Pentagon wants Boeing, others to build more weapons. It won’t be easy

Boeing visited the White House last week to discuss increasing weapons production amid the ongoing Iran war.

President Donald Trump triumphantly posted on social media after the meeting that the largest U.S. defense companies had agreed to “quadruple Production” in order to “reach, as rapidly as possible, the highest levels of quantity.”

While Lockheed Martin confirmed the news, writing in its own social media post that “we are moving with urgency, and we will deliver, Boeing hasn’t publicly commented on the meeting or its defense production in the nearly two weeks since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. A Boeing spokesperson confirmed Boeing was represented at the White House meeting and declined to comment for this story.

The U.S. has deployed many Boeing-made products in the conflict, from KC-46 and KC-135 aerial refueling tankers, to the Whidbey Island-based electronic attack aircraft EA-18G Growler, to a system known as JDAM, or joint direct attack munition, a low-cost guidance kit attached to bombs.

Three Boeing-built F-15E fighter jets were shot down over Kuwait on March 1 in a “friendly fire incident,” according to U.S. Central Command. On Thursday, government officials said a KC-135 aircraft went down in western Iraq.

Boeing manufactures most of its weapons, including its fighter jets, in St. Louis, now the headquarters of its defense, space and security division. It delivers some commercial planes built in Everett and Renton to its defense arm, including the KC-46 Pegasus, a derivative of the 767, and the P-8 Poseidon, a maritime patrol aircraft that is a derivative of the 737 NG. The KC-135 Stratotanker is no longer in production.

Boeing stands to benefit from the president’s push to increase weapons production, an effort that has been underway for months but has taken on new urgency as the U.S. continues to expend resources in the Middle East.

But, defense analysts say, Boeing will likely see a smaller impact to its business compared to other major defense contractors who build sophisticated missile systems, particularly Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.

Boeing has a hand in one of those systems, Lockheed’s modernized Patriot missile system, or PAC-3. In its Huntsville, Ala., facility, Boeing builds the PAC-3’s seeker, which guides the widely used system’s air-defense missile. Boeing won $2.7 billion in contracts in October to deliver more than 3,000 seekers through 2030, aiming to produce up to 750 per year.

The U.S. and its allies have likely already fired more than 1,000 PAC-3 interceptors in an effort to combat Iranian drones and missiles, according to an analysis from Bloomberg News.

Still, Boeing’s defense division is smaller than its commercial business. Boeing Defense, Space and Security accounted for about $27.2 billion in revenue last year, while its commercial airplanes business reported $41.5 billion.

All the defense companies, Boeing included, face major roadblocks to scaling up as quickly as the president and the Defense Department might want, according to industry analysts.

“Production capacity isn’t very flexible,” said George Ferguson, an aerospace and defense analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence. “I think (the companies), they’ll do whatever the Pentagon wants them to do, especially when the Pentagon is willing to pay. But none of it’s going to be fast.”

Companies need factory space, raw materials, machining equipment and skilled workers.

Like the commercial aerospace industry, defense contractors rely on a constellation of suppliers to provide components for the final product. Those suppliers face the same resource challenges as major defense contractors.

Greg Autry, a business professor at the University of Central Florida, said the largest hurdle to increasing production is skilled labor.

“There aren’t enough people with engineering skills,” Autry said. “You can’t have an economy that only builds the F-35,” Lockheed Martin’s stealth fighter jet. “You don’t have people learning to do the basic skills.”

A March report evaluating the national security ecosystem in the U.S. estimated 1.9 million manufacturing jobs in the aerospace and defense industry would go unfilled through 2033.

The report, from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute’s Center for Peace Through Strength, warned the talent gap posed “an existential risk to production ramps and long-term innovation.”

Autry, Ferguson and Wayne Shaw, director of aerospace and defense for consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, all said Boeing could tap into its commercial workforce to beef up its defense production — if it became necessary. Boeing has not given any indication that it intends to do so, or would want to.

Autry said Boeing could move workers from one program to another, if the company decided “military production is the most important thing.” Shaw said it would be possible to “relocate” workers but “that’s easier said than done.”

A guy who’s used to building rivets on a 737, is he really going to be able to switch over and start making seekers for a PAC-3 missile?” Shaw said.

Ferguson said commercial production gives Boeing a competitive advantage in the eyes of the Pentagon. It is one of the few defense contractors that also produces commercial aircraft on a large scale, a skill set that would be useful if the U.S. finds itself in World War II-style fighting, Ferguson continued.

“With the slow-grade conflicts, you don’t need to turn on production capacity as much,” Ferguson said. “You’re not losing as many airplanes. You’re not in this World War II game where the enemy is knocking out your assets and you’ve got to build them quickly.

“If you get in that kind of war, you’ll need someone like Boeing who knows how to mass produce aircraft like they do on the commercial lines.”

Ferguson doesn’t expect the conflict in the Middle East will “move the needle” for most defense contractors’ financial bottom line, particularly Boeing. Production-increase efforts were already underway and the new urgency surrounds munitions, which generally make up a small part of each defense company’s business model.

The conflict did provide some job security, Ferguson said, with the production push indicating all of the defense companies’ “portfolios” are relevant and in demand.

Shaw said Boeing doesn’t appear to be worried about keeping up with demand. He pointed to Tuesday reporting that Boeing had a new $298 million contract with Israel to deliver as many as 5,000 air-launched smart bombs, known as the Small Diameter Bomb.

To him, that agreement means Boeing is prepared to handle the demands from the Pentagon with one caveat: “unless this war expands, or goes on a lot longer than we anticipate,” Shaw said.

Boeing has faced protests over its weapons production in the past, most recently for its support of the Israel Defense Forces.

In May 2025, a pro-Palestinian group occupied a University of Washington engineering building and called for the school to sever ties with Boeing. King County prosecutors earlier this month charged 33 members of the group with first-degree criminal trespassing.