Workers at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant prepare 155 mm artillery rounds to be filled as a part of the load, assemble, and pack operation. (US Army)
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan discussed the steps the Biden administration has taken to strengthen the US defence industrial base (DIB) and what is still needed during a 4 December event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC.
While the state of the DIB has been a concern in recent years, the conflict in Ukraine brought many of its weaknesses into the limelight. For example, through “eight weeks of the war in 2022, Ukraine burnt through a year's worth of US 155 mm artillery production”, demonstrating that the US industrial base was not prepared to support the material requirements of a full-scale conflict, Sullivan said. When President Joe Biden issued an order to “exponentially ramp up the production of 155 mm artillery munitions … we could only immediately add about 400 rounds on top of the 14,000 rounds we produced each month”, he continued. The industrial capacity and supplies of precursor materials were not available to support a production surge, Sullivan added.
Another lesson has been Ukraine's use of commercial technology, drones, and autonomous systems to offset shortages of conventional munitions. “We were behind the curve in innovating, acquiring, and fielding those types of systems … and that was just the tip of the iceberg. The deeper we looked, the clearer it became that we needed larger stocks of many critical munitions and weapons platforms,” he said.
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