NOTE: 90 billion more dollars, in five numbers

Introduction

European allies and Canada have increased their defense spending by roughly 90 billion dollars, at constant 2021 prices, since 2024, according to data cited by Forbes and Reuters around the Ankara summit of July 7-8, 2026. This note proposes reading that increase through five precise numbers, rather than through the summit's slogan alone. A single number tells you an intention; five numbers set side by side tell you a trajectory.

In nominal terms, this increase amounts to roughly 139 billion dollars in 2025, an increase of about 20% over prior levels, according to the same sources. The Ankara summit confirmed the trajectory toward NATO's 5% of GDP target by 2035.

This note details five key numbers that, together, sketch the numerical portrait of this historic increase in Western defense spending.

None of these numbers requires a political argument to be understood. They can be read plainly, compared against each other, and checked directly against the primary sources cited at the end of this note. That plainness is deliberate: a debate this consequential deserves numbers that speak for themselves before anyone adds a slogan on top of them.

First number: 90 billion dollars at constant prices

What this number exactly represents

The 90 billion dollar figure, expressed at 2021 constant prices, measures the real increase in the military purchasing power of European allies and Canada since 2024, excluding the effect of inflation, which would artificially inflate a simple nominal-value figure.

This methodological choice to measure at constant prices allows a more rigorous comparison over time, and sets this increase apart from a simple nominal increase that would mostly reflect inflation rather than a genuinely additional real budgetary effort.

Why this figure is cited as a reference by NATO

This 90 billion dollar figure is cited as a reference by NATO itself in its own assessment of the collective budgetary effort, which gives it a particular institutional authority in the public debate over burden-sharing among allies.

Second number: 139 billion dollars in 2025 nominal value

The difference between constant prices and nominal value

The 139 billion dollar figure in nominal terms for 2025 illustrates the difference between an inflation-adjusted measure and a raw measure, the latter usually being more dramatic but also less rigorous for assessing the real additional budgetary effort made by allies.

This note keeps both figures, rather than just one, because each illuminates a different, complementary aspect of the same Western budgetary reality around collective defense.

What this nominal figure reveals about political communication

The choice to publicly communicate, at the Ankara summit, using the higher of the two figures — the 139 billion dollar nominal value — illustrates a familiar tendency in NATO political communication to favor the most impressive available number.

Third number: an increase of roughly 20% over prior levels

What this percentage precisely measures

The 20% figure measures the relative increase in defense spending by European allies and Canada compared with levels seen before 2024, an indicator that usefully complements the two previous absolute figures by placing the relative scale of this effort in context.

This 20% increase comes amid growing domestic budget pressure in several European capitals, which underscores the political scale of the budgetary effort made, beyond the technical number alone.

An uneven increase across member countries

This average 20% figure, by nature, conceals an uneven distribution among member countries: Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and Greece already exceed 3.5% of GDP in 2026, according to Reuters, while other allies remain clearly below that average.

Fourth number: the five countries above 3.5% of GDP in 2026

The five countries and their exact percentages, in detail

According to Reuters, five NATO members exceed 3.5% of GDP in defense spending this year: Lithuania at 5.33%, Estonia at 5.1%, Latvia at 4.92%, Poland at 4.68%, and Greece at 3.65%.

This ranking puts the three Baltic states at the top, which directly reflects their immediate geographic proximity to Russia and the drone incidents documented by Latvia's defense ministry on March 27, 2026.

What these five numbers reveal about the regional hierarchy of effort

This regional hierarchy confirms that the largest budgetary effort, as a share of national GDP, comes from the countries most directly exposed to the perceived Russian threat, rather than from the largest Western economies in absolute terms.

Fifth number: the 5% of GDP target by 2035

What this long-term target represents

The 5% of GDP target by 2035, confirmed by the trajectory discussed at the Ankara summit according to Forbes, is this note's fifth key number: it sets the final horizon toward which all thirty-two members of the Alliance must eventually converge.

This 5% target, already met or exceeded by Lithuania and Estonia in 2026, remains, for many other members, a distant and demanding budgetary horizon that will require much larger and more sustained additional increases, beyond those already recorded since 2024.

What this 2035 horizon concretely implies for national budgets

Concretely, this 2035 horizon implies, for several Western countries whose current spending remains below 3% of GDP, cumulative budget increases far larger than the 90 billion dollars already recorded since 2024. For some of these governments, reaching 5% will mean confronting domestic political resistance that has, so far, been easier to postpone than to resolve.

What these five numbers say together

A coherent trajectory, despite differing national paces

Taken together, these five numbers — 90 billion at constant prices, 139 billion in nominal value, a 20% relative increase, five countries above 3.5%, a 5% target for 2035 — sketch a coherent trajectory of Western budgetary reinforcement, despite very different national paces among member countries.

This overall coherence, documented by several independent sources, should not, however, obscure the significant gaps between the countries furthest along toward the 2035 target and those that remain, to date, clearly behind on this collective trajectory.

What these figures do not explicitly say

The precise split between equipment, personnel, and infrastructure

None of these five figures details the precise breakdown of this spending among military equipment, personnel, infrastructure, and research, a breakdown that would nonetheless be of significant interest for understanding the exact nature of this collective budgetary effort.

This absence of detail on the budgetary breakdown is, for this note, a recognized limit of the numerical analysis presented here, which necessarily remains macroeconomic rather than broken down line by line.

What the PURL program context adds to these numbers

A distinct mechanism, but in the same collective spirit

The PURL program, which had mobilized more than 6 billion dollars by June 2026 to buy American equipment for Ukraine according to NATO's website, fits within the same spirit of collective financial pooling as the general increase in national defense spending, even though it is a distinct budgetary mechanism.

This distinction between national defense spending and contributions to collective mechanisms like PURL is essential to avoid any confusion among the different figures circulating in the NATO public debate.

What this note takes from this numerical reading

Five numbers, one shared budgetary direction

This note concludes that these five numbers, despite their different methodologies and time scales, all point in the same direction: a real Western budgetary reinforcement, documented by several independent sources, and confirmed institutionally at the Ankara summit.

This numerical reading, rather than a narrative one, lets the reader form their own opinion on the real scale of this effort, without depending solely on the political framing given by the summit's official statements.

What these numbers imply for the Western defense industry

Sustained demand for military equipment manufacturers

This 90 billion dollar increase since 2024 translates, concretely, into sustained demand for Western manufacturers of military equipment, who directly benefit from this upward budgetary trajectory confirmed at the Ankara summit.

This increased industrial demand raises, in parallel, the question of available production capacity to absorb this increase without excessive delivery delays, a question this note does not detail but considers relevant going forward.

What the comparison with Russian spending suggests

A comparative context absent from the sources available for this note

This note does not have, among the sources consulted, precise comparative data on equivalent Russian defense spending, which limits the ability to assess whether this Western increase of 90 billion dollars closes or not a pre-existing budgetary gap with Moscow.

This absence of a direct comparison is a recognized limit of this note, which deliberately focuses on confirmed Western figures rather than on international comparisons undocumented by the available sources. A future note, drawing on additional primary sources, could usefully revisit this specific comparison once reliable, independently verified figures on Russian military spending become publicly available for direct citation.

What Canada specifically contributes to these overall numbers

A North American contribution mentioned separately

Canada, mentioned separately from European allies in the data cited by Forbes and Reuters, illustrates a North American commitment that goes beyond the United States alone in this collective upward budgetary trajectory since 2024.

This specific mention of Canada alongside European allies underscores, for this note, the transatlantic dimension of this budgetary effort, rather than a phenomenon limited to the European continent alone.

What this budgetary increase means for Western taxpayers

An effort that concretely shows up in national budgets

This 90 billion dollar increase translates, concretely, into real national budgetary trade-offs for Western taxpayers, in a context where other public spending categories must contend with this increased priority given to defense.

This note does not detail the precise trade-offs made in each member country, but notes that this budgetary increase necessarily has concrete consequences for other national public spending priorities, from healthcare to infrastructure to education, depending on each individual government's own fiscal choices and constraints.

A democratic debate that remains largely national

This democratic debate over the budgetary trade-offs tied to this increase remains, for the most part, a national debate specific to each member country, rather than a debate centralized at the level of the Alliance itself.

A significant share of purchases still flows toward the United States

A significant share of this budgetary increase translates into purchases of American equipment, notably through the PURL program for Ukraine, which illustrates the persistent dominant position of the American defense industry in current Western military purchases.

This orientation toward American equipment coexists with parallel efforts by several European countries to strengthen their own national defense industrial base, a longer-term goal than the immediate budgetary increase measured by these five numbers alone.

What this implies for European strategic autonomy

This persistent dependence on American equipment raises, for several European analysts, the question of the continent's long-term strategic autonomy in defense, independent of the scale of the overall budgetary increase measured here.

What these five numbers imply for NATO's collective credibility

NATO's collective credibility, both toward Moscow and toward its own public opinion, depends directly on the ability of the thirty-two members to turn these five numbers into a durable trajectory rather than a one-off spike tied solely to the Ankara summit's context.

This credibility will be measured, in the years ahead, by the steadiness of the budgetary effort beyond 2026, not solely by the scale of the figure announced at any one summit, however impressive it may look in nominal terms. A single strong year proves little; a decade of consistent follow-through would prove everything Ankara claimed to promise.

A final word on the responsible reading of these numbers

This note invites the reader to treat these five numbers not as a victory already secured, but as a documented step in a budgetary trajectory that, for many allies, remains far from the final 5% of GDP target the Alliance has set for 2035.

This note finally insists that methodological rigor requires systematically citing both measures — constant prices and nominal value — rather than only the one that looks most favorable at the moment of political communication.

This methodological requirement of dual citation, constant prices and nominal value, should, in this note's view, become the journalistic standard for any future treatment of NATO defense spending figures, to avoid any unintended confusion in the public debate. Editors who cite only the more dramatic number, without the constant-price figure alongside it, are not lying, but they are making the story easier to misread than it needs to be.

Conclusion

These five numbers — 90 billion at constant prices, 139 billion in nominal value, a 20% relative increase, five countries above 3.5% of GDP, a 5% target for 2035 — together tell a Western budgetary trajectory more rigorous than the Ankara summit's slogan alone.

Reading these numbers side by side, rather than separately, lets us measure both the real scale of this effort and the persistent gaps that still separate some allies from the collective target set for 2035. Numbers do not lie, but they need to be read together to tell the whole truth they contain. That, in the end, is the only real claim this note makes: not that the effort is finished, but that it is real, measurable, and still short of what 2035 will demand of every ally named here.

Signature

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's Transparency Box

Editorial positioning

This note is written from an avowedly pro-Western position, one that regards this increase in defense spending as a legitimate response to a documented threat, while seeking to present the figures with the greatest possible methodological rigor.

Methodology and sources

This note relies on Reuters figures from July 7, 2026, on the Forbes article of July 1, 2026 concerning the Ankara summit, and on data published on NATO's website regarding the PURL program and defense spending targets.

Nature of the analysis

This text is a note that organizes a numerical analysis already documented by third-party sources, without adding political interpretation beyond the context necessary to understand each figure presented.

Sources

Primary sources

Reuters — NATO members' defense spending — July 7, 2026

NATO — 5% of GDP commitment by 2035

Secondary sources

Forbes — Context on the Ankara summit — July 1, 2026

NATO — Support for Ukraine and the PURL program — updated July 13, 2026

Euronews — Withdrawal of German Eurofighters from Poland — March 24, 2026

Defence Ukraine — The Baltic drone wall