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 10x.

“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. defensenews.com/congress/2022/…

The wartime procurement procedures would allow the Pentagon 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.

The sheer numbers of armaments requisitioned 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 proposed for procurement 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.

The massively expanded military procurement takes place amid a years-long program to expand the United States’ nuclear arsenal, including the purchase of all-new intercontinental ballistic missiles, strategic bombers, and nuclear-capable submarines.