ANALYSIS: Quadrupling shells — the West's industrial lag laid bare

The figure that stings

When NATO's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander, General Christopher Stringer, publicly calls for a fourfold increase in 155mm shell production ahead of the Ankara summit on July 7 and 8, 2026, he is not stating an ambition. He is signing a confession. A confession that for three years of total war in Ukraine, the West has been manufacturing ammunition at a peacetime pace.

The numbers are stark and damning. European and American industry combined struggles to produce roughly 500,000 to 700,000 155mm shells per year, while Russia produces and receives from its allies — North Korea above all — on the order of 3 to 4 million rounds annually. Quadrupling does not even close the gap. It means starting to run.

A late confession, but a necessary one

It is worth recalling the spring of 2022: Western chancelleries were promising rapid deliveries, "massive" transfers, a defense industry ready to respond to the emergency. Four years later, Ukraine is still rationing shells on some front sectors. The weakness of its soldiers is not the issue — the culpable slowness of our production chains is.

The Ankara summit must therefore be something more than a family photo of heads of state. It must be the moment when the Atlantic Alliance looks itself in the mirror and finally decides to fund, at the level of a genuine war economy, the manufacture of the weapons Ukraine needs to hold — and tomorrow to win.

Let me tell you what I really think: quadrupling production is the bare minimum. It is not a warlike ambition — it is the correction of a strategic mistake made since 2022. While Putin was militarizing his economy, we were managing defense like a negotiable budget line.

The peace dividend — a slow-acting poison

The 1990s and 2000s were fatal. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the West systematically dismantled its military industrial capacity, convinced that major continental wars belonged to the past. Gunpowder plants closed, production lines were converted, supplies were streamlined to the extreme. It was called the "peace dividend." In reality, it was a mortgage on our collective security.

When Russia launched its large-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, the Western system found itself in an absurd position: strong political commitments, but a production capacity that was wholly inadequate. The European Commission, which had long resisted involvement in defense matters, was forced to urgently create unprecedented mechanisms such as ASAP (Act in Support of Ammunition Production) in an attempt to accelerate.

North Korea as a revealing mirror

The fact that Russia needed to import several million shells from Pyongyang to sustain its war effort reveals, in negative, something important: even Moscow underestimated the length of the conflict. But whereas Russia filled its deficit through opportunistic alliances with pariah regimes, the West has no substitute supplier. We can only count on ourselves.

And that is precisely what General Stringer is pointing to, according to information reported by the Associated Press on June 26, 2026: this is not simply about filling a temporary shortage, but about triggering a structural transformation of Western defense industry. A transformation that will take years, while the war is being fought right now.

North Korea is supplying shells to Russia. That is where we stand: a concentration-camp regime is fueling the war machine of a nuclear state that is bombing a European democracy. And we are still debating GDP percentages in air-conditioned conference rooms.

What Rutte promised

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte declared during a conversation with the Atlantic Council on June 25, 2026, that "tens of billions" in new defense contracts would be announced at the Ankara summit. He recalled that European allies and Canada have already spent $1.2 trillion more between 2016 and 2026, and that defense spending rose by 20% in 2025 compared to the previous year.

These figures are real and deserve to be recognized. But they must not obscure what matters most: the question is not only how much we spend, but how and on what. Tens of billions invested in sophisticated systems that take ten years to produce are worthless against an army that needs shells today, tonight, tomorrow morning on the front line.

The specter of the Vilnius failure

The Vilnius summit in 2023 had already raised huge hopes for Ukraine, before delivering disappointing results on the membership question. Ankara 2026 cannot afford the same gap between rhetoric and action. The Eastern Flank allies — Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania — know this better than anyone: they live within missile range of the Russian threat.

The European Parliament briefing of June 26, 2026 notes that the Ankara agenda rests on three pillars: the 5% of GDP defense target, support for Ukraine, and managing the Middle East crises. Three subjects that can coexist only if the political will is present. And that is precisely where the problem lies.

Ankara can be a turning point or yet another farce. Everything hinges on one thing: will the twenty-two Alliance members who still do not spend 2% of their GDP on defense finally understand that we are not engaged in a diplomatic exercise, but in an existential war for the world order?

The six-month review and its consequences

Pete Hegseth, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, has launched a review of American military presence in Europe whose conclusions are expected before the Ankara summit. According to The Guardian of June 27, 2026, NATO leaders openly fear they can no longer count on American assistance in the event of a Russian attack against a member state. This is not corridor gossip: it is a concern expressed by officials at the highest level.

This American uncertainty has concrete consequences on armaments production strategy. If the United States reduces its contribution to collective defense, Europe must not only quadruple its shell production but also consider developing autonomous capacity in domains — long-range missiles, missile defense, intelligence — where it today depends almost entirely on Washington.

Trump, necessary evil but unpredictable one

Donald Trump, upon his return to the White House, immediately demanded that NATO allies reach 5% of GDP in defense spending — a target that few countries can meet in the short term, but which at least had the merit of delivering an electroshock. Trump's pressure is not illegitimate in substance: Europeans have for too long sheltered under the American umbrella without paying their fair share.

But the Trumpian method — unpredictable, aggressive, sometimes counterproductive — creates an instability that Moscow watches with interest. Every sign of transatlantic division is a windfall for the Kremlin. Putin has never needed to win militarily in Ukraine to succeed strategically: it is enough to fracture Western unity. That is why Allied discipline ahead of Ankara matters more than any final communiqué.

Trump is pushing Europeans to defend themselves. It is hard to hear, but it is not fundamentally wrong. The problem is that he does it without a coherent strategy, treating allies like tenants behind on their rent. You can be right on substance and completely wrong on approach.

What quadrupling actually means

Quadrupling 155mm shell production requires a profound industrial transformation. New or refurbished factories must be built, workers trained, and supply chains for propellant powder, shell bodies, and detonators secured. Each link is a potential bottleneck. Propellant powder, in particular, is manufactured in limited quantities in Europe, with a few aging facilities that concentrate almost the entire continental capacity.

Several countries have launched expansion programs: Poland has announced massive investments in its defense industry, becoming one of the rare allies targeting 4% of GDP by 2026. Germany, with its Sondervermögen of 100 billion euros, is painfully rebuilding an industrial capacity abandoned for decades. But these efforts, however laudable, will not instantly compensate for decades of disarmament.

The Ukrainian race against time

At the front, reality is implacable. Ukraine consumes, during intensive periods, several tens of thousands of shells per day on certain axes. The 2023 counteroffensive partly failed because available ammunition did not allow the saturation fire needed to break through. Since then, measures have been taken, deliveries accelerated, but the balance remains precarious.

Zelensky's sanctions adviser, quoted by RBC-Ukraine on June 26, 2026, asserted that the Russian economy "has reached a dead end." If true, now is when the pressure must be intensified — not in three years, when new Western factories are finally operational. Timing is everything.

Ukraine holds. Ukraine resists. But Ukraine should not have to ration its ammunition while we cut ribbons at new industrial complexes in Brussels. Every shell produced too late is a Ukrainian city that falls or a Ukrainian soldier who dies for lack of artillery support.

A strong political signal from the periphery

The Gdansk Declaration, signed on June 25, 2026 by leaders of NATO's Eastern Flank countries, reaffirms the target of 5% of GDP for defense and demands a structural reinforcement of the Alliance's eastern flank. This document, published two weeks before the Ankara summit, is a clear message to Western allies: the Eastern Flank is no longer content to wait for the great powers to set the pace. It is drawing its own line.

For these countries — Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Sweden — the Russian threat is not a geopolitical abstraction. It is a geographic, historical, and cultural reality. They have lived under Soviet occupation. They know what the loss of sovereignty means. And they no longer count solely on the promise of an Article 5 whose credibility is today being questioned.

Poland, the unlikely engine of transformation

Poland has become, in just a few years, the NATO country that invests the most proportionally in its defense. With a target of 4 to 5% of GDP, it is building armored brigades, acquiring missile systems, and developing a national industry. This is not warmongering nationalism: it is a rational response to a real threat.

This Polish-Baltic dynamic creates healthy pressure on more hesitant allies. It also shows that increasing defense spending is possible, even for medium-sized economies, when the political will is there. The question is whether Paris, Berlin, and Rome will finally hear the message of their Eastern allies.

There is something historically remarkable in the fact that it is the Poles and the Balts — the first victims of the USSR — who are now giving lessons in strategic clarity to the West. Geography is the best professor of geopolitics.

Sanctions and military production: the direct link

The European Union has proposed a 21st sanctions package against Russia, confirmed according to Daily Finland on June 27, 2026. Moreover, the EU extended its full set of anti-Russian economic sanctions to 2027, covering trade, banks, energy, and cryptocurrencies, according to Euromaidan Press of June 26, 2026. These decisions are not symbolic: they directly target the financing capacity of the Russian war machine.

Russia's budget deficit now exceeds $80 billion, according to United24 Media of June 23, 2026, despite Kremlin claims of economic stability. Russia plans to increase its war spending by 4 to 5 additional trillion rubles in 2026, which — combined with an interest rate of 21% and galloping inflation — creates structural tensions that even state control cannot indefinitely conceal.

Why sanctions alone are not enough

The temptation exists, in certain European capitals, to let sanctions do their work and hope for a Russian economic collapse that would make any additional military effort unnecessary. This is a dangerous illusion. The Russian economy, according to The Economist of June 22, 2026, "has problems but is not about to crash." Putin's regime can absorb economic shocks by passing the bill to its population — a population that has no democratic means to protest effectively.

Sanctions are a necessary and valuable tool. But they do not replace shells. They do not push back tanks. Ukrainian victory — and that is the only legitimate objective — requires a combination of economic pressure and military superiority on the ground. And for now, the second component remains insufficiently funded.

Those who stake everything on the Russian economic collapse forget a fundamental historical detail: the USSR maintained a dysfunctional economy for seventy years by repressing its population. Putin has the same instruments. Sanctions are indispensable, but counting on them alone is a strategy of hope, not a defense policy.

Propellant powder — the critical bottleneck

Among the most serious industrial constraints limiting the scale-up of 155mm shell production, propellant powder occupies a singular place. In Europe, only a handful of facilities — including Chemring in Scotland, Eurenco in France and Sweden, and Explosia in the Czech Republic — concentrate the bulk of production capacity. These facilities, some of them aging, cannot double their capacity within months: building a new propellant powder production line requires years, strict certifications, and substantial investment.

This bottleneck has been known since 2022 and yet it has not been adequately addressed. Governments ordered more shells without simultaneously ensuring that the supply of critical components would follow. This is a classic lesson in industrial planning that the bureaucratic logic of national public procurement has allowed to be ignored for too long. If the Ankara summit does not address this specific constraint with precise financial commitments, quadrupling will remain a goal on paper.

Multi-year contracts: the solution the industry is waiting for

Defense manufacturers with the capacity to increase their production are running into a political obstacle: uncertainty over the duration of orders. Investing several hundred million euros in a new production line is only profitable if contracts guarantee sufficient volumes over several years. Yet governments tend to place orders on an ad hoc basis, in step with political decisions, without giving manufacturers the long-term visibility they need.

Several allies — including France and Germany — have begun experimenting with multi-year contracts within the framework of European joint production arrangements. This is a real step forward. But the scale of these commitments remains insufficient to trigger the massive industrial investments required for quadrupling production. Ankara must institutionalize this approach at Alliance level, with amounts sufficient to convince manufacturers that demand will be there in ten years as much as in one year.

Defense manufacturers are not philanthropists. They invest when there is a secure and predictable market. Giving Rheinmetall, BAE Systems, or KNDS the multi-year visibility needed to build new factories is the most important political decision that could come out of Ankara. Without that, quadrupling is a pipe dream.

What the summit must deliver

The Ankara summit of July 7 and 8, 2026 will be judged on measurable actions: contracts signed, production lines funded, deadlines met. The rhetoric about 5% of GDP is worthless without a binding calendar and verification mechanisms. Allies still failing to reach 2% must be named, challenged, and put under public pressure. Allied solidarity does not mean impunity for free riders.

Quadrupling shell production is an achievable ambition if the political will is genuine. It requires direct public investment in factories, the securing of multi-year contracts that give manufacturers the necessary visibility, and a European coordination that national bureaucracies have for too long sabotaged out of sovereigntist reflex. Ukraine cannot afford to wait for our internal quarrels.

History will judge

In ten years, we will look back and see clearly what was at stake between 2022 and 2026: either the West chose to defend the international order with the means commensurate with that ambition, or it chose short-term comfort and long-term capitulation. The quadrupling of shell production is not a technical decision. It is a civilizational choice.

Volodymyr Zelensky and his soldiers are doing their part. They have been doing it for more than four years, with a courage that should shame every Western leader who still hesitates. The question before Ankara is simple: are we, yes or no, equal to what they are asking of us?

The future of Ukraine, and with it the future of the liberal international order, is being decided in part in German, French, Polish, and American factories. That is not poetic. It is the brutal reality of industrial warfare in the twenty-first century. Ankara must grasp this and draw the consequences.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

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