NATO Tries to Fill Holes in Military as Ukraine War Threatens Stockpiles

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday briefly discussed efforts to increase the alliance's weapons and ammunition stockpiles, which have decreased as members continue supplying Ukraine's military.

"We need to strengthen the transatlantic industrial base to ensure that we can both replenish our own stocks, to ensure our own deterrence and defense but also to continue to support Ukraine," he said in a statement made ahead of a meeting with the Foreign Affairs Council of the European Union.

Throughout the war, which Russian President Vladimir Putin launched in February 2022, NATO has urged its member nations to provide Ukraine with military supplies. Earlier this year, Stoltenberg said NATO countries should not be concerned about the alliance's requirements on ammunition stocks and instead focus on aiding Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's forces.

On Tuesday, Stoltenberg spoke about the importance of making new production contracts with the defense industry to replenish NATO's military stockpiles. To facilitate this process, he said, he has invited defense industry representatives "from both sides of the Atlantic" to a NATO meeting of defense ministers next month.

Stoltenberg added that the EU would "of course also be invited" to the meeting, where NATO "will engage directly with all the [defense] ministers and the defense industry."

The NATO chief said he had met with members of the defense industry "several times" to discuss its relationships with NATO and has seen "more and more NATO allies actually signing contracts."

While Ukraine continues to expend thousands of rounds of artillery a day, Stoltenberg said, NATO is in the process of revising the guidelines for members' "capability targets" for ammunition.

During his statement to the press, Stoltenberg mentioned some of the notable weapons that NATO and EU nations have supplied to Ukraine recently, including long-range missiles and heavy tanks like Leopards, Challengers and M1 Abrams. He also said the allies will soon start training Ukrainian pilots on how to use NATO-standard fighter jets.

"This demonstrates our readiness to stand by Ukraine and to be prepared for the long haul," he said. "But of course, to continue our support to Ukraine, we also need to ramp up production of weapons and of ammunition, and therefore, one of the issues that we'll discuss with the defense ministers is how we can work even more closely together—NATO and the European Union—on increasing and strengthening our transatlantic industrial base."

Philip Ingram MBE, a former British military intelligence officer and founder of Grey Hare Media, told Newsweek that Stoltenberg is "right at emphasizing the importance of the defense industrial base and it's ability to meet the needs of high intensity conflict."

"Ukraine is the wake-up call that this isn't enough and countries need to ensure their industrial capability can meet potential military needs made more complex by international agreements," Ingram said.

Newsweek reached out to NATO via email for further comment.