A press release from the Department of Defense (DOD) Tuesday announced a $13.8 million investment in an American manufacturer of high-precision ball bearings used in defense and aerospace systems.
The investment will be used to make operational and technological improvements at the Keene, New Hampshire facility of Timken, a global manufacturer of bearings and power transmission systems.
The funding was appropriated to the Defense Production Act budget by the Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, a 2022 bill that reserved over $40 billion for activities in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Timken is itself investing another $11 million to further expand the capabilities of its Keene facility.
According to the DOD, the increasing demand for advanced weapons systems has created shortages in the supply of high-precision ball bearings for a variety of sectors.
“The Office of Industrial Base Policy is moving forward with speed to support sectors of importance to American national security and deterrence,” said Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy Dr. Laura Taylor-Kale in a press release. “The Timken Company manufactures components critical to the health of critical domestic supply chains as identified by President Biden.”
The Office of Industrial Base Policy (IBP) is the principal advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, and bears responsibility for ensuring the maintenance and proper functioning of the defense-associated industrial base of the United States.
Besides providing budgetary recommendations, it is the IBP’s task to anticipate and close gaps in manufacturing capabilities for defense systems, as well as assessing the impact of foreign investments on the United States defense ecosystem.
The DOD’s announcement about its Timken investment was released the same day the Pentagon announced that it had overestimated the value of the weapons that it sent to Ukraine over the past two years by $6.2 billion.
The New Hampshire investment seems small compared to the total U.S. military assistance given to Ukraine thus far, which amounted to $43.2 billion in just the first year of the war, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. The total amount of aid for that same period, including humanitarian aid and refugee costs, amounted to some $71.3 billion.
The mounting war-costs have dampened the American public’s support for Ukraine. In May 2022—when the war had been underway for three months—60 percent of Americans were in favor of supplying weapons to Ukraine. By January, that number had slipped to 48 percent, an Associated Press-NORC research poll indicated in February.
This isn’t the first war that Timken will play a role in fitting out, as it supplied ball bearings for military machinery in both world wars—including the 24 ball-bearings found on every one of 660,000 jeeps used by the U.S. military in World War II.
The Timken Company was founded in 1899 after its founder, Henry Timken, obtained a patent for an improved version of a tapered roller bearing. Currently, The Timken Company boasts operations in 42 countries worldwide.
In March, Timken was recognized by Fortune magazine as one of America’s most innovative companies.
