BRUSSELS — NATO officials have identified up to $145 billion in shared munition and air defense requirements across member-states, with Secretary General Mark Rutte vowing to push weapon production as a top priority at the next NATO summit.
That figure, likely to be applauded by US and European defense executives, was released as part of NATO’s Annual 2025 Report presented this week in Brussels.
Last year represented the first time that all NATO countries met or exceeded the 2 percent benchmark on defense spending, Rutte revealed during a press conference on March 26, something he largely attributed to US President Donald Trump’s relentless pressure to end allies’ free-riding.
“I don’t believe that without the present American administration, the whole of the alliance would have been meeting the 2 percent at the end of last year,” the NATO chief told reporters.
While Washington still provides a majority — 60 percent — of NATO nation defense spending, European and Canadian contributions rose by 20 percent on the backs of a $94 billion boost from the previous year.
A trend has emerged where countries are now investing significantly more in the procurement, research, and development of new weaponry, in contrast to earlier periods, when the bulk of spending was dedicated to personnel and operations.
In 2025, NATO’s Reoccurring Process for Aggregating Demand (REPEAD) — which pools countries’ capability needs — valued the demand for missiles, bombs, drones, and deep precision strike systems at $145 billion (€125.9 billion). According to the report, the alliance is now working with allies and industry to meet these requirements as “quickly and economically” as possible.
For this year’s cycle, the focus will shift to maritime battle-decisive munitions, intelligence and surveillance capabilities, and selected land domain requirements.
The CEO of Rheinmetall, Armin Papperger, recently said in a CNBC interview that despite years of warning, European, American, and Middle Eastern munition stockpiles were nearly empty due to ongoing conflicts. These remarks varied greatly from some of the report’s findings, which noted that, in line with the alliance’s defense production action plan, updated over a year ago, greater spending would allow for a rapid expansion of munition manufacturing.
Responding to a question from Breaking Defense about Papperger’s comments, Rutte acknowledged concerns but did not go nearly as far as the industry executive.
“That is clearly one of the main areas we will focus on at the next NATO summit – when it comes to ammunition, there is some good news, as we have been able to increase production sixfold compared to a couple of years ago, but clearly there is still more to do as the defense industrial base is simply not producing enough,” Rutte said.
He highlighted that these difficulties reflect a shared vulnerability as they are affecting the US, Canada, and Europe, noting that Trump recently held a meeting with key American suppliers, and that the same would be done at a European level.
“I spoke with one of the American CEOs afterwards, and that was a very effective meeting – we’re doing the same here, of course, [where I met] with national leaders like President Macron and others in the defense industry,” Rutte said.
Similar calls have been heard repeatedly over the last few years, peaking in 2023 when Western militaries were struggling to replenish their munition stockpiles and were reported to be running out of artillery ammunition as supplies were sent to support Ukraine.
