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NATO pledged to ramp up its defense industry on Wednesday, as Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine has created a vast demand for more supplies in the war-ravaged country and across the alliance that has outstripped NATO\u2019s ability to produce weapons and ammunition.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were not able to produce the kind of capabilities in the kind of volumes that we need either for our own deterrence and defense or to support Ukraine,\u201d one senior NATO official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n
The Defense Industrial Pledge commits NATO members to ensuring that members do not put up trade barriers on the alliance\u2019s defense market, that they purchase weapons jointly whenever possible, and work closer with Ukraine and NATO\u2019s Indo-Pacific partners on defense production.<\/p>\n
A key part of the pledge is to standardize weapons across the alliance: The war in Ukraine has shown that even standard 155mm ammunition often has small differences that mean it cannot be used across different countries\u2019 artillery.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s bad for the military commander because it means you have different pots of ammunition, it lengthens your supply lines. It\u2019s just terrible all around,\u201d the official said. Ammunition purchases across the alliance will now be subject to standardized guidelines, the official added.<\/p>\n
The new pledge is an acknowledgement that the West has so far struggled to ramp up its defense industrial base. The EU\u2019s promise to send a million artillery rounds to Ukraine by March will only be met by the end of this year<\/a>, and European countries have scoured the globe for ammunition shells still for sale even as prices have spiked.<\/p>\n NATO officials are determined to rectify this, and say the alliance is on track to produce roughly 2 million rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition this year, and could hit 3 million rounds in 2025. \u201cIt\u2019s not enough, but it\u2019s a big uptick,\u201d the official said. While the goal is not to \u201cstrictly outproduce Russia in raw terms, we need to be able to produce what we need for NATO deterrence and defense and to supply Ukraine,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Members are also motivated by a desire to reduce the Western defense industry\u2019s dependence on Chinese components. An internal NATO agreement agreed upon several weeks ago to reassess NATO\u2019s military supply chains warned about the threat of China potentially throttling the flow of key components. While China is not mentioned explicitly in Wednesday\u2019s pledge, its dominance in key parts of the supply chain informed background discussions, the official said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n