PRAGUE, 16 Sept.- (ANA) - The latest IISS Strategic Dossier, ‘The Defence of Europe in a New Era: An Assessment’, highlights the steps taken by European members of NATO in building the continent’s defence capabilities and the urgent challenges they still face.

 

Published ahead of the third IISS Prague Defence Summit 2026, it reveals how the alliance is preparing for twenty-first-century warfare and its progress in closing critical capability gaps and taking more responsibility for the defence of Europe.

 

 

 

 

Europeans are embracing the need to increase defence spending. Total spending by European NATO allies is now more than 90% higher in nominal terms than in 2022.

 

Regional allies are prioritising capability investment and inventory recapitalisation and development, with the average share of defence spending allocated to procurement and R&D growing from under 25% in 2020 to more than 36% in 2026.

 

European states are also buying more European equipment, according to new IISS research, which suggests that 63% of publicly reported procurement contracts awarded between 2022 and 2025 went to European manufacturers, while 25% of contracts went to US companies.

 

Production capacity in some areas has also increased substantially. 155mm-artillery-ammunition production has increased five-fold since 2022 and could double again in the next four years. Production rates for  moured fighting vehicles and UAVs have also risen significantly.

 

 

 

 

Poland and Romania are emerging as the region’s anchors because of military mass and geography, but all six countries examined in the Dossier – the others being Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia – have ambitious plans to improve their capability under NATO plans.

 

These states are becoming defence producers rather than defence consumers, with the most noteworthy expansion coming in large-calibre ammunition. Moreover, commercial pressure to produce the scale needed for large contracts, and the imperatives of achieving NATO´s capability targets, are helping to consolidate the region’s defence industry.

 

 

 

 

Despite rebuilding efforts, key gaps in personnel, artillery, air defence, ammunition depth, sustainment and readiness remain across most NATO-Europe land forces. While no longer in managed decline, plans still run ahead of available combat power with the need for more personnel, equipment and readiness while not assuming unlimited or immediate US support.

 

NATO’s European members are unlikely to supply the backbone of conventional defence on the continent without US resources before 2030.

 

 

 

 

Germany and Poland are becoming vital nodes in Europe’s logistics chain. Investments are being made as part of NATO’s Eastern Flank Deterrence Initiative. This envisages moving supplies forward in peacetime, but filling and replenishing these depends on defence industrial capacity. 

 

Investments are still required to close gaps in infrastructure, especially in Germany, which is the central logistics hub through which most eastward reinforcement would pass.

 

But infrastructure challenges remain Alliance-wide, including in bridging and rail transport, while advanced need to be made in reducing bureaucratic hurdles to movement and improving airlift, medical support and fuel supply, among others.

 

Progress has been made. For instance, NATO is relearning how to move and command forces at scale. However, the more serious of the physical shortfalls are among those that will take the longest time to resolve, while other vital factors like the reinforcement plans and pre-positioned stocks assume continued US participation.

 

 

 

 

Europe’s defence industrial ecosystem has developed competitive agentic AI applications but remains heavily dependent on US enabling infrastructure. While Ukraine and other countries’ use of AI in targeting have cut decision times down to minutes, questions of accuracy, oversight and proportionality remain. Strategically, the risk is not exclusion from the technology but entering a future conflict dependent on others for critical enablers, with the terms of access set elsewhere.

 

Dr Ben Schreer, Director for Defence, Technology and Future Conflict, IISS, said, “Europe is making real progress in its attempts to boost its defence capability and budgets though there remains a significant shortfall in some areas.” Ultimately, as the dossier says, "Closing that gap before the end of the decade is the task."   - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/16 September 2026 - -