News & Comment

The global bottleneck in terms of increasing production [of Patriot interceptors] globally is actually in the wider subcomponent supply chain - so it's no use producing more missile bodies if you don't have the motors, all the different laser gyroscopes, and warheads, and all sorts of other things you need. Ukraine will not only have to build a capacity to build them but also essentially let contracts with all of the subcontractors that are required around the world and negotiate a kind of a place in the queue. I think if everything goes brilliantly, you're still probably talking about two to three years."

Any such project “would either need new manufacturing capabilities or a readiness to slow the Trident renewal programme to accommodate the creation of a new system."

Increasing the amount of air defences you build requires more money, more components, more industrial power – and every S-500 battery you build is something else you’re not building at the front.”