From air policing to defense against drones and missiles: NATO is preparing a reform ahead of July 2026, with budgetary and procurement implications.
Summary
NATO is preparing a reform of its air defense ahead of the July 2026 summit. The current framework, focused on air policing, is primarily aimed at monitoring airspace and intercepting aircraft in peacetime via QRA alerts. The war in Ukraine has changed the equation: the main challenge is no longer intruding aircraft, but saturation by drones and missiles, with constraints on costs and interceptor stocks. According to Ukrainian data relayed by analysts, Russia launched tens of thousands of Shahed-type drones in 2025, and salvos can exceed several thousand per month. The expected posture would emphasize integrated, more responsive, and more “combative” defense: additional sensors, data fusion, adapted rules of engagement, and reinforced ground-to-air layers. For the Allies, this means accelerated purchases (Patriot, SAMP/T, NASAMS, IRIS-T SLM, radars), increased budgets, and industrialization of ammunition.
The nature of the announcement and what it says between the lines
The information circulating in NATO circles resembles a doctrine overhaul rather than a simple procedural adjustment. The core message is clear: the Alliance wants to move from a peacetime surveillance and interception approach to one of active protection against long-range attacks. In other words, NATO air defense wants to stop being a “sky police” service and become a combat architecture designed for missiles and drones.
This shift is not just for show. It reflects an operational reality: potential adversaries have learned to bypass fighter jets by targeting what is more difficult to stop, easier to multiply, and sometimes cheaper to produce. Cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, rockets, and especially swarm attack drones create continuous pressure. The economic model is brutal: if the defense spends too much on interception, it wears itself out at the attacker’s industrial pace. This is the most sensitive political issue, because it involves stocks, contracts, and budgetary trade-offs, not just rhetoric.
The current posture and what it really covers
The air policing framework and its logic of armed peace
The Alliance has been practicing air policing for decades: a permanent mission to protect the integrity of allied airspace. It relies on 24/7 surveillance, radar, a NATO chain of command, and aircraft on alert capable of taking off very quickly to identify, escort, or divert a suspicious aircraft. It is a mission designed to manage ambiguity, avoid incidents, and signal the cohesion of the Alliance.
In practical terms, this system relies on command centers (notably Combined Air Operations Centers) and rotating detachments. The best-known example is air policing in the Baltic States, where Allies regularly provide fighter jets to maintain alert status. Since 2014, NATO has also strengthened its eastern flank and increased the deployment of aircraft and surveillance assets, in addition to air policing.
The operational ceiling of the model
The problem is that air policing is optimized against a rare “object”: the aircraft. It is useful for identification, deterrence, and incident management. It is less suitable when the threat is a continuous flow of low-cost, low-altitude vectors with multiple trajectories, sometimes with reduced signatures, and with a saturation logic.
Ground-to-air defense already exists in the Alliance, of course. But it is heterogeneous, often national, and above all sized for scenarios that, since 2022, have been revalidated on a scale that many European states had not anticipated. The war in Ukraine has brought a very concrete question back to the table: how many interceptors, how many radars, how many batteries, and at what industrial rate can we replenish them?
The Ukrainian lesson and the constraint of numbers
Saturation as a method, not an accident
Ukraine has suffered an air campaign where volume is a weapon. Analyses show very high monthly peaks. Follow-up studies describe a sharp acceleration in 2025, with salvos exceeding several thousand drones in some months and attacks combining drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles. The defense must then choose: fire a lot (and exhaust itself), or let them pass (and suffer damage). Both options have a political cost.
According to a compilation based on official Ukrainian data, Russia launched 54,538 Shahed-type drones in 2025 (including approximately 32,200 attack drones). This figure alone explains why the issue is no longer just technological, but industrial.
The trap of economic attrition
The cost differential has become a strategic issue. A Shahed drone is often estimated to cost around $35,000 per unit, an order of magnitude that varies depending on the version and production methods. In contrast, a high-end interceptor can cost several million dollars. A PAC-3 MSE is regularly estimated at around $4 million per missile. As a result, shooting down a “cheap” drone with a “premium” interceptor may be tactically logical, but strategically ruinous if it becomes the norm.
This is exactly where NATO reform comes into play: building a defense capable of stopping the upper end of the spectrum (ballistic missiles, cruise missiles) without “emptying” its stocks at the lower end of the spectrum (slow drones, loitering munitions).
This equation requires layers, less expensive munitions, and a doctrine of use that accepts the use of different means depending on the threat.
The expected reform and what it changes in practice
The shift towards a more “combative” air defense posture
The NATO debate focuses on a more offensive air defense posture in the doctrinal sense: not “going on the offensive” against the adversary, but accepting that defending the skies in a crisis resembles a battle, with anticipation, pre-designation, and rapid responses. The nuance is important: we are moving away from a posture of air sovereignty in peacetime to a logic of theater protection.
In NATO vocabulary, this falls under IAMD (Integrated Air and Missile Defense), which aims to guarantee a level of air control that allows operations to be conducted in times of peace, crisis, and conflict. The expected reform consists of making this framework more concrete, more prescriptive, and more adapted to the threats of 2022–2026: drones, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and combined attacks.
The centrality of the chain of command and rules of engagement
The first implication is the C2 chain. Shooting down a drone or missile is not just a matter of firing a weapon. It is a decision involving identification, attribution, prioritization, and then engagement in a matter of seconds, sometimes over populated areas, sometimes near borders. If the Alliance wants to respond to salvos, it must reduce friction: better radar fusion, data links, air situation sharing, and rules of engagement that allow for quick action without waiting for endless validation.
This dimension is politically sensitive because it touches on sovereignty. Giving more latitude to a NATO chain of command, even on national territory, requires clarification of who decides what, when, and under what conditions. But if this is not clarified, we are accepting in advance that we will be slow in the face of fast-moving objects.
The logic of layers and the rejection of “all expensive missiles”
The reform also aims at a better-layered ground-to-air defense. The idea is not new. What has changed is the degree of urgency and budgetary realism. At the lower end of the spectrum (drones), the Alliance wants to promote less expensive and more numerous effectors: programmable ammunition cannons, short-range missiles, jamming, long-range lasers, and above all, interceptor drones. For the middle range (cruise missiles, fast drones), systems such as NASAMS or IRIS-T SLM are needed. For the high range (ballistic missiles), Patriot, SAMP/T, and more specialized missile defense architectures are required.
This is exactly the point that NATO officials are letting slip: “no more shooting down drones with overpriced missiles” is becoming a stock management principle, not a slogan.
Budgetary and industrial implications for Alliance countries
Rising budgets and the shift to mass purchasing
NATO already has a budget thermometer. The Alliance’s aggregate figures show a marked increase. For 2024, the defense expenditures of the European Allies and Canada are estimated at $482.395 billion (current prices) and $559.305 billion in 2025. The NATO total is estimated at $1,305.185 billion in 2024 and $1,404.584 billion in 2025. This increase provides breathing room, but it does not guarantee the availability of equipment.
The Allies have also adopted a more ambitious trajectory than the simple 2%: public discussions refer to a new, higher target, with a “core defense” component and a “security” component (infrastructure, cyber). On paper, this is a response to Ukraine. In reality, it means that air defense is becoming a priority, on the same level as artillery ammunition and armored vehicles.
The bottleneck of interceptors
The NATO reform risks running into a prosaic factor: production. A surface-to-air system is not just a launcher. It is a radar, a fire control system, logistics, trained teams, and above all, missiles in quantity. However, the rate of attrition seen in Ukraine has highlighted the vulnerability of stocks.
The case of the Patriot is revealing. Massive orders have been placed, with industrial contracts worth several billion dollars. One of the challenges is no longer to “own” a battery, but to be able to sustain it with ammunition over time. If each interception costs $4 million, the battle is won as much in the factory as on the radar screen. This constraint automatically pushes the Alliance to invest in low-cost solutions and to reserve high-cost solutions for threats that truly justify them.
The return of cooperative purchasing and common architectures
Part of the European response is already being organized through cooperation initiatives, particularly on the integration of short-, medium-, and long-range layers. The benefit is twofold: pooling purchases and preventing each country from reinventing an incompatible architecture. But real integration is difficult. The systems have different doctrines of use, different data links, and separate supply chains.
NATO reform can serve as a framework for imposing standards, accelerating interoperability, and converging procurement. It is also a means of making budget increases politically acceptable: purchasing “together” and demonstrating collective defense coherence, rather than national catalogs.
Capability choices that will weigh on national decisions
Systems that are back in the game
Countries that started from scratch will favor “ready-to-use” solutions that have already been tested in combat. Patriot and SAMP/T for the upper layer, NASAMS and IRIS-T SLM for the middle layer, and a constellation of short-range assets for anti-drone warfare.
NATO will not decide on behalf of the states, but its framework will influence how these layers are articulated and connected to the NATO command system.
Purchases are not neutral. Choosing a system means choosing an industrial sector, maintenance chains, and partial dependence on suppliers. This creates political tensions between sovereignty and urgency. But the threat requires quick decisions, especially on the eastern flank.
Difficult decisions: protecting territory or protecting forces
Air defense can protect a capital, a base, a port, an electrical hub, or a deployed force. It cannot protect everything, all the time, at the same level. The NATO reform will push the Allies to plan their priorities: which critical sites, which logistics corridors, which airfields, which units. This prioritization is often unpopular because it admits that there are areas with less coverage. But it is a requirement of realism.
The war in Ukraine has shown another thing: air defense is a living system. A destroyed radar, a relocated battery, or an exhausted missile stockpile can change the map in a matter of days. NATO reform will be credible if it takes into account mobility, dispersion, and the ability to absorb losses.
The political reality behind the reform
A “major” reform of NATO air defense is also a message to Moscow, and more broadly to any potential adversary: the Alliance wants to make saturation strategy less profitable. But the most important signal is internal. It tells the Allies that it is no longer enough to contribute to air policing on an ad hoc basis: they must buy, produce, train, and integrate.
The question that remains after the announcement is simple, almost embarrassing: can NATO turn money into capabilities in time, and above all into sustainable stocks, before the threat sets the pace? This is where the real credibility of the reform will be played out, much more so than in press releases.
Sources
Bloomberg, “NATO Moves on Air Defense Overhaul as Ukraine War Spurs Rethink,” February 13, 2026.
NATO, “NATO Air Policing,” reference page.
NATO, “NATO Integrated Air and Missile Defense,” reference page.
NATO, “Defense Expenditure of NATO Countries (2014–2025),” PDF document, aggregate tables.
Reuters, “All NATO members hit old spending target, only three meet new goal,” August 27, 2025.
CSIS, “Calculating the Cost-Effectiveness of Russia’s Drone Strikes,” February 19, 2025.
CSIS, “Russia’s Intense Air Campaign in October,” November 14, 2025.
U.S. Congressional Research Service, “PATRIOT Air and Missile Defense System for Ukraine (IF12297),” July 17, 2025.
Reuters, “Lockheed Martin wins $9.8 billion Patriot missile contract,” September 3, 2025.
Kyiv Dialogue, “Ukraine Air War Monitor Vol. X,” November 10, 2025.
Institute for Science and International Security, “Shahed-type UAVs deployment against Ukraine in 2025,” January 22, 2026.
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