Since February 2022, the United States has sent more than $7.3 billion in military hardware to Ukraine, more than twice the yearly value of security assistance the United States provides to any other country. Those transfers have been instrumental in sustaining Kyiv’s defense against Russia’s invasion but have also placed significant strains on America’s defense industrial base and the Pentagon’s military stockpiles. With many analysts predicting a protracted conflict that relies heavily on expendable weaponry like artillery munitions and long-range rockets, the pace of U.S. arms provision to Ukraine may create new challenges for U.S. readiness and its ability to provide support to Kyiv.
Despite the unprecedented pace and scale of recent U.S. transfers, U.S. security cooperation with Ukraine is not new. In the years after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, the United States began to expand its military aid effort to Kyiv, looking to enhance Ukraine’s ability to address security threats emanating from Russia directly and from the Kremlin’s support to separatists in the country’s east. To support, facilitate, and fund these efforts, the United States leaned on several conventional security sector assistance programs to help Ukraine develop its national defense capabilities. As such, arms transfer to Ukraine typically followed a conventional pattern, with the United States facilitating acquisitions from defense contractors or existing U.S. stocks on a standard timeline and production schedule. While timelines can range depending on the system in question, such transfers could take months or years to go from proposal to delivery, not including the time to train local forces and integrate new systems into national defense structures.
Despite the elevation of Ukraine in the American security cooperation landscape, the pace of military aid continued to follow a similarly methodical trajectory, amounting to approximately $2.1 billion between 2014 and 2020. That changed after the February 24 invasion. With Russian forces bearing down on Kyiv, the United States looked to urgently rush military hardware to Ukrainian forces and could not wait on traditional acquisition and transfer processes. Instead, the Administration turned to an unconventional mechanism – the President’s drawdown power, an authority delegated by the President to the Secretary of State to transfer military equipment from existing U.S. stocks without congressional authorization in the event of an emergency.
Even before the 2022 invasion, as Russia’s accumulation of troops on Ukraine’s border drew ever-increasing levels of international concerns, in August 2021, the Department of State invoked the Presidential authority to transfer a tranche of $60 million worth of military equipment to Kyiv. It would be the first of an astounding 14 Presidential drawdowns between August 2021 and June 2022, amounting to more than $5.05 billion in military assistance and representing the majority of the military aid delivered to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion.
To put those figures in perspective, a 2016 Government Accountability Office report suggests that, between FY2011 and FY2015, the President used his drawdown authority a total of 13 times globally. By comparison, in the past five months, the Biden Administration has used the authority 14 times just for Ukraine.
Additionally, it seems like the pressure on U.S. stockpiles will continue for the foreseeable future. In its recent emergency supplemental for Ukraine, Congress increased the yearly cap on the President’s Drawdown Authority from $100 million to $11 billion for FY2022. Moreover, as both sides struggle to outmaneuver the other and rely increasingly on long-range fire exchanges in a war of attrition, the demand for artillery shells, rockets, protected mobility, and other systems will continue to grow.
And while the use of the authority has cut the timeline of transfers from months and years to days or weeks, it has left American stockpiles dangerously depleted. According to lawmakers and other sources, transfers to Ukraine have reduced the available American supply of Javelin anti-tank missiles by at least a third while the supply of stingers has been reduced by at least 25 percent. Even with the infusion of billions of dollars from Congress, the challenge of replenishment is compounded by the fact that some of the transferred equipment, including stinger systems and M777 Howitzers, are no longer in active production. For example, in an April call with investors, Raytheon’s CEO said his company would not be able to ramp up production of the shoulder fire Stinger missile until next year due to the lack of availability of key parts, forcing defense contractors and Pentagon planners to consider alternative replacements.
While Pentagon officials maintain that transfers to Ukraine have not allowed U.S. stocks to dip below the levels necessary to preserve American readiness, the intensity of the conflict in Ukraine and the pace at which Western hardware has been expended is already creating supply chain crunches. Some reports suggest that the delivery of Stinger missiles the United States promised to Taiwan has been delayed because of their mass transfers to Ukraine. Others have noted that the West simply does not have the production capacity to meet Ukraine’s battlefield demands for key munitions, including artillery shells, which could prove devastating in a conflict that is increasingly defined by exchanges of long-range fire.
Rapid depletions and the perspective of shortages have catalyzed a broader re-evaluation of U.S. stockpile management and assumptions about the size of stores required to sustain a modern peer-vs.-peer conflict. In other words, the conflict in Ukraine has led defense experts and legislators to scrutinize the depth of the conventional defense arsenal required to meet the expanding demands of twenty-first century security, including the need for redundancy and larger stores that may seem superfluous during times of peace but critical in moments of crisis.
An end to the current conflict is nowhere in sight. Far from the short sharp war Russia predicted, many see a conflict that lasts at least into the next year. According to some, Kyiv’s ability to persevere over the coming months will be determined by the West’s capacity to get materiel into Ukraine and for Ukraine to translate that support into battlefield capabilities. Given that Ukraine and other European leaders insist that even the current unprecedented pace of transfers remains insufficient to stymie the Russian invasion, the challenges of preserving U.S. stockpiles and readiness while meeting Ukraine’s war needs are likely to persist.
Ukraine Aid Strains U.S. Defense Stockpiles
By Elias Yousif
Conventional Arms
Since February 2022, the United States has sent more than $7.3 billion in military hardware to Ukraine, more than twice the yearly value of security assistance the United States provides to any other country. Those transfers have been instrumental in sustaining Kyiv’s defense against Russia’s invasion but have also placed significant strains on America’s defense industrial base and the Pentagon’s military stockpiles. With many analysts predicting a protracted conflict that relies heavily on expendable weaponry like artillery munitions and long-range rockets, the pace of U.S. arms provision to Ukraine may create new challenges for U.S. readiness and its ability to provide support to Kyiv.
Despite the unprecedented pace and scale of recent U.S. transfers, U.S. security cooperation with Ukraine is not new. In the years after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, the United States began to expand its military aid effort to Kyiv, looking to enhance Ukraine’s ability to address security threats emanating from Russia directly and from the Kremlin’s support to separatists in the country’s east. To support, facilitate, and fund these efforts, the United States leaned on several conventional security sector assistance programs to help Ukraine develop its national defense capabilities. As such, arms transfer to Ukraine typically followed a conventional pattern, with the United States facilitating acquisitions from defense contractors or existing U.S. stocks on a standard timeline and production schedule. While timelines can range depending on the system in question, such transfers could take months or years to go from proposal to delivery, not including the time to train local forces and integrate new systems into national defense structures.
Despite the elevation of Ukraine in the American security cooperation landscape, the pace of military aid continued to follow a similarly methodical trajectory, amounting to approximately $2.1 billion between 2014 and 2020. That changed after the February 24 invasion. With Russian forces bearing down on Kyiv, the United States looked to urgently rush military hardware to Ukrainian forces and could not wait on traditional acquisition and transfer processes. Instead, the Administration turned to an unconventional mechanism – the President’s drawdown power, an authority delegated by the President to the Secretary of State to transfer military equipment from existing U.S. stocks without congressional authorization in the event of an emergency.
Even before the 2022 invasion, as Russia’s accumulation of troops on Ukraine’s border drew ever-increasing levels of international concerns, in August 2021, the Department of State invoked the Presidential authority to transfer a tranche of $60 million worth of military equipment to Kyiv. It would be the first of an astounding 14 Presidential drawdowns between August 2021 and June 2022, amounting to more than $5.05 billion in military assistance and representing the majority of the military aid delivered to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion.
To put those figures in perspective, a 2016 Government Accountability Office report suggests that, between FY2011 and FY2015, the President used his drawdown authority a total of 13 times globally. By comparison, in the past five months, the Biden Administration has used the authority 14 times just for Ukraine.
Additionally, it seems like the pressure on U.S. stockpiles will continue for the foreseeable future. In its recent emergency supplemental for Ukraine, Congress increased the yearly cap on the President’s Drawdown Authority from $100 million to $11 billion for FY2022. Moreover, as both sides struggle to outmaneuver the other and rely increasingly on long-range fire exchanges in a war of attrition, the demand for artillery shells, rockets, protected mobility, and other systems will continue to grow.
And while the use of the authority has cut the timeline of transfers from months and years to days or weeks, it has left American stockpiles dangerously depleted. According to lawmakers and other sources, transfers to Ukraine have reduced the available American supply of Javelin anti-tank missiles by at least a third while the supply of stingers has been reduced by at least 25 percent. Even with the infusion of billions of dollars from Congress, the challenge of replenishment is compounded by the fact that some of the transferred equipment, including stinger systems and M777 Howitzers, are no longer in active production. For example, in an April call with investors, Raytheon’s CEO said his company would not be able to ramp up production of the shoulder fire Stinger missile until next year due to the lack of availability of key parts, forcing defense contractors and Pentagon planners to consider alternative replacements.
While Pentagon officials maintain that transfers to Ukraine have not allowed U.S. stocks to dip below the levels necessary to preserve American readiness, the intensity of the conflict in Ukraine and the pace at which Western hardware has been expended is already creating supply chain crunches. Some reports suggest that the delivery of Stinger missiles the United States promised to Taiwan has been delayed because of their mass transfers to Ukraine. Others have noted that the West simply does not have the production capacity to meet Ukraine’s battlefield demands for key munitions, including artillery shells, which could prove devastating in a conflict that is increasingly defined by exchanges of long-range fire.
Rapid depletions and the perspective of shortages have catalyzed a broader re-evaluation of U.S. stockpile management and assumptions about the size of stores required to sustain a modern peer-vs.-peer conflict. In other words, the conflict in Ukraine has led defense experts and legislators to scrutinize the depth of the conventional defense arsenal required to meet the expanding demands of twenty-first century security, including the need for redundancy and larger stores that may seem superfluous during times of peace but critical in moments of crisis.
An end to the current conflict is nowhere in sight. Far from the short sharp war Russia predicted, many see a conflict that lasts at least into the next year. According to some, Kyiv’s ability to persevere over the coming months will be determined by the West’s capacity to get materiel into Ukraine and for Ukraine to translate that support into battlefield capabilities. Given that Ukraine and other European leaders insist that even the current unprecedented pace of transfers remains insufficient to stymie the Russian invasion, the challenges of preserving U.S. stockpiles and readiness while meeting Ukraine’s war needs are likely to persist.
Recent & Related