Craig works as a senior analyst on Aviation Week Network’s military and commercial forecast databases, specializing in military aircraft markets and global defense spending trends. Prior to joining Aviation Week he spent 12 years at Jane’s working as an analyst and consultant on global aerospace and defense markets.
A slow but steady stream of data has been released on the U.S. FY26 defense budget request, which would represent a substantial hike of 11% in nominal terms.
NATO’s June 2025 summit will no doubt go down as a key point in the alliance’s history. Headlines since the start of the meeting in the Hague firmly suggest that member states agreed to a massive increase in defense related spending with NATO shifting guidelines levels of defense spending from 2% of GDP to 5% by 2035. On paper this would increase European NATO member spending from $476.2 billion in 2024 to well over a trillion dollars by the middle of the next decade based on alliance figures.
