Allied governments in Europe and North America have pledged to expand their capacity to deliver military weapons and equipment.
National leaders from all 32 NATO member states assembled in Washington DC earlier this month for a summit marking the 75th anniversary of the alliance’s founding. Among the outcomes was a new commitment to expand defence industrial capacity throughout the transatlantic bloc.
To achieve that, the allies say they will “provide a clear demand signal to industry” through firm orders and contracts and the increased use of multi-year production deals.
“Sustained, increased defence spending and firm orders, combined with long-term capacity investment, will enable industry to support the alliance’s response to the challenges of an increasingly unpredictable and hostile security environment,” NATO says.
A record 23 NATO members are now meeting the alliance’s internal defence spending target of at least 2% of their gross domestic product equivalent, up from just 10 one year ago.
The pledge also makes explicit the full alliance’s commitment to supporting Ukraine in repelling Russia’s military invasion, with an initial focus on providing more lethal munitions and air defences.
Individual NATO members have collectively provided more than $100 billion dollars’ worth of assistance to Kyiv. An agreement reached at the July summit will for the first time see alliance headquarters take a role in directly supporting Ukraine, with the creation of a new command in Wiesbaden, Germany to manage the distribution of military aid.
The most closely watched piece of hardware are undoubtedly Lockheed Martin F-16 fighters, of which almost 100 secondhand examples have been pledged by Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway.
Leaders from the USA, Denmark and the Netherlands have together confirmed the first F-16 deliveries are now underway, although they decline to specify an exact number.
