Italy Boosts Defense Spending, Urges NATO to Focus on Drones

Italy’s prime minister has pledged to boost defense spending and has urged NATO to focus more on drone warfare.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on June 11 that Italy would spend 2.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defense and security in 2026, an increase of 0.71 percent on last year.

Last year, NATO allies agreed to raise defense spending targets from 2 percent of GDP to 5 percent by 2035, with 3.5 percent for core defense, such as troops, arms, and equipment, with the other 1.5 percent to be spent on related areas, such as security and infrastructure.

U.S. President Donald Trump has been pressuring NATO members to commit more to their own defense—a long-standing focus of the Republican president since his first term in office.

Meloni said that the debate on defense should not focus just on headline spending targets. She said that the Ukraine–Russia war, which has included the heavy usage of drone technology, has demonstrated that military power can no longer be measured on the basis of the amount spent on materiel or by the use of traditional weapons systems.

Highlighting Ukraine, the Italian prime minister said the frontline of the battlefield was blocked and swarming with unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) activity, adding, “We have seen tanks costing millions of euros ​destroyed by drones that cost on average €20,000 [$23,000].”

“There ‌are ⁠countries that, rather than recruiting soldiers, are training kids who are used to playing PlayStation, preparing those kids to pilot drones remotely in a possible war,” she said. “This is a debate the West must have.”

She told the Italian parliament that she would officially confirm her pledge to increase military spending at July’s NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey.

Ukraine’s Drone Deals

Since Russia invaded eastern Ukraine in February 2022, Kyiv has advanced its UAV technology to the extent that it has begun to export its expertise to the rest of Europe and the Middle East.

Earlier this week, Ukraine and Latvia signed an agreement on UAVs. Leaders of the two countries said the arrangement would see cooperation ​focusing on Kyiv’s battlefield experience, training, and information sharing, along with technological and defense-industrial cooperation.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said these kinds of deals “strengthen our joint defense and co-production, and, importantly, this also means Ukraine’s expertise and experience helping to strengthen our partners.”

Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs described the deal as a “comprehensive cooperation in the field of defense,” writing on X that his country would adopt Ukraine’s experience in defense against drone attacks.

Rearming Europe

Countries along NATO’s eastern flank, like Bulgaria and Poland, have affirmed that they will increase defense spending to 5 percent of GDP, with the former not specifying when the target will be reached.

Poland, however, has said that allies should endeavor to meet that spending target by the start of the next decade.

“There’s no point in ​waiting until ​2035 for ⁠5 percent,” Polish Deputy Prime Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said on May 6. “It must be achieved by 2030, because later may be too late.”

On June 11, British Secretary of State for Defence John Healey resigned, accusing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer of failing to commit adequate resources to defend the country amid heightened threats.

In his public resignation letter posted on X, Healey accused Starmer and the British Treasury of being “unable” and “unwilling” to “commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats.”

He said that, despite working on a defense investment plan with the prime minister and the Treasury, the resulting final settlement, which Healey said he first saw on June 8, “falls well short of what is required for defence and the country at this dangerous time.”

The United States has also reoriented its defense and security priorities.

On Jan 23, the Pentagon released its National Defense Strategy, which outlines the U.S. plan to prioritize homeland defense, including by “defending America’s interests throughout the Western Hemisphere.”

It also stated that the United States would encourage partners in other parts of the world, including Europe, to take primary responsibility for their own defense “with critical but limited support from U.S. forces.”

Reuters and Guy Birchall contributed to this report.