Trump’s Sort-of Gift to Kyiv

(Photo illustration by Bill Kuchman/The Bulwark | Photos: Defense.gov, Shutterstock)

AT THE NATO MEETINGS in Ankara, Turkey, last week, President Donald Trump told reporters that he would grant Ukraine a license to manufacture Patriot missiles. Ukraine is in desperate need of interceptors for the missile- and air-defense system, which is just about the only thing it can use to defend itself against some of the more sophisticated Russian missiles blasting its cities. Such attacks have ramped up in retaliation for the effective Ukrainian campaign against Russian petroleum production infrastructure, and were of little military value; instead they killed and terrorized civilians in urban centers, likely in an effort to encourage the Ukrainian public to accept an unfavorable peace agreement, or induce them to flee. As a result, Ukraine is nearly out of Patriot missiles.

To make the shortage worse, there are reports that the United States has used up to half of its Patriot stocks fighting the resurgent war with Iran. NATO members have become increasingly reluctant to share their own Patriots with beleaguered Ukraine, the Iran war has proved just how important missile defense can be; there’s no better system than the Patriot; European countries want to maintain minimum stocks for themselves; and thanks to the United States’ ravenous consumption of missiles, there’s little to go around for the eighteen other countries that use the Patriot.

Ukraine producing Patriot missiles would seem like a win for everyone, mostly Ukraine. Not quite.

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IN REALITY, THESE HYPOTHETICAL Ukrainian-produced interceptors wouldn’t be available until far too late to be of any value during the war, if ever. To understand why this is, we can look at the European defense consortium’s effort to build Patriots for NATO in Schrobenhausen, Germany.

Before anything can happen, Ukraine will have to either figure out which company or consortium is going to build the missiles, or set up and run a bidding process to determine who negotiates with the American companies that build Patriot missiles, Lockheed Martin and RTX (formerly Raytheon). Those Ukrainian companies will have to put together capital and proposals and pass these along to Lockheed/Raytheon or the Ukrainian government. Then the American defense contractors and the U.S. government will have to figure out the potential contract details, while ensuring that all the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and intellectual property rights of the American firms and their subcontractors (including Boeing) are honored. At some point, the Defense and State Departments will both want to be sure that sensitive American technology won’t be at risk of leaking out of Ukraine and into hostile foreign hands. It took the NATO Support and Procurement Agency fourteen months to select a vendor and sign an initial agreement in January 2024. That’s more than a third of the time Ukraine has already spent fighting off Russia’s full-scale invasion, and setting up a factory in Ukraine would be immensely more complicated than doing so in Germany.

Japan also produces Patriot missiles at a Mitsubishi plant, in fact it recently exported some to the United States. And while Japan might be able to help Ukraine set up a factory, it’s unlikely the global supply of Patriots is going to grow any time soon.

Building a single Patriot missile requires components from more than 400 different companies. The supply chain is so vast and complex that it often takes more than two years to build and integrate all the necessary parts into a single missile. Many of these vendors are already operating at peak capacity to meet exploding demand. Increasing this capacity would require significant time and investment, as many defense contractors dramatically cut back production to reduce overhead after the Cold War.

If existing subcontractors cannot provide the necessary parts, there will need to be a process to identify and vet alternatives. This is likely to happen for at least a few of the 400 parts needed.

Whoever produces Patriots for Ukraine will need to train their workers to produce them. During the world wars, millions of unskilled or semi-skilled people could be taught to rivet in a few weeks. This is no longer the case. Building one of the world’s most advanced interceptor missiles requires high levels of precision and quality assurance. Developing a competent workforce to do so requires lots of training even for people with the prerequisite skills. If something goes wrong with a missile traveling at Mach 3, things tend to go awry quickly.

COMLOG, the German, American joint venture working to produce Patriots in Germany, had years of experience working on a contract to repair and maintain NATO’s Patriot stocks. This also meant that they also had existing relationships with parts suppliers, toolmakers, and others critical to the process of standing up a new production facility in a new country. COMLOG started with a workforce that already had experience repairing and maintaining the system. Even so, it took COMLOG five years from start to first anticipated delivery next year. Ukraine is attempting to do it in three without any of COMLOG’s advantages.

Once constructed, missiles also require preservation, inspections, and maintenance. There are plans to build a facility to perform many of these functions in Poland, but it will be years before it is complete.

It also takes considerable time to build a factory to assemble complex weapons quickly and precisely, even when those factories aren’t in a war zone. Building a missile means working with electronics, high explosives, and super-flammable rocket fuel. Beyond that, there are power, water, and environmental concerns. Your average car built by Fiat or Vauxhall doesn’t have a rocket motor, or need the precise machining tools and assembly-line precision required to operate at near-hypersonic speed, or need to be protected from espionage by a variety of foreign governments.

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THERE’S ALSO THE ELEPHANT in the room: Russia would try to destroy any Ukrainian factory producing Patriot missiles, and could probably do so. Ukraine has managed to hide, disperse, or protect much of its industrial capacity to produce simpler systems, like the Fire Point company’s series of one-way attack drones. However, Russia has still managed to strike some of these facilities. According to some accounts (unconfirmed by Ukraine) and video footage, Russia may have recently destroyed a facility for older Soviet-era S-300 surface-to-air missiles near Kyiv.

A facility in Ukraine producing Patriot missiles would be difficult to keep secret. The alternative would be to build the factory assembling the parts underground or in shelters that are hardened enough to survive a conventional ballistic or hypersonic missile strike, like the Russian Kinzhal or Zircon, respectively. Dispersing the manufacturing capability is less efficient than centralizing it and increases the time to set up production. Hardening facilities means additional time and cost.

Ukraine believes that it can have its first indigenously produced Patriots roll off the production line as soon as 2029. I have learned to rarely question Ukrainian determination and ingenuity, but that estimate seems overly optimistic.

More to the point, if the Ukrainians are right, and they produce their first Patriot in three years, the war could be over by then. Putin could be dead by then. A better system could have come along by then. Do the tradeoffs even make sense? With limited time, money, and manpower, should Ukraine invest in making a factory for Patriots that might be available in three years, or should it produce more of its own drones and cruise missiles? Should it harden a factory that won’t make anything for at least two more winters, or should it harden its energy infrastructure? Manufacturing Patriots makes a lot of sense for Ukraine in the future; it’s not clear that it makes a lot of sense now.

While the license for Ukraine to build Patriot missiles is very much a step in the right direction, it will take years to pay dividends, if it comes to fruition at all. The entire process is a lengthy one that will be under constant threat from Russia. Ukraine’s need for interceptors is acute, but it’s an acute tactical problem that probably only has a strategic solution: Making Patriots probably won’t make it easier to win the war, but winning the war will make it easier to make Patriots.

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