“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.

In June, a strategy document adopted by NATO pledged to prepare the alliance’s members “for high-intensity, multi-domain warfighting against nuclear-armed peer-competitors.”

In September, the Defense Department announced that the United States and its allies were planning to “expand their nations’ industrial base” for building bombs, rockets and artillery for the war with Russia in Ukraine.

The plans to put the US economy and supply chain on a war footing comes against the backdrop of growing demands within the US political establishment for a wartime “mobilization.”