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Procurement

Senate bill gives Pentagon wartime procurement powers

Amid the escalating war with Russia in Ukraine and US plans for war with China, the United States is rapidly moving toward a wartime mobilization of its economy. It is doing so as the war provoked by the US and NATO and triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine rapidly metastasizes into a global conflict.

Last week, the two highest-ranking Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee introduced a bill granting the Pentagon emergency wartime procurement powers, removing major peacetime limitations on arms purchases by the Pentagon and procuring missiles in wartime quantities.

A US Marine HIMARS system at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton.

In an amendment to the annual National Defense Authorization bill, the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Democratic chairman, Jack Reed, and the ranking Republican committee member, Jim Inhofe, proposed to increase US procurement of long-range missiles such as the HIMARS by 10 times or more.

The bill comes as the United States intensifies its involvement in its proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, while making it abundantly clear that it is seeking to provoke a war with China over Taiwan. In both conflicts, the type of long-range weapons being procured in massive quantities under the bill are seen as critical.

“Whether you want to call it wartime contracting or emergency contracting, we can’t play around anymore,” a senior congressional aide told Defense News.

Chillingly, the aide referred to “operational plans” against China, implying that the Pentagon has a timetable for war with the world’s most populous country.  “It’s hard to think of something as high on everybody’s list as buying a ton of munitions for the next few years, for our operational plans against China and continuing to supply Ukraine,” the aide said.

The wartime procurement procedures would allow the Department of Defense to make non-competitive awards to arms manufacturers for contracts related to Ukraine, and remove restrictions requiring contractors to provide accurate cost data – measures intended to protect taxpayer funds.

A screenshot of the proposed bill, showing the proposed procurement of 700 HIMARS systems.

The sheer numbers of armaments requisitioned by the bill are consistent with a full-scale war – or even two. The public text of the bill calls for the procurement of 700 HIMARS systems, the long-range missile launchers credited with turning the tide in the war in Ukraine.

To date, 16 HIMARS systems have been delivered and deployed in Ukraine. The number now being procured is more than 40 times greater than the number sent so far.

Since the HIMARS system first entered into deployment approximately 20 years ago, some 540 units have been built, averaging about 54 units per year. This means that the current bipartisan proposal would increase the production rate nearly twenty-fold.

The amendment procures 6,000 ATACMS missiles, capable of striking targets at a distance of hundreds of miles, and 100,000 of the GMLRS missiles fired by the HIMARS systems in Ukraine.

To date, the United States has provided 126 155mm howitzers to Ukraine. But the procurement for the 2023-24 budget year would secure an additional 1,000 units of the weapon.

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