U.S. aerospace and defense giant Lockheed Martin Corp. has said it plans to nearly double its production of Javelin missiles in the next couple of years to help beef up U.S. supplies and aid to Ukraine.
Taiclet said the decision to increase production was made to ensure that it can continue to send more missiles to Ukraine, while also making sure that military supplies in the United States aren’t depleted.
“So right now, our capacity is 2,100 Javelin missiles per year. We’re endeavoring to take that up to 4,000 per year, and that will take a number of months, maybe even a couple of years to get there because we have to get our supply chain to also crank up,” he said. “We think we can almost double the capacity in a reasonable amount of time.”
He noted that the Bipartisan Innovation Act, if approved by Congress, could help to boost domestic production with multibillion-dollar investments in America’s semiconductor industry while also helping to reduce reliance on foreign countries.
“It will be extremely helpful to have the Bipartisan Innovation Act passed, for example, because we do need to invest more in the infrastructure in the U.S. so we have domestic supply, especially in microprocessors,” he said.
“And so our production line can run today, but in the future, we’re going to need more domestic capability and microprocessor, not only design but manufacturing, testing, et cetera, so that we have assured supply of those microprocessors in the future.”
Taiclet noted that the conflict in Ukraine has highlighted Lockheed Martin’s need to have “superior systems in large enough numbers,” such as Javelin, Stinger, and Patriot missiles, and advanced cruise missiles, noting that there is likely to be increased demand for such equipment even after the war in Ukraine is over.
“We know that there’s going to be increased demand for those kinds of equipment, too, because the threat between Russia and China is just going to increase even after the Ukraine war,” he said.
“Those two nations, and, regionally, Iran and North Korea are not going to get less active. Probably, they’re going to get more active. So we want to make sure we can supply our allies and our country what they need to defend against that.”