NATO's summit in Ankara closed on Wednesday having converted last year's headline spending pledge into orders. At the Defence Industry Forum alongside the leaders' meeting, allies announced more than $50bn in new procurement for advanced weaponry and technologies (Al Jazeera). They also pledged €70bn — about $80bn — in military support to Ukraine for 2026, with a commitment to sustain at least that level in 2027 (Al Jazeera).
The spending trajectory is real but uneven. NATO Europe and Canada averaged 2.53% of GDP on core defence so far in 2026, up from 2.3% in 2025, and the US reported 3.17%; but only five of the thirty-two members currently meet the 3.5% core-defence target agreed for 2035, with seventeen on track for the separate 1.5% broader-investment goal (Al Jazeera). The gap between pledge and delivery is the story underneath the headline numbers.
The summit also hardened politically on Iran. President Trump declared the interim memorandum with Tehran over, and Secretary-General Mark Rutte defended the US strikes as "absolutely necessary" (Al Jazeera) — landing as the Gulf war resumed with this week's tanker attacks and retaliatory strikes.
For the security industry, the relevant slice is the 1.5% "broader resilience" investment category, which seventeen of the thirty-two allies are on track to meet (Al Jazeera). That spending pulls in physical protection, monitoring, screening and critical-site guarding around energy nodes, ports and logistics — much of it delivered by private providers rather than uniformed forces. Firms positioned around critical-national-infrastructure protection and defence-adjacent site security should expect the pipeline to widen over the next eighteen months.
