of guided weapons and explosive ordnance. “We’re moving toward a just-incase model and away from justin-time.”