COMMENTARY: Tens of Billions in Contracts: Ankara, or War Turned into an Industrial Fair

From Plans to Production in Twelve Months

Among the most striking examples of this defense industrial revolution, Rutte cited the Rheinmetall plant, which was built in record time: from planning to production on the assembly line in just over a year. This plant now produces 350,000 155-mm artillery shells per year. To put this into perspective, the Ukrainian military uses several thousand shells on some days. Europe’s industrial capacity, which has long been lackluster, is beginning to show that it can ramp up when the political will is there.

This is unquestionably good news. There’s no debate about it. Ukraine needs ammunition, and Rheinmetall is producing more of it. But what’s striking is the speed with which this announcement is being turned into a sales pitch—a corporate calling card, a source of industrial pride at press conferences, proof that Europe knows how to do business even in times of war. The human dimension—the Ukrainian soldiers waiting for these shells in their positions, under Russian bombardment—sometimes gets lost amid the language of the supply chain.

General Stringer and the “Quadruple” Doctrine

U.S. General Stringer was even more direct in his pre-summit statements: production of 155 mm shells must be quadrupled to be able to hold our ground against Russia in the long term. This is not a rhetorical goal. It is an operational analysis based on actual consumption rates observed in Ukraine since 2022. Russia produces or imports (via North Korea) volumes of ammunition that the West still struggles to match, despite its spectacular announcements.

This figure—quadrupling—should be the headline in every newspaper. It means that despite the billions spent, despite the announcements, despite Ankara and its pending contracts, we still aren’t meeting the demands of the war. The industrial fair is open, the booths are full—but the gap between rhetoric and the reality on the front lines remains abysmal.

Quadruple. That word should be a collective slap in the face. We’re patting ourselves on the back for a Rheinmetall factory producing 350,000 shells a year, and the general in charge says we need four times that many. This isn’t a success being celebrated in Ankara. It’s a shortfall we’re trying to make up.

A historic milestone, though its contours remain vague

The major announcement from the Ankara summit will officially be the adoption of a spending target of 5% of GDP by 2035. Rutte presented this as a historic decision during his visit to the Atlantic Council on June 25. The structure of this target warrants clarification: 3.5% allocated to defense in the strict sense, and 1.5% to security and resilience (cybersecurity, critical infrastructure, civil protection). It is therefore not 5% purely for military purposes—a nuance that official statements have not always made clear.

The Gdańsk Declaration of June 25, 2026, signed by several leaders even before the summit, reaffirms this commitment. On paper, this is a revolution. In practice, reaching 5% of GDP in less than ten years represents a considerable budgetary challenge for European economies already under demographic and energy pressure. The question is whether this political goal will translate into concrete orders and real capabilities—or whether it serves primarily to reassure Washington and fuel Ankara’s announcements.

Russia already spends 40 to 50% of its budget on defense

To gauge what a sustained defense effort truly means, one need only look at what Moscow has been doing since 2022: Russia now devotes between 40 and 50% of its national budget to defense, with more than 70% of tax revenue absorbed by the war effort, according to data cited by Rutte. In 2026, Moscow is set to increase its military spending by an additional 4 to 5 trillion rubles. This is no longer a war economy. It is an economy designed to ensure the regime’s survival, propped up by growing domestic debt—war bonds yielding about 15%, and a budget deficit exceeding $80 billion.

Given this, is NATO’s 5% target sufficient? Probably. But it must be real, measurable, and auditable—not accounting tricks that include aid to refugees or subsidies to repurposed civilian industries. The Alliance’s credibility hinges on the details of these figures, not just on Ankara’s public statements.

Russia is bleeding. Its economy is on a debt drip. Its deficit exceeds 80 billion. And yet it carries on. This is not a lesson in resilience that I admire—it is a warning that NATO would do well to take seriously rather than celebrating its own announcements.

The Turkish Paradox at the Heart of the Alliance

The fact that a NATO summit is being held in Turkey is no small matter. Ankara has been a member of the Alliance since 1952, has the second-largest military in NATO, and hosts key strategic bases. But it is also the country of Erdoğan, who has long maintained trade relations with Russia despite sanctions, played an ambiguous role as an intermediary in the grain negotiations, and delayed Finland and Sweden’s accession for months to secure political concessions.

ASELSAN, the Turkish defense electronics giant, will take center stage during the summit’s industry day. With its dozens of subsidiaries and capabilities in drones, radars, and electronic warfare systems, ASELSAN represents a real industrial powerhouse. But it also symbolizes the complexity of the Alliance: Ankara sells to everyone, negotiates with everyone, and welcomes everyone. This is not a weakness in itself—it’s politics. But in the context of an existential war for Ukraine, this ambiguity deserves to be acknowledged.

The 3,000 Turkish Companies and Structural Opportunism

The presence of some 3,000 Turkish defense companies at the summit’s industry day speaks volumes about what Ankara expects from this meeting. Turkey makes no secret of its ambitions: to become a key supplier to the European defense industry, to capitalize on orders linked to the war in Ukraine, and to strengthen its position in the production of ammunition, drones, and armored vehicles. This is a coherent national strategy. It is also, in a way, a means of capitalizing on the summit’s hospitality.

No one says this outright in official statements. Everyone understands it implicitly. NATO summits are no longer just political meetings; they have become economic development events disguised as collective security councils. This is not a betrayal—it is an evolution. But it deserves to be faced head-on.

Three thousand Turkish companies in the corridors of a summit supposed to decide the future of Ukraine. I’m not saying this is illegitimate. I’m saying it reveals what the Alliance has truly become—and what it risks becoming if no one reexamines its purpose.

Companies at the Heart of Strategic Doctrine

Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics—these names resonate as guarantees of military power. But they are privately held, publicly traded companies with shareholders, fiduciary obligations, and commercial interests measured in quarters. Anduril and Palantir, representatives of the new tech wave, add a dimension of artificial intelligence and data processing that raises additional ethical questions about the private sector’s role in military decision-making.

These companies will be in Ankara. They will sign contracts. They will showcase their capabilities. And they will leave with order books filled by the public budgets of 41 to 42 nations. The model is not new—but its scale is. The West’s collective defense is partly outsourced to entities whose sole purpose is profit. This is not an accusation. It is a description.

Divergent Technologies and Additive Manufacturing: The War of Tomorrow

Divergent Technologies, a specialist in additive manufacturing for defense, represents a less visible but perhaps more significant aspect of the summit: the structural transformation of military production chains. Additive manufacturing (industrial 3D printing) makes it possible to produce complex structural parts in record time, reduce lead times, and quickly adapt designs based on feedback from the field. It has the potential to be a revolution as significant as the fighter jet in the 1950s.

But this technology is, once again, driven by a private company, with its own business model, patents, and licenses. Will Ukraine have access to these capabilities on the same terms as NATO member countries? Technology transfer timelines, intellectual property agreements, and export restrictions—these are all bureaucratic obstacles that have already cost months and lives in this conflict.

Divergent Technologies, Anduril, Palantir—names that sound like science fiction. Yet they are at the heart of real-world defense in 2026. My question is simple: when these contracts are signed in Ankara, who guarantees that Zelenskyy will receive what he needs, when he needs it, without a two-year bureaucratic delay?

90% of Ukraine’s Air Defense Systems Funded by the Alliance

In Rutte’s assessment presented at the Atlantic Council, one figure stands out clearly: the PURL program has funded 90% of the air defense systems currently available to Ukraine. This is not a metaphor. It is a concrete operational reality—the Patriot batteries, the NASAMS systems, the interceptors that shoot down Russian missiles every night over Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odessa. Without this collective funding, Ukraine would no longer have a shield.

This program, the result of coordination among Alliance members, represents exactly what NATO can achieve when it acts collectively rather than letting each country decide on its own what to contribute and when. This is the model that should take precedence in Ankara. Not a free-for-all of bilateral contracts, but strategic pooling of resources. The difference between the two is not merely philosophical—it is measured in lives saved or lost.

NATO 3.0 Doctrine and the Transfer of Commands to Europeans

The new NATO 3.0 strategic doctrine, presented by Rutte, calls in particular for the gradual transfer of joint force commands—air, land, and sea—to Europeans over the next 12 to 18 months. This is a fundamental shift, accelerated by uncertainties regarding U.S. commitment since Trump’s return. A stronger Europe within a stronger NATO—to use Rutte’s phrase—means that Europeans must stop waiting for Washington to make every operational decision.

This transfer of command is a good thing. But it requires massive investments in interoperability, training, and common communication systems—exactly the kind of spending that’s hard to feature in the glamorous speeches of an industry event. Ammunition contracts make for great photos; investments in common command systems are a bore.

NATO 3.0. It’s a nice name. But behind the branding lies a reality: Europeans must finally take charge of their own defense, command their own forces, and make decisions without waiting for a phone call from the White House. It’s a step forward. It’s also a necessity that the Trump situation has made urgent—and that’s something no one should be proud of.

A seat at the table, but not yet membership

Volodymyr Zelensky will be in Ankara. That’s significant. It’s also not enough. Ukraine is still not a member of NATO—and the Ankara summit is unlikely to change that. The reasons cited remain the same: the risk of direct escalation with Russia, Article 5 being inapplicable during active warfare, and differences among member states. Zelensky has been invited to the trade show, but not yet to the table where permanent security guarantees are discussed.

This paradox is stark. The man whose country alone bears the physical brunt of the conflict—the deaths, the destruction, the displacement—must settle for an observer’s seat while others sign contracts that may, perhaps, guarantee him an arms delivery in six months. Recognition of his courage and of the Ukrainian resistance is genuine in Ankara. The substance that follows is far less so.

Ukraine’s Conditions for Any Negotiations

Zelensky has publicly maintained his conditions: no negotiations without solid security guarantees, no ceasefire without a Russian withdrawal from the territories occupied since 2022, and no compromise on Ukrainian sovereignty. These positions are justified. They are also, in the context of Ankara, difficult to uphold in the face of allies who have their own internal political constraints, their own electorates to appease, and their own industries to supply with contracts.

The tension between Ukraine’s immediate needs—weapons, ammunition, guarantees, and EU membership—and the summit’s “industrial trade show” dynamic is very real. Zelensky is negotiating for his country’s survival; his allies are also negotiating, but in part, for their own economic competitiveness. This discrepancy does not invalidate Western support—it makes it more complex.

Zelensky in Ankara. I picture him in those industrial exhibition halls, surrounded by Lockheed booths and ASELSAN engineers, knowing that every contract signed there might mean a delivery a year from now. A year. For a country that counts its shells by the day. That image weighs heavily on me.

The Baltic States and Poland as Barometers of Credibility

While Ankara prepares to welcome billions in new contracts, the members of the Alliance’s eastern flank—Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland—face a different reality. They already spend between 3 and 5 percent of their GDP on defense. They have military bases, exercises, and allied contingents on their soil. They also have a fear—a documented, rational fear, based on decades of Soviet experience—that Article 5 might not be invoked quickly enough if Russia strikes.

On June 27, 2026, The Guardian reported deep concerns among these countries regarding Hegseth’s strategic review and doubts about U.S. reliability. An incident in Tallinn involving U.S. envoy DiNanno, along with Radosław Sikorski’s remarks about Schrödinger’s NATO—an Alliance that simultaneously exists and does not exist—illustrate a sense of unease that the Ankara agreements alone cannot resolve.

The German Brigade in Lithuania and Persistent Contradictions

Germany has deployed a permanent brigade to Lithuania—a major announcement and a powerful symbol of Germany’s reengagement after decades of military underinvestment. But at the same time, Berlin canceled and then reinstated the deployment of certain planned Polish contingents, in a series of about-faces that illustrate the domestic difficulties in transforming political commitments into operational decisions. The contracts with Ankara will not resolve the parliamentary hesitations in Berlin or Rome.

The eastern flank needs a physical, permanent, credible presence—not press releases and contract signings. It is the deployed soldiers, the exercises conducted, and the measured response times that determine real deterrence. Everything else is just public relations.

Lithuania, Estonia, Poland—they are the ones who sleep the least soundly. Not the CEOs at Lockheed. Not the suit-and-tie delegates in Ankara. Them. Those who share a border with Russia or Lukashenko’s Belarus. These people deserve better than arms contracts. They deserve certainty.

Six months of strategic review, ongoing uncertainty

The strategic review led by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth since he took office has introduced structural uncertainty into the defense planning of all European allies. The Trump administration’s piecemeal announcements, about-faces, and contradictory statements regarding the continuation of U.S. commitment to Europe have led several countries to accelerate their own rearmament—not because they want to, but because they can no longer be certain that Washington will respond to Article 5 in a timely manner.

For the Alliance, Trump is a necessary evil. He has pushed Europeans to take responsibility for themselves—something that has been necessary for 30 years. But he has done so in a way that has eroded institutional trust, weakened consultation mechanisms, and cast doubt on the true value of the U.S. guarantee. Ankara must provide answers to this fragility. Contracts alone will not suffice.

The Paradox of an Alliance Strengthened by Its Own Doubts

There is something historically ironic about NATO’s situation in 2026: the Alliance has never been richer, better armed, or more united in rhetoric—and yet its most vulnerable members have never been more concerned about its actual reliability. The combined GDP of 70,000 billion, the 1,200 billion spent since 2016, the Rheinmetall factories, the Patriot systems, the contracts with Ankara—all of this exists. And at the same time, Sikorski’s remark about Schrödinger’s NATO hangs in the air in Ankara like an uncomfortable truth.

Money isn’t enough. Industry isn’t enough. What’s still missing is political will—clear, lasting, and unconditional. And that is something no contract can buy.

Trump has achieved something that decades of diplomacy failed to do: forcing the Europeans to pay for their own defense. The problem is that he did so by shattering trust. And trust cannot be rebuilt with a check for 54 billion.

An 80-billion deficit and a war with no end in sight

While Ankara hosts the NATO industrial fair, the Russian economy continues its silent decline. Moscow’s budget deficit has exceeded $80 billion, according to data cited by United24 Media on June 23, 2026. War bonds issued to finance the conflict are offering yields close to 15%—a sign that the Russian market itself no longer believes in the regime’s medium-term solvency. The Russian economy has reached an impasse, to use the phrase employed by an advisor to Zelensky on June 26.

This economic reality is important for understanding what Ankara can and cannot accomplish. Russia will not collapse in a matter of weeks under the weight of its own deficits—the history of warfare shows that regimes can operate under a war economy for years with abysmal deficits, especially when they control the media, the opposition, and financial channels. But every billion spent on Western weapons is a billion that Moscow must find somewhere—through debt, by printing money, or by increasing the exploitation of its own population.

Out-of-Service Refineries and Russia’s Industrial Humiliation

In parallel with the Ankara summit, Ukrainian drones continue their methodical strikes on Russian oil infrastructure. According to Reuters, the Kapotnya refinery in Moscow is not expected to resume operations until 2027. The Bachneft refineries in Ufa were struck from a distance of 1,300 km on June 25. Russian refining capacity has fallen by a third since the start of Ukrainian strikes on energy infrastructure.

This industrial reality should be central to the discussions in Ankara—not as a victory to be celebrated, but as a strategic lever to be maintained and amplified. Ukraine is striking at the heart of the Russian war machine with limited resources. The billions from Ankara’s contracts must be used to amplify this capability, not just to fill the order books of Western manufacturers.

Kapotnya is out of service until 2027. Bashneft was struck 1,300 km away. Meanwhile, in Ankara, contracts are being signed. I hope that someone in those meeting rooms has maps of Russian refineries in front of them and is wondering how to accelerate what Ukraine has started.

The Gap Between Rhetoric and Action

The history of NATO summits since 2022 has been marked by spectacular announcements that have not been followed through on within the promised timeframes. Systems announced with great fanfare took months to arrive in Ukraine. Quantified commitments have been scaled back, delayed, or made contingent on parliamentary approval. Contracts signed at previous summits have resulted in only partial deliveries. Ankara will only be credible if the signed contracts translate into actual capabilities on the ground in Ukraine within a measurable timeframe.

Rutte himself implicitly acknowledged this problem by emphasizing the industrial revolution—the 12 to 18 months needed to transfer command to Europeans, Rheinmetall’s record-breaking timeline, and the need to produce faster. These timelines are real. They mean that decisions made in Ankara in July 2026 will yield concrete results, at best, by the end of 2027. In real-time warfare, that is an eternity.

The Test of Political Will Beyond the Announcements

The real test in Ankara is not the number of billions announced or the 300-billion order book. It is the answer to concrete questions: How many additional air defense systems will Ukraine receive before the winter of 2026? How many 155-mm shells will actually be delivered by December? Which Alliance members will increase their spending in a verifiable and audited manner this year? The defense industry fair generates contracts. War demands deliveries.

The distinction between the two is the dividing line between a summit that will change the course of the war and one that will go down in history as a great missed opportunity. Rutte knows this. Zelenskyy knows this. The generals on the eastern front know this. The question is whether the CEOs attending the Ankara Industry Day know it too—and whether that changes their priorities.

I want to believe that Ankara will make a difference. I want to believe that the billions committed in July will turn into shells delivered in September and operational air defense systems in November. But I’ve seen too many summits produce great photos and delayed deliveries to claim victory before the facts are in.

An Absolute Economic Disparity with Russia

The figures reveal a staggering imbalance. The combined GDP of NATO members and their close partners gathered in Ankara totals 70,000 billion dollars. In contrast, Russia has a GDP of approximately 2,000 billion dollars—less than 3% of the Alliance’s aggregate economic power. And yet, this colossal disparity has not been enough to secure a swift Ukrainian victory, nor to deter Moscow from continuing its war of aggression.

The reason is simple and harsh: economic power does not automatically translate into operational military power. It requires political decisions, reoriented industrial capabilities, adapted supply chains, and a collective will to subordinate certain national economic interests to the common effort. This is exactly what Ankara is supposed to deliver. The industrial fair is not the problem in and of itself—the problem is if it becomes an end in itself.

The Transatlantic Industrial Revolution as a Systemic Response

Rutte used the term “transatlantic industrial revolution” to describe what has been happening since 2022. He is right. Ammunition production capacities, new factories, and investments in breakthrough defense technologies represent a structural shift that goes far beyond the conflict in Ukraine alone. This revolution is expected to last for decades, shape European economies, redefine transatlantic relations, and—if led with vision—permanently reduce Russia’s ability to threaten its neighbors.

But this revolution comes at a political cost: it requires sustaining the effort over the long term, not easing up once a ceasefire is signed, and resisting the temptation to cut budgets as soon as the threat seems less immediate. That is Ankara’s gamble—a gamble on the long haul, not on short-term spectacle.

70,000 billion versus 2,000. And we’re still struggling to quadruple shell production. This isn’t a problem of resources. It’s a problem of political will and collective organization. Ankara can fix this—if the current leaders choose substance over photo ops.

The invisible front that shapes everything else

It would be tempting to reduce the Ankara summit to its Ukrainian dimension alone. But Rutte himself was keen to point out that the threat is systemic and global. Russia is not acting alone in this war: it is supported by North Korea, which supplies hundreds of thousands of artillery shells and ballistic missiles; by Iran, which has delivered hundreds of Shahed drones that have targeted Ukrainian cities; and by China, which turns a blind eye to sanctions circumventions and supplies Moscow with dual-use electronic components. This hidden front is the underlying reason why General Stringer’s figures are so alarming: NATO is not facing a single adversary, but a coordinated network of revisionist states determined to dismantle the international order established after 1945.

The contracts signed in Ankara are therefore not merely a response to the war in Ukraine. They are a response to a rebalancing of the global balance of power that is unfolding simultaneously in Europe, the South China Sea, the Middle East, and the digital realm. Every dollar spent on collective defense is also a signal to Beijing—which is observing, calculating, and adapting its own strategy toward Taiwan based on what it sees happening in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Precedent as a Message to Beijing

Analysts agree on one key point: if Ukraine reaches an agreement that resembles a disguised surrender, Beijing will draw a direct lesson from it regarding the West’s resolve. The Alliance’s credibility in China’s eyes is not measured by Ankara’s rhetoric—it is measured by what actually happens on the ground in Ukraine over the next 12 to 24 months. This is why the West is the center of the democratic world and must remain so: not out of arrogance, but because the values of international law, national sovereignty, and liberal democracy have no other structural defender in the current system.

ASELSAN, Anduril, Rheinmetall, Lockheed Martin—their contracts with Ankara are not just about Ukraine in 2026. They also concern Taiwan in 2028, the Baltic Sea in 2027, and all the scenarios that NATO planners still refuse to name publicly in their official statements. The Ankara defense industry fair may be more significant than it appears—provided that the decisions made there translate into actual capabilities deployed on time.

China is watching Ankara. It sees the contracts being signed, the figures being announced, and the delivery schedules. It is doing the math. And if it concludes that the West signs contracts but fails to deliver on time, that assessment will change its strategy toward Taiwan. This is not abstract geopolitics. It is the most concrete reality there is.

The Choice Between the Fair and the Fortress

The Ankara summit stands at the crossroads of two possible narratives. The first: an Alliance that has understood that collective defense requires massive spending, a mobilized industry, and concrete contracts—and that acts accordingly. The billions in contracts signed, the factories launched, the command structures transferred, the 5% of GDP target adopted. This narrative exists. It is real. It deserves to be recognized.

The second narrative is more uncomfortable: an Alliance that uses the war in Ukraine to fuel an industrial fair, that confuses the announcement of a contract with the delivery of capability, that celebrates its own figures while Ukrainian soldiers count their ammunition. This narrative also exists. It would be dishonest to deny it.

What History Will Remember About Ankara

History will not remember the number of billions announced in Ankara. It will remember whether those billions changed the actual balance of power on the ground in Ukraine, whether the countries on the eastern flank received the concrete guarantees they needed, and whether Zelensky returned to Kyiv with anything more than promises. It will remember whether NATO 3.0 was an operational doctrine or a PR slogan. It will remember whether the transatlantic industrial revolution produced shells, drones, and interceptors—or press releases.

Ankara could be a turning point. Ankara could be a pretext. It’s the same meeting. It’s the same set of figures. It’s the same day of industrial activity. What changes is the intention behind the signatures—and that, we’ll only know from the deliveries that follow.

I want to believe that Ankara will change things. I really do. But belief isn’t enough in times of war. What’s needed are deliveries, a physical presence, and guarantees that no one will back down under commercial or electoral pressure. The rest is just PR—and PR doesn’t repair bombed-out cities.

Signed, Maxime Marquette, columnist