Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro warned earlier this month that the US may find it “challenging” to continue arming and supplying Ukraine with weapons if weapons production does not increase.
His comments came after the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said in September that “the military stockpiles of most [EU] member states is, I wouldn’t say exhausted, but exhausted to a high degree, because we provide a lot of capacity to the Ukrainians.”
Such statements have led some to speculate whether the United States, as well as other allies of Ukraine, will reach a point where they can no longer send weapons to Ukraine because they must maintain stockpiles for their own defense.
“Whether the West can run out of weapons to supply Ukraine is a clear question, but at the same time it’s a complex one,” William Reno, professor and chairman of the political science department at Northwestern University, told Newsweek. “The simple answer is yes. Supplies are limited, including with increased production.”
In the main photo, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky is seen during a press conference after the trilateral meeting on January 11, 2023 in Lviv, Ukraine. The smaller image shows a Ukrainian soldier holding a US-made Stinger MANPADS (portable air defense system) on the front line on December 29, 2022 in Bakhmut, Ukraine. Some wondered how long the U.S. could continue supplying Ukraine with weapons while maintaining its own stockpiles at an adequate level for defense. Photo by Stanislav Ivanov/Pierre Crom/Global Images Ukraine/Getty Images
Reno said the topic of arms delivery becomes more complex “when one considers the impact of arms transfers on the military readiness of suppliers.” He detailed how a US military division could transfer weapons to another department for training and how “the command of that unit is asking whether these transfers impair their own execution capacity.”
“The transfer of arms from smaller armed forces to NATO members — Canada, Denmark, Norway — affects their capabilities and readiness more deeply,” Reno said. “They expect the US to support them.
However, Reno added that while Ukraine’s weapons “burn rate” exceeds replacement capacity, the same “is true on the Russian side,” leading Russian President Vladimir Putin to turn to Iran and North Korea for armaments.
Sean Spunts, a US Navy veteran and editor-in-chief of the Special Operations Forces Report (SOFREP), told Newsweek that “weapons depletion” is a relative term.
“The U.S. military maintains huge stocks of ammunition in storage in case of war to give U.S. arms manufacturers time to ramp up replacement production,” Spunts said.
He added that when U.S. military officials talk about stockpiles, they often mean a threshold in the inventory that is still capable of sustaining the U.S. military for months.
“Unlike Russia, which has a limited number of arms manufacturers producing its weapons, the US military relies on thousands of private companies, both large and small, to replace its stockpile,” Spunts added.
He also noted that the US has international partners such as South Korea that have the ability to produce large quantities of materials needed for weapons on short notice.
George Mason University Schar School of Politics and Government Professor Mark N. Katz told Newsweek that while Ukraine and Russia continue to use large amounts of weapons, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi’s forces have the upper hand.
“The difference, I think, is that the West — especially the U.S. — has a much greater capacity to produce weapons than Russia and its allies,” Katz said. “And because Russian weapons rely on imports from the West that Moscow can no longer obtain, this places a severe constraint on Russia’s ability to resupply.”
Stephen Myers, a former member of the U.S. State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy and National Security Membership Committee, told Newsweek that he believes the U.S. and Western allies could eventually solve their own production problems. weapons.
“Will the West run out of weapons? And yes and no,” Myers said. “The United States cannot continue to send weapons — such as artillery shells — without replenishing its stockpiles. The Pentagon is asking its contractors to increase production. But contractors, being reasonable, are more than a little willing to do so without assurances from the Pentagon to cover the capital costs needed to ramp up production.”
In Katz’s assessment, if “the outcome of the war will be largely determined by which country can deploy and replace the most weapons, Ukraine has the upper hand — as long as Western countries continue to supply them.”
Spunts attributes much of Ukraine’s success in the war to Western aid, which he says Zelensky can likely continue to rely on.
“They [Ukraine] are vulnerable in the sense that they probably could not continue the fight without Western supplies. However, negotiations with Russia will not lead to the continued existence of Ukraine as a state,” Spunts said. “Ukraine has little choice but to fight for its survival, and the West must continue to supply them to ensure that, or take -most of the blame for their defeat.”
Newsweek has reached out to the US Department of Defense for comment.
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