Americans approve ATACMS for Ukraine amid Lockheed's boom
Americans have given Ukraine the green light to use ATACMS missiles, which Kyiv has long wanted to use to strike targets up to 300 kilometres deep into Russia. The ammunition supplier is a leading military manufacturer worldwide.
On Sunday, "The New York Times" reported that the Joe Biden administration agrees to Ukraine's use of ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) missiles. The missiles range up to 300 kilometres, allowing Kyiv to strike deep into Russian territories. Defence24 reminds us that 2022 the cost of using one ATACMS missile was about 1.5 million dollars.
ATACMS for Ukraine: Missiles produced by an American giant
Lockheed Martin, a global giant in armament contracts, handles the production of rocket ammunition. The company was the leading arms manufacturer in the world in 2023, obtaining revenues from this source of 65 billion dollars. The next in line, the Chinese Aviation Industry Corporation of China, reached revenues of 45 billion dollars. British BAE Systems achieved the largest revenues in the military sector outside the USA and China, ranking seventh.
This amount has gradually increased year by year. According to a report from the General Services Administration, cited by "The Hill," from October 2021 to the end of September 2022, during the full-scale war in Ukraine, Lockheed Martin signed contracts with the federal government worth 47.7 billion dollars. This was an increase of 5 billion dollars compared to the previous year. For illustration, during this time, while the USA and the world were still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, Pfizer, the vaccine manufacturer, received government contracts worth 18 billion dollars.
In April 2023, the company announced that the US Army had signed a contract worth 615 million dollars to produce additional multiple-launch rocket systems HIMARS.
The publication reminds us that the Department of Defense possesses the largest discretionary budget among all federal agencies. However, significant domestic orders are not everything. Lockheed fulfils contracts in other NATO countries. According to the company, Poland has invested over 1.8 billion dollars in the past decade. It emphasizes that this investment maintains 6,700 jobs in Poland. In May this year, the company ceremoniously opened the first certified HIMARS Support Centre in Europe, Romania.
Lockheed Martin was originally solely an aircraft manufacturer. The company, founded in 1926, currently employs over 120,000 people worldwide. It operates in four segments; besides aviation, it also produces missile systems, anti-aircraft systems, and space systems. LM can count on a special position on the list of US government contractors - in 2023 alone, the company received 49.4 billion dollars from selling its products. It should be noted that the USA spent 916 billion dollars on defence this year, while China, which ranks second, spent "only" 296 billion dollars.
