NATO's summit in Ankara closes today (NATO), and the through-line was delivery rather than promises. A year after allies committed to spending 5% of GDP on defence and security by 2035 — 3.5% on core military capability and 1.5% on broader resilience such as infrastructure and mobility — the Ankara meeting was built to show the money turning into orders. Secretary-General Mark Rutte flagged "tens of billions in new contracts… the crucial kit we need to deter and defend," with a dedicated defence-industry forum alongside the leaders' session (NATO). Individual deals landed to match: the Netherlands alone announced more than 3 billion euros of new defence agreements, including air-defence work with Belgium and naval ships with Britain (Al Jazeera).
The spending trajectory is real. European allies and Canada are expected to invest a combined 258 billion dollars more across 2025 and 2026 than in prior years, and the bloc now sits at roughly 4% of GDP one year into a ten-year plan (NATO); Rutte called the early evidence "impressive" (Al Jazeera). His framing — "no strong defence without a strong defence industry" — is the summit's signal to the market: sustained, contracted demand.
For the private security industry, the number to watch is the 1.5% "broader resilience" slice. That is the bucket that funds critical-infrastructure protection, continuity, counter-drone, cyber-physical security and the guarding and monitoring around all of it. As governments build that line out, the pull-through reaches manned guarding, technology-led monitoring and specialist protective work, not only prime defence contractors.
The operator read: this is a multi-year demand signal, not a spike. Firms positioned around resilience, critical national infrastructure and counter-UAS work should expect the procurement pipeline to widen — and the scrutiny with it. Bigger budgets buy more competence-testing, not less.
