Industrial readiness in the field of defence procurement

Abstract

The study is relevant because, during a prolonged war, rapid award of a state contract does not ensure timely delivery of defence products when the pro­duction system lacks capacity, personnel, materials, and scaling capability. The article doctrinally justifies industrial readiness as an independent defence procurement outcome and determines its legal features, structure, autonomy criteria, and financing model. The research hypothesis is that industrial readiness secured by a State contract constitutes a separate legally significant outcome alongside finished products and production assets because it has economic value and can be measured, verified, paid for, and secured by liability. The metho­dology combines formal legal, system-structural, and comparative legal methods with law and economics; foreign mechanisms identify legal functions absent from the national system. The study defines industrial readiness as a maintained and verifiable state of a production system that provides baseline and surge capacity within an agreed activation period. This readiness constitutes paid legal counter-performance. It distinguishes industrial readiness from production capacity, future delivery, stocks of finished products, and the procurement of industrial readiness. The structure, legal features, autonomy criteria, and elements of the corres­ponding economic-law relationship are identified. Analysis of Ukrainian, European Union, and NATO instruments and United States practice confirms prerequisites for long-term contracting but reveals a regulatory gap concerning paid reservation and maintenance of available capacity. The article proposes amendments to the Law of Ukraine "On Defence Procurement" defining industrial readiness, baseline and surge capacity, the activation period, criteria for the special mechanism, contractual terms, verification, payment, and liability.