Allies must urgently rethink defence

FE Team | Published: March 26, 2026 22:09:20

PARIS, Mar 26 (AFP): NATO countries urgently need to rethink how they ensure their defence, but many have yet to fully grasp the scale of the challenge, particularly when it comes to boosting weapons production, a top NATO officer said on Wednesday.
Since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has put its economy on a war footing and boosted its weapons production.
"Russia has changed," Pierre Vandier, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, told a security and defence forum in Paris.
"We need to be prepared for a new enemy-if we don't, we will experience what the Gulf experienced," he said, referring to Iran's retaliatory attacks on the Gulf nations after the United States and Israel attacked the Islamic republic on February 28.
Vandier said that NATO should adapt to produce more weapons and faster, urging allies to make "the right choices." "It's not a question of money. It's a question of speed," he said in English.
He stressed the need for NATO to respond to challenges such as Russia and Iran mass-producing drones, whose capacities were rapidly evolving.
"It's a moment of truth for all of us," Vandier said. "The question for us is not to do more of the same, it is to see what we need to do to maintain our security."