Pentagon No. 2 says US is drawing lessons from Ukraine as it eyes possible China combat

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon’s No. 2 official said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is teaching the United States valuable lessons for a potential conflict with China, from the need to build a steady pipeline to produce ammunition to innovation in space.

“There are many advantages we’ve gained for a potential Pacific challenge from the Ukraine conflict,” Deputy Secretary of Defence Kathleen Hicks said in an interview. “We’re learning now to grow our industrial base and to study that industrial base, which has been for the last 60 years in a bit of a feast and famine cycle.”

Ms Hicks was addressing one of the biggest challenges the US has faced as it has looked to keep Ukraine supplied with weapons and ammunition to repel Russia’s invasion: Many defence contractors have been wary of ramping up production of munitions if the US decides to stop buying them in a year or two.

Drawing on the 14-month experience of the war in Ukraine, the Pentagon has pushed to give weapons manufacturers more predictability via longer-term contracts. 

The Defence Department also secured what is called a Presidential Drawdown Authority to speed weapons deliveries to Taiwan. That authority allows it to send existing stockpiles of weapons to the island and then replace them later.

“We’re thinking about how we use those authorities right now to generate faster and higher capacity delivery of munitions to provide our forces in the Pacific,” Ms Hicks said. 

Both Ukraine and Russia have faced shortages of key munitions during the conflict and the US has seen its own stockpiles depleted as it sends supplies to Ukraine. 

Ms Hicks, 52, is the first female deputy defence secretary confirmed by the Senate and oversees the day-to-day management of the largest federal bureaucracy.

Another lesson is the importance of the space domain to future warfare. 

The conflict has highlighted the US’ “incredible commercial space innovation ecosystem”, Ms Hicks told Bloomberg News last Friday. 

During the course of the war, that ecosystem has helped keep the Internet running in Ukraine.

It has allowed Ukrainian forces to detect targets accurately, enabled images of the front lines to reach the outside world, and produced a plethora of satellite images that shed light on Russian troop activities.

“It’s helping us think about the capabilities that make the most sense to invest in,” Ms Hicks said. 

The US has committed more than US$35.4 billion (S$47.4 billion) to Ukraine since

Russia’s invasion in February 2022.

That assistance includes more than 1,600 of the Stinger anti-aircraft systems made by Raytheon Technologies and 10,000 Javelin anti-tank systems made by a joint venture between Lockheed Martin Corp and Raytheon.

The US has exercised the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which pulls hardware from existing US military stocks, 36 times since the war began, most recently in a package valued at US$325 million.

Ms Hicks added that the Ukraine conflict has demonstrated the ability of the US to work with its allies to bring economic “pressure” on aggressors and underlined the value of intelligence sharing. 

“The ability to talk to our allies, and even Ukraine and even Russia, beforehand, before the invasion, to say, ‘hey, we see what’s happening here’. That is a real advantage,” she said.

Even as the US continues to arm Ukraine in Europe, Ms Hicks said, its primary focus will remain competition with China in the Pacific.

“We’re not trying to weigh between two theatres. We have a clear strategy that’s focused on China,” she said, adding that there are no platforms or weapons systems that the US has not been able to pursue as a result of the war.

Ms Hicks reiterated past US assessments that China is not planning an imminent attack on Taiwan. 

Some officials have pointed to Chinese statements that the country wants to be capable of an invasion by 2027, though both Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines have said they do not see any attack as imminent.

“Our focus is making sure that the PRC leadership wakes up every day and says ‘today is not the day to undertake aggression that threatens US interests’,” Ms Hicks said, referring to China’s formal name, the People’s Republic of China. “That’s our focus today, in 2027, and in 2035 and 2045.”

She described the national security implications of the recent leak of classified files from the Pentagon as “grievous”.  

Earlier in April, the

US charged a 21-year-old National Guard airman in Massachusetts

over the largest leak of intelligence secrets in a decade, including assessments of the war in Ukraine.

Ms Hicks said the Pentagon needs to “go into a much more closed environment” and that it has already taken steps to reduce the dissemination of classified material within the military. 

Longer term, Ms Hicks said, the department is working to “stress test” the systems through which the US military handles classified information. The goal is to make sure intelligence is shared for operational reasons while making sure there is no counter-intelligence or insider threat. Bloomberg