The CEO of Raytheon Technologies, one of the world’s largest arms manufacturers, says that in just 10 months of the war in Ukraine, years of production of Stinger and Javelin missiles were spent, the National Review reports.

Greg Hayes made the comments at a military forum in Washington after being asked about Taiwan’s requests to buy such missiles as part of its “porcupine” strategy to deter a possible Chinese invasion.

Hayes noted that while Raytheon produces 400 Javelin missiles a month in partnership with Lockheed Martin, the fighting in Ukraine has quickly depleted the existing stockpile in the United States.

“The problem is that we spent so many reserves in the first 10 months of the war. Essentially, we used the equivalent of 13 years of Stinger production and 5 years of Javelin production,” he stated.

“So the question now is how we will restore, replenish these reserves,” he added.

The United States sent 5,500 Javelin anti-tank systems and 1,400 man-portable Stinger anti-aircraft missile systems in May alone, and in May the Pentagon awarded a $624 million contract to Raytheon to replenish Stinger stocks.

Fear that the US will run out of weapons for Ukraine

U.S. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said at the same forum where Hayes spoke that the Pentagon has awarded $6 billion in new contracts to replenish the U.S. weapons stockpile.

“For example, in the last month alone, we awarded Raytheon contracts for 6 NASAMS batteries,” she said, referring to the state-of-the-art air defense system the United States has already sent to Ukraine after the kamikaze missile and drone. attacks on the country by the Russian armed forces.

Several US officials told CNN in mid-November that the US was running out of certain weapons and ammunition for Ukraine.

According to sources cited by American journalists, concerns are related to 155 mm artillery ammunition and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.

Some sources also expressed concern about US production of additional weapons systems, including HARM anti-radiation missiles, GMLRS surface-to-surface missiles and Javelin man-portable anti-tank missiles, although the US has moved to increase production of these and other systems.

One reason for concern about the low stockpiles is that the US industrial base is not keeping up with demand as Washington is no longer directly involved in the conflict for the first time in two decades, so arms companies have cut production.

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