Start prioritizing Ukraine’s defense industrial base now to for Kyiv’s long-term security

The outpouring of support in arms and financing from the US and friendly nations to Ukraine has been unprecedented, but it also can’t last forever. In this op-ed, Joshua Huminski of the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress says that for Ukraine’s future security, it’s time to help it rebuild its own defense production capacity.

The war in Ukraine is still raging, but it’s not too early for the United States and its European allies to prioritize investment in Ukraine’s defense industrial base as part of its reconstruction program, both to help fend off Russia now and to provide for long-term stability post-conflict.

This support must focus on developing a maintenance and repair program for the country’s diverse suite of arms and weapons and look to integrate the impressive domestic efforts for the manufacture and deployment of drones and other systems as first steps. Doing so will see the country achieve greater output and production and set the stage for longer-term investment in the defense sector, while at the same time putting Kyiv on a path towards increased self-sufficiency.

While consideration of reconstruction in Ukraine is well underway, discussions about the investment and redevelopment of its defense industry specifically is only just beginning. In September, President Volodymyr Zelensky hosted a forum of international arms manufacturers to discuss the development of the country’s defense industrial capacity. The president said that he hopes to turn the country into a “large military hub” through foreign partnerships. Attended by executives from over 30 countries, Ukrainian producers are said to have signed 20 agreements on technology sharing, joint manufacturing, and supply arrangements.

Ukraine’s defense industry will not be able to begin manufacturing advanced arms immediately, and in the short term the US and its allies should focus on meeting Kyiv where it is. The country has created an impressive franken-force of Western arms and training. From American Abrams and British Challenger II main battle tanks to an international assortment of 155mm artillery platforms, to say nothing of the forthcoming F-16 and European counterpart aircraft, Ukraine is fielding a wide diversity of platforms, all of which necessitate different maintenance and repair protocols.

Right now, much of the support is spread between locations in Poland near Ukraine’s border, and within Ukraine itself. The West should look to consolidate maintenance and repair programs to locations in Ukraine, leveraging existing (and undamaged) facilities. This will centralize weapons support efforts, continue the familiarization process for Ukrainian maintainers, and serve as a foundation for future defense industrial production. Equally, the West should look to empower Ukrainian manufacturers to produce, where appropriate, replacement parts for the equipment it is operating without having to rely on foreign resupply.

Official maintenance programs will need to shift to contracted support and repair efforts which, ideally, will be followed by Western defense companies establishing programs within Ukraine itself. To do so, the United States government will likely need to offer contracts for such efforts in the near-term and incentives in the longer-term, as will Ukraine, to attract investment in these nascent defense industrial efforts. There will, naturally, be wildcat investors and contracts keen to get in early, but attracting the majors will prove more challenging in a time of war.

Beyond repair and maintenance, the medium-term rebuilding of the country’s arms industry also presents an opportunity to institutionalize the lessons Ukraine has learned from the battlefield. Ukraine has demonstrated a proficiency in the small-scale domestic production of weapons such as drones—both aerial and seaborne—and missiles, such as the Neptune used in the sinking of the Moskva.

Antonov, the company most well-known for its massive (and now sadly destroyed) aircraft, has retooled itself to produce drones. The pairing of refocused industrial manufacturers with small-scale, home-grown manufacturers is deeply impressive, but must grow and stabilize. Achieving economies of scale, integrating lessons learned from the battlefield, and systemizing acquisition will lead to a stronger Ukrainian military—necessary for achieving defense today and deterrence for tomorrow.

More broadly, the long-term rehabilitation of Ukraine’s defense industry will not be a wholly cold start. At the end of the Cold War, Kyiv inherited some 750 factories and a defense workforce of over a million. This industry ranged from shipyards in the Black Sea, aerospace factories and companies such as Antonov, to small arms and light weapons stocks, to say nothing of one of the largest armor factories in the former Soviet Union. Economic pressures and political decisions led to the slow shrinking of the industry—reduced to some 300 plants and 250,000 workers in 2014—which also turned its attention to the export market, sending some $1.3 billion of arms overseas per annum.

Convincing Western companies to invest in Ukraine, let alone its defense industry, will not be easy as the country remains at war and subject to regular attacks from Russia. Indeed, the disruption caused by Moscow’s missiles is almost part and parcel of the Kremlin’s strategy to undermine Kyiv.  Additionally, concerns about corruption do remain an obstacle to foreign investment. Political and economic reforms are underway—all the more impressive as these are occurring amidst the war—but are incomplete and will likely remain so for some time. Addressing these will help improve the investment climate and attract Western defense partners for the long term.

Developing a more self-sustaining arms base will see the country slowly progress toward greater (though not entire) autonomy from the West, reducing its reliance on aid from the United States and Europe. It also allows it to meet several criteria if its bid to join NATO is to be taken seriously. Neither Ukraine nor NATO countries should be under any illusion about the speed and pace of Kyiv’s accession to the defensive alliance. Ukraine cannot afford to be exclusively reliant on what is a wholly political process and one that is sure to be fraught with challenges and delays, regardless of the rhetoric that is presently espoused by Western leaders. Preliminary and practical measures such as defense industrial base support, discussed during the Vilnius Summit in NATO are far more bankable at the moment.

As the pace, scale, and scope of the war declines, expanding relationships and manufacturing from the wildcat investors into established defense primes will occur. This will necessitate some support and backing from national governments, but it is an investment that will pay dividends in the long-term by generating revenue for the companies themselves, increasing security for Ukraine, and reducing Kyiv’s reliance on the West.

Joshua C. Huminski is Director of the Mike Rogers Center for Intelligence & Global Affairs at the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress, and a George Mason University National Security Institute Senior Fellow. He can be found on Twitter @joshuachuminski.