Shipments put strain on US arsenal
Biden to visit plant in Alabama in push for more aid to Kyiv
WASHINGTON — The planes take off almost daily from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware — hulking C-17s loaded up with Javelins, Stingers, howitzers and other materiel being hustled to Eastern Europe to resupply Ukraine’s military in its fight against Russia.
The game-changing impact of those arms is what President Joe Biden hopes to spotlight as he visits a Lockheed Martin plant Tuesday in Alabama that builds the portable Javelin anti-tank weapons that have played a crucial role in Ukraine.
But Biden’s visit is also drawing attention to a growing concern as the war drags on: Can the U.S. sustain the cadence of shipping vast amounts of arms to Ukraine while maintaining the healthy stockpile it may need if a new conflict erupts with North Korea, Iran or elsewhere?
The U.S. already has provided about 7,000 Javelins, including some that were delivered during the Trump administration, about one-third of its stockpile, to Ukraine, according to an analysis by Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies international security program. The Biden administration says it has committed to sending about 5,500 to Ukraine since the Russian invasion more than two months ago.
Analysts also estimate that the
United States has sent about one-quarter of its stockpile of shoulder-fired Stinger missiles to Ukraine.
Raytheon Technologies CEO Greg Hayes told investors last week during a quarterly call that his company, which makes the weapons system, wouldn’t be able to ramp up production until next year due to parts shortages.
“Could this be a problem? The short answer is, ‘Probably, yes,’ ” said Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and former government specialist on Pentagon budget strategy, war funding and procurement.
He said that Stingers and Javelins were where“we’reseeingthemostsignificantinventory issues,” and production of both weapons systems has been limited in recent years.
The war will mean increased sales for some defense contractors, including Raytheon, which makes the Stinger missiles Ukrainian troops have used to knock out Russian aircraft. The company is also part of a joint venture with Lockheed Martin that makes the Javelins.
Military spending by the U.S. and around the world was rising even before Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion. Biden’s proposed 2023 budget sought $773 billion for the Pentagon, an annual increase of about 4%.
Biden will visit Lockheed Martin’s facility in Troy, Ala., which has the capacity to manufacture about 2,100 Javelins per year. The trip comes as he presses Congress to approve his request for an additional $33 billion in security and economic assistance for Kyiv, Western allies and restocking weapons the U.S. has sent to those countries.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Monday that he hoped bipartisan agreement on the security package could be reached so the Senate could begin considering it “as early as next week.”
A White House official said the Pentagon is working with defense contractors “to evaluate the health of weapons systems’ production lines and examine bottlenecks in every component and step of the manufacturing process.”
Meanwhile, in Ukraine, Russia resumed pulverizing the Mariupol steel mill that has become the last stronghold of resistance in the bombed-out city, Ukrainian fighters said Monday, after a brief cease-fire over the weekend allowed the first evacuation of civilians from the plant.
More than 100 people — including elderly women and mothers with small children — left the rubble-strewn Azovstal steelworks on Sunday and set out in buses and ambulances for the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia, about 140 miles to the northwest, authorities said.
Mariupol Deputy Mayor Sergei Orlov told the BBC that the evacuees were making slow progress and would probably not arrive in Zaporizhzhia on Monday as hoped for. Authorities gave no explanation for the delay.
Also, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a half-dozen U.S. lawmakers met with Polish President Andrzej Duda in Warsaw. The visit followed a weekend visit to Kyiv where they met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, vowing to support his country until it defeats Russia.
In a statement after the meeting with Duda, Pelosi called him “a valued partner in supporting the people of Ukraine in the face of (Vladimir) Putin’s brutal and unprovoked war.”
In another development, European Union energy ministers met Monday to discuss new sanctions against the Kremlin, which could include restrictions on Russian oil. But some Russia-dependent members of the 27-nation bloc, including Hungary and Slovakia, are wary of taking tough action.