NATO is quantifying the scale of its ammunition problem

NATO has put a large number on a problem that has been building for years: allied stockpiles and production lines are not where the alliance wants them to be. According to the organization’s 2025 annual report, member states have identified as much as $145 billion in shared requirements for munitions and air defense-related capability, a total that covers demand for missiles, bombs, drones, and deep precision strike systems.

The figure matters because it turns a familiar strategic concern into a measurable industrial challenge. NATO is no longer speaking in general terms about readiness and deterrence. It is assigning a price tag to what allies say they need and signaling that production will be a core political priority at the next summit.

Secretary General Mark Rutte made that direction explicit, saying munitions production would be one of the alliance’s main areas of focus. The message is clear: spending more is no longer enough on its own. NATO now has to convert money into usable volume, and quickly.

Why the number matters beyond headline value

The $145 billion total emerged from NATO’s Reoccurring Process for Aggregating Demand, or REPEAD, which pools capability requirements across countries. That mechanism is important because it suggests the alliance is trying to move beyond fragmented national shopping lists toward a more coordinated picture of what industry needs to supply.

That coordination could prove just as important as the money itself. Modern defense procurement often suffers from mismatched timelines, national preferences, and uneven industrial capacity. Aggregated demand does not solve those issues automatically, but it gives NATO a clearer basis for aligning governments and suppliers around the same shortages.

The scale of demand also reveals where allied concern is concentrated. The list is not abstract. It includes core tools of contemporary warfare and deterrence:

  • Missiles
  • Bombs
  • Drones
  • Deep precision strike systems
  • Air defense requirements

Those categories map directly onto the alliance’s immediate operational anxieties. They reflect the need to replenish inventories, harden air and missile defense, and sustain the kind of high-consumption conflict planning that many Western governments treated too lightly in earlier years.

Defense spending is rising, but NATO wants a different spending mix

The report also highlights a milestone NATO has long pursued: 2025 was the first year in which all member countries met or exceeded the benchmark of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense. Rutte credited that outcome in large part to pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, arguing that the current American administration played a central role in pushing allies to stop free-riding.

Even with that progress, the alliance’s spending balance remains uneven. Washington still accounts for 60 percent of NATO nations’ defense spending. That statistic underscores a familiar reality: Europe and Canada are spending more, but the United States remains the financial anchor of the alliance.

At the same time, the direction of change is significant. European and Canadian contributions rose 20 percent, supported by a $94 billion increase from the previous year. Just as important, NATO says members are increasingly directing funds toward procurement, research, and development of new weaponry rather than concentrating primarily on personnel and operations.

That shift may turn out to be the most consequential part of the report. Headline spending targets can be politically useful, but deterrence depends on what militaries can field, replenish, and sustain. If a greater share of allied budgets is now moving into procurement and development, NATO may finally be addressing the more stubborn half of the readiness problem.

Industry is now central to alliance credibility

The annual report’s underlying argument is not only about military need. It is also about industrial performance. NATO says it is working with allies and industry to meet requirements as quickly and economically as possible, which puts defense manufacturers at the center of the alliance’s next phase.

That will be welcome news for U.S. and European defense companies, but it also raises pressure. Acknowledging a large requirement is easier than filling it. Production capacity, supply chains, labor constraints, contracting timelines, and competing national priorities can all slow the response. In other words, the real test begins after the number is announced.

NATO’s credibility increasingly rests on whether it can translate collective alarm into durable output. The alliance has already won one political argument by getting every member above the 2 percent threshold. Now it has to win the industrial one. Can the transatlantic base produce the missiles, bombs, drones, and air defense systems allies say they need at the pace current security conditions demand?

The $145 billion requirement suggests NATO knows the answer is not yet yes. But it also shows the alliance is trying to build a more disciplined response: quantify the gap, align demand, redirect spending, and push production higher.

That combination marks a new phase in alliance rearmament. The era of debating whether NATO should spend more has largely given way to a harder question: how fast can it build what it says it needs? The answer will shape not only procurement plans, but the credibility of deterrence itself.

This article is based on reporting by Breaking Defense. Read the original article.