According to Defense Department sources on Friday, the Pentagon has received an increase in calls for America to expand its overseas entanglements by providing other countries with the same high-tech, multiple-launch rocket system that Ukrainian troops have employed successfully against Russian munitions depots and other supplies.
Secretary of Defense Undersecretary for Acquisition Bill LaPlante told media that the Pentagon has been negotiating with the defense sector to expand production lines to meet U.S. and foreign requests for particular weapons. Also, he mentioned that certain nations have already started making inquiries about purchasing HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems).
As a consequence of this, he stated that not only does the United States need to replace the HIMARS systems that it shipped to Ukraine (at an estimated cost as of yet of approximately $33 million), but it also needs to anticipate the future demands in international sales.
According to the Pentagon, preparations have already begun to replace almost $7 billion worth of equipment and weapons that were removed from warehouses so that they could be shipped to Ukraine as swiftly as possible. Out of this total, approximately $1.2 billion has already been negotiated, with almost half of that amount going toward the purchase of Stinger missiles.
In the first half of this year, the United States Congress allocated a total of $12.5 billion for the purchase of such replacements, in addition to another $6 billion for the purchase of weapons and equipment for shipment to Ukraine from industry directly. It's possible that the products on the contract won't arrive for several years.
A portion of the funds will be used to make investments in the defense industrial base so that businesses can either increase their output or increase the rate at which they produce it.
According to LaPlante, there are straightforward approaches to boosting the production capacity in some circumstances, whilst in others it calls for greater inventiveness and innovation. According to him, restarting production of Stinger missiles required contractors to devise new parts to replace those that had become obsolete as a result of the restart.
According to Sasha Baker, who serves as the undersecretary of defense for policy, the newly appointed United States defense attache in Kyiv, Brigadier General Garrick Harmon, is attempting to provide deeper insight into the capabilities the Ukrainian forces are using the most.
She stated that the appointment of Harmon, which took place in July, provides the United States with improved oversight as well as the capacity to obtain "real-time intelligence about what the Ukrainians are observing and encountering and what they might require.
Later on this month, according to LaPlante, he will convene a meeting with procurement and weapons officials from other NATO and ally nations in order to discuss ways in which supply chain concerns may be resolved and manufacturing of necessary equipment can be increased. He stated that the group will also talk how the various countries can boost the use of machinery that is interchangeable with the systems used by other allies and operates more easily with those systems.
The preceding is a summary of an article that originally appeared on Headline USA.
