In Ankara, NATO's defense industry flexes its new strength

Introduction: when industry becomes a pillar of deterrence

A strategic forum ahead of the heads-of-state summit

The NATO defense industry forum, known by the acronym NSDIF26, is set to take place in Ankara on July 7, 2026, bringing together allied industry executives and defense officials around new technological capabilities and upcoming arms contracts. This event directly precedes the summit of heads of state and government of the Atlantic Alliance, a timing that is no coincidence.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte called this edition the most important ever organized, a judgment that reflects the scale of the conventional rearmament currently underway across all member countries of the Alliance in the face of threats posed by Russia and other rival powers.

Turkey, the strategic host of a pivotal moment

The choice of Ankara as host city is no accident: Turkey now stands as one of the leading exporters of defense equipment within the Alliance, with annual exports estimated at around $11 billion, a figure confirming the rise of the Turkish defense industry on the international stage.

It has to be said plainly: today's Western industrial mobilization, however overdue relative to actual needs, finally amounts to a serious response to years of collective underinvestment against adversaries who, for their part, never slowed their own rearmament.

European defense budgets on the rise

Sharply rising investment according to NATO

According to the annual report of the NATO Secretary General, European and Canadian defense spending has seen a significant increase, confirming an underlying trend that began after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This sustained budgetary rise now makes it possible to finance industrial contracts on a scale unseen since the end of the Cold War.

The Atlantic Council's defense spending tracker confirms this upward trajectory, with several member countries now approaching or exceeding the 5% of gross domestic product target for defense, a threshold once considered politically unreachable for most European capitals.

A budgetary effort finally matching declared ambitions

This increased budgetary effort translates concretely into a surge of industrial orders placed with major European and North American defense groups, creating a virtuous cycle of investment that benefits both the defense industrial base and the overall credibility of Western deterrence against its strategic adversaries.

Seeing European defense budgets finally align with targets set years ago is a legitimate source of satisfaction. For far too long, the Alliance's rhetorical commitments were not backed by the financial investment needed to make them credible.

Europeans fill the gaps left by Washington

A strategic autonomy taking shape gradually

According to Reuters, European NATO member countries are now filling nearly all the capability gaps left by a gradual American disengagement in certain areas of collective defense planning, a development that illustrates the gradual maturation of European strategic autonomy within the transatlantic architecture.

This shift, long called for by several successive American administrations, marks an important step toward a more equitable sharing of the collective defense burden between North American and European allies, a dynamic the Trump administration has explicitly encouraged.

A rebalancing welcomed by Washington

This growing European industrial power is viewed positively by the American administration, which sees it as confirmation of its strategy of sustained pressure on European allies to take on a larger share of the financial burden of their own collective defense.

On this specific issue, I have to acknowledge that the pressure exerted by the Trump administration on European allies, however diplomatically rough, has produced concrete results that years of more polished negotiations had never managed to achieve.

Industrial consolidation underway

A wave of strategic mergers and acquisitions

According to the Bain report on mergers and acquisitions in the defense sector, the Western arms industry is undergoing a wave of strategic consolidation unprecedented in decades, with major groups seeking to combine their technological capabilities to more effectively meet growing demand from NATO member governments.

This industrial consolidation aims in particular to accelerate production cycles, historically too slow to meet the urgent needs revealed by the conflict in Ukraine, where consumption of munitions and equipment far exceeds the current production capacity of several Western countries.

Stock markets validate the trend

According to CNBC, shares of major European defense companies have seen notable gains, reflecting growing investor confidence in the durability of this phase of Western rearmament, which shows no sign of slowing given the current geopolitical context.

This stock market confidence in defense stocks is not merely a financial phenomenon: it reflects an implicit recognition, by the markets themselves, that Western military deterrence has once again become a lasting priority rather than a passing trend.

Turkey's pivotal role in the allied ecosystem

A Turkish industry in full expansion

The Turkish defense industry has considerably diversified its production in recent years, establishing itself as a key player in drones, armored vehicles and naval systems, with exports now reaching dozens of countries around the world, well beyond the NATO framework alone.

This Turkish industrial expansion comes with a clear political ambition: to make Turkey an essential hub of defense innovation within the Alliance, an ambition the Ankara forum is precisely meant to further consolidate.

Broader participation from Indo-Pacific partners

This forum is also expected to welcome delegations from NATO's Indo-Pacific partners, including South Korea and Japan, whose defense industries have seen remarkable growth in recent years, confirming the growing internationalization of Western military supply chains in the face of challenges posed by China.

This opening toward Indo-Pacific partners strikes me as one of the most promising developments of this edition of the forum: facing an increasingly aggressive China, industrial coordination between the Atlantic and the Pacific is becoming an urgent strategic necessity.

Technological issues at the heart of the discussions

Drones, cybersecurity and autonomous systems

Forum discussions are expected to focus primarily on emerging technologies such as autonomous combat drones, advanced cybersecurity systems and artificial intelligence applied to military command capabilities, areas where the West is seeking to maintain its technological edge against strategic rivals investing massively in these sectors.

This technological priority reflects a deep shift in Western military doctrine, where traditional numerical superiority in troop strength is gradually giving way to a pursuit of qualitative superiority grounded in cutting-edge technological innovation.

An innovation race that is accelerating

This technological race is accelerating under the combined pressure of urgent needs revealed by the Ukrainian conflict and growing strategic competition with China, whose massive investments in cutting-edge military technologies increasingly worry Western defense planners.

This technological race reassures me as much as it worries me: it proves the West is finally taking the measure of the challenge, but it also reminds us just how considerable the accumulated lag remains in certain critical sectors against determined rivals.

What this mobilization reveals about Western credibility

A deterrence finally regaining its substance

This unprecedented industrial mobilization, illustrated by the Ankara forum, confirms that Western deterrence is gradually regaining a material substance it had lacked since the end of the Cold War, after decades of relative disinvestment in mass military production capabilities.

This positive shift must nonetheless be sustained over the long term to produce lasting strategic effects, a considerable political challenge in democracies where budgetary priorities can shift quickly with changes in government and electoral cycles.

A signal of resolve sent to Moscow and Beijing

The signal sent by this massive industrial mobilization to potential adversaries like Russia and China should not be underestimated: an Alliance capable of rapidly and massively producing modern military equipment constitutes a far more credible deterrent than a mere accumulation of political statements of intent.

I believe this Ankara forum will go down as a pivotal moment when the West finally turned its tough talk into concrete industrial capabilities. This is exactly the kind of show of strength that actually deters strategic adversaries.

Lessons from the front lines for Western industry

Adaptation accelerated by Ukrainian battlefield feedback

Discussions held on the sidelines of the Ankara forum largely focused on integrating lessons learned from the Ukrainian battlefield, where high-intensity warfare has revealed glaring needs in munitions, anti-drone systems and short-range air defense capabilities that Western industry is still struggling to meet at the required scale.

This accelerated adaptation of production chains, still imperfect, nonetheless illustrates a healthy awareness within the Alliance: high-intensity conventional warfare has not disappeared from the European continent, and the strategic stockpiles accumulated since the end of the Cold War proved dangerously insufficient in the face of a prolonged conflict.

Manufacturers called on to speed up production rates

Major defense manufacturers present in Ankara, whether American giants or their European and Turkish counterparts, were directly challenged by allied military officials on their ability to significantly boost production rates, particularly for artillery munitions and short-range surface-to-air defense systems.

This pressure on manufacturers to speed up production rates seems absolutely necessary to me, even if it upends business models accustomed to predictable, spread-out orders: the collective security of the West can no longer afford the bureaucratic slowness of a defense industry designed for a world without major war.

Conclusion: Ankara, symbol of an Alliance rearming for the long haul

A pivotal moment for the Western defense industry

The NATO defense industry forum in Ankara marks a pivotal moment in the conventional rearmament trajectory the Alliance embarked on following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. This industrial mobilization, backed by sharply rising defense budgets, confirms that the West is finally taking seriously the strategic threats weighing on its collective security.

The broader participation of Indo-Pacific partners like South Korea and Japan also illustrates the growing internationalization of this rearmament dynamic, which now extends well beyond the traditional geographic framework of the Atlantic Alliance.

A project that must continue beyond political cycles

What comes next will depend on the ability of allied governments to sustain this budgetary and industrial effort over the long term, beyond changes in government and internal budgetary pressures that could, over time, weaken this collective rearmament dynamic, one nonetheless essential to future Western security.

I'll close on a personal conviction: the Ankara forum will not remain just another diplomatic exercise if the commitments made there truly translate into firm contracts and concrete deliveries. It is this transformation of rhetoric into tangible capabilities that will ultimately determine the lasting credibility of Western deterrence.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Who I am and my acknowledged biases

I sign this piece as an avowedly pro-Western columnist, in favor of NATO's conventional rearmament against the threats posed by Russia and China. I give credit here to the Trump administration for its effective pressure toward a more equitable sharing of the defense burden among allies.

What I don't know and my method

I did not personally attend the Ankara forum at the time of writing this piece; my analysis relies on official NATO communiqués and verifiable reporting from defense-specialized media. I cannot guarantee the precise outcome of the industrial negotiations that will take place there.

Sources

Primary sources

NATO — Secretary General's annual report on defense investment, March 2026

Atlantic Council — NATO defense spending tracker

NATO — Defense expenditures and the 5% of GDP commitment

Secondary sources

Reuters — Europeans fill almost all gaps left by the United States, July 1, 2026

CNBC — European defense stocks benefit from rearmament, July 1, 2026

Bain — Defense sector mergers and acquisitions report, 2026