From Dependency to Deterrence: Why Supply Chains Matter to NATO and the UK

Daniel Frampton | 7th July 2026 | Defence, Editor's Pick
Photo by Serdar Ozsoy/Getty Images
Photo by Serdar Ozsoy/Getty Images

With the NATO summit in Ankara today, our defence expert Dr Daniel Frampton argues that supply chains have become a strategic asset for the NATO Alliance.

Modern wars are not sustained by battlefield brilliance or Schlieffen-like sweeps across broad landscapes alone. They depend on the uninterrupted flow of components, raw materials and industrial capacity that make military production possible in the first place. Supply chains have therefore become strategic in their own right. What once appeared to be a technical question of procurement is now central to deterrence, alliance management and national security planning.

This is particularly visible in the defence sector, where supposedly inexpensive and disposable technologies such as drones rely on highly complex global networks for motors, batteries, semiconductors and rare earth elements. The same is true, on a larger scale, for advanced platforms such as fighter aircraft, naval vessels and missile systems. As recent analysis has argued, “the component is the battlefield”: control over these inputs and production networks may shape—and even decide—wars in the twenty-first century and beyond.

“Meanwhile, the NATO Summit today may prove pivotal for the future of the Alliance”

Meanwhile, the NATO Summit today may prove pivotal for the future of the Alliance, as questions over the United States’ role in European defence surface alongside other pressing issues. Greenland, Ukraine and Iran all remain flashpoints, while President Trump continues to question NATO’s relevance even as …

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