The editors of the Washington Post urge our NATO allies to give their stocks of Patriot missiles to Ukraine and for President Trump to guarantee that the U. S. will replace them:
Early Monday, Russia fired a large salvo of attack drones and missiles at Ukraine, killing at least 22 people — most of them in Kyiv, where rescuers pulled bodies from collapsed apartment blocks.
Ukraine’s defenses had swatted down most of the drones. But of the 29 ballistic and hypersonic missiles in the barrage, they intercepted exactly zero. Compare that with three weeks ago, when Ukraine managed to shoot down 15 of the 19 Russian ballistic missiles lobbed at its capital.
That’s because Ukraine is out of Patriots, the U.S.-made air defense missiles it has used to defend itself since 2023. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky didn’t mince words. “As long as Patriot missiles remain in our allies’ stockpiles,” he said in a statement on Monday, “Russia is only encouraged to keep ‘vanquishing’ residential buildings.”
Zelensky is right. The main impediment to peace is Russian President Vladimir Putin. Negotiators say the outlines of a deal to stop the fighting are visible. But Putin has dug in his heels, demanding Ukraine hand over territory his army has failed to seize by force.
The shortage of Patriot interceptors gives Russia a lift. The Iran war has badly depleted U.S. stockpiles. Analysts project Patriot stocks won’t recover for years despite welcome ramp-ups in production and warn that replenishment will take precedence over deliveries to allies.
Trump has insisted that the United States will no longer pay to arm Ukraine. He need not go back on his word to help Ukraine’s stockpiles recover. Under the mechanism his own administration built — the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List program — allies foot the bill for American weapons.
The hard problem isn’t money; it’s fear. European governments hold interceptors that could be handed to Kyiv in weeks. But that would make a hole in their own defenses. Many European governments don’t trust that Washington, busy refilling its Iran-drained magazines, will ever help them rearm.
I don’t disagree with the spirit of the editorial. My objection is that it ignores a simple arithmetic constraint.
Even if our allies conveyed their stocks of Patriot missiles to Ukraine and even if President Trump swore to replace them and even if he tried to replace them, Ukraine is using its Patriot missiles faster than we can replace them.
By one estimate in a single four month period in late 2025 and early 2026 Ukraine used around 700 Patriot missiles. Even if that estimate is somewhat high, it illustrates the scale of the problem. According to Defense News, Lockheed-Martin produces about 650 of them per year. In other words, Ukraine consumed more Patriot missiles in roughly four months than American industry currently produces in an entire year. Even with Lockheed’s planned production increases it would produce just 100 more per year.
Even if those production targets are achieved, closing the gap assumes corresponding increases throughout the supply chain.
This is the consequence of treating defense manufacturing capacity as something that can be recreated on demand. Without dwelling on it, we erred in reducing our defense expenditures and procurement 30 years ago. We used the money for other things including balancing the budget. Trying to undo that error will be even more costly than not making it in the first place.
