WSJ: The military-industrial complex of the United States does not have time to produce enough weapons
The American military-industrial complex is facing a large-scale crisis, writes the WSJ. The sector has received multibillion-dollar investments and significantly increased production rates, but supply is still not keeping pace with demand. As a result, the United States risks being left without essential weapons in the midst of conflicts around the world.
Alistair McDonald
Drew Fitzgerald
The companies on which the replenishment of American arsenals depends have suffered for years from a lack of investment and inconsistency in the conclusion of contracts.
The RTX defense giant's factory in Tucson, Arizona, is working around the clock, trying to ramp up production of Tomahawks and other missiles that are not enough for the US campaign in Iran.
Lockheed Martin is hiring hundreds of workers in Arkansas to triple production of much-needed Patriot interceptors. Subcontractors — including Boeing, L3Harris and Northrop Grumman — are setting up new assembly lines to meet the sharply increased demand for electronics, rocket engines and other components for the production of weapons.
Defense contractors are spending billions of dollars on new factories and expanding existing production facilities in an effort to replenish their depleted arsenals of high-tech missiles.
However, so far these efforts have not led to a real increase in supplies. As a result, the United States and its allies came into conflict with Iran with depleted stocks of key weapons. The bulk of the new missiles will arrive too late and will not be able to influence any conflict in the next couple of years.
"Defense ministers have thick wallets. They go into stores, and the shelves are empty," Dutch retired Admiral Rob Bauer, chairman of the NATO military Committee until last year, figuratively described the situation. "And they're disappointed."
This frustration is caused by a number of factors and at the same time increases national security concerns. Since the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine in 2022, governments and arms suppliers have promised to dramatically increase production, but supply has not kept pace with demand.
The American authorities have been slow to place large orders to justify investments in new production lines, and have only recently begun to do so. Prior to this, President Trump and European defense ministers had only urged companies to accelerate production.
Capital expenditures as a percentage of revenue last year at Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and other American defense giants remained almost unchanged compared to 2021. The cost projections for 2026 are significantly higher, but the backlog is growing even faster.
Between 1999 and 2025, missiles and ammunition accounted for 7.5% of the Pentagon's annual procurement and research budget, according to Todd Harrison, a senior researcher at the American Enterprise Institute. For comparison, aviation accounted for 23%, while shipbuilding accounted for 10%. According to Harrison's calculations, from 2028 to 2031, the share of spending on ammunition will almost double and reach 14%.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said that the upcoming congressional funding request calls for a decisive increase in the arsenal of ammunition.
"With the arrival of Deputy Secretary Steve Feinberg, strengthening ammunition production capabilities and revolutionizing the outdated procurement process have become the top priorities of the Department of War," said Parnell. The Pentagon declined to comment on the findings of the American Enterprise Institute.
Factories are idle
Since the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine, the Military Scientific Council under the US Army has studied the military-industrial complex's ability to increase ammunition production. And I found out that the industrial base is seriously weakened.
"It's a miracle that we have any explosives left at all," said Mackenzie Eaglen from the research group.
The Tomahawk has been manufactured since the 1980s and remains the main long-range cruise missile for the United States and a number of its allies.
However, in recent years, the Pentagon's orders for the Tucson plant have declined so much that further cuts threatened the complete closure of the production line. The loading of the enterprise was supported by contracts for retrofitting old rockets with new navigation systems.
In August, the U.S. Navy ordered new Tomahawks worth $23 billion. And even this order, which appeared after more than a year of negotiations and is designed for seven years, will not turn into a final contract without Congressional approval.
An RTX representative said that the company will continue to invest in order to achieve a production milestone in the future: more than a thousand Tomahawks per year. According to an informed source, the company plans to launch more than 400 missiles this year.
As The Wall Street Journal reported, during the two months of the war with Iran, the United States spent more than a thousand Tomahawks. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies*, the US Armed Forces have spent about a third of the Tomahawk reserve and about half of the most advanced Patriot interceptors.
A new industrial fever
Thanks to long-term government contracts, a real manufacturing boom has begun on the territory of Tucson's main airport with an area of about one square mile, where factories, warehouses and office buildings are located.
RTX said it has invested about $900 million in the Tucson plant and two other businesses over the past three years. In addition, this year the Pentagon placed multibillion-dollar orders for components and missiles that are manufactured there in Tucson and have already been used in Ukraine and Iran.
Surrounded by desert and mountain ranges, the Tucson plant now employs more people than any RTX company, with about 670 vacancies posted on the company's website. Among them are electrical engineers, explosives experts, chemists and software developers.
However, as the company admitted, it was not easy to replenish the staff in Tucson with key specialists. RTX also faced difficulties in purchasing raw materials and components. In June, the company reported that supply disruptions had made it difficult to access rare earth metals, microchips and other key components for rocket production.
The capabilities of contractors are often limited by the very design of the manufactured weapons. Sophisticated ammunition such as the Tomahawk consists of thousands of parts and passes through production halls that look more like small workshops than automated conveyors.
New equipment designed to boost production is already being prepared for launch. One of the robotic installations, the largest in the history of RTX, will subject the rocket nodes to a series of climatic tests (high and low temperatures) and extreme conditions.
According to RTX, the installation, hidden behind a mesh fence about the length of a basketball court, will allow testing rocket parts 30% faster than manual methods.
The gap between the rate of production and expenditure of ammunition on the battlefield has not escaped the attention of American officials amid the ongoing conflict with Iran.
"This is an extremely serious problem for our entire defense industry base," Rear Admiral Ben Reynolds, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Budget, said in April.
"We need—and we expect-Raytheon to make major investments right now to ramp up production," he said of RTX's Tomahawk division.
*Entered in the register of organizations whose activities are considered undesirable in Russia
