INDUSTRY REPORT
NATO’ s Rapid Adoption Action Plan substantially accelerates the adoption and integration of new technological products for defence, across all military domains. Allies commit to expedite adoption procedures, including fast-track procurement, and to allocate adequate resources to that end. Allies will embrace more acquisition risk in the early stages of development and are set to improve communication of Alliance-wide demand signals. The plan provides for new testing and experimentation opportunities in operationally realistic, real-world environments by launching the NATO Innovation Ranges and scaling the NATO Task Force X Model.
U. S. defence budget
Image: Sgt. Devin Klecan, U. S. Army.
U. S. Army 1st Armored Division.
U. S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, provided testimony on 10 June 2025 regarding President Donald J. Trump’ s proposed US $ 1 trillion defence budget for fiscal year 2026 at a hearing before the House Appropriations Subcommittee.
“ This budget provides a historic level of funding for military readiness, putting our warfighters and their needs first,” Hegseth told the committee, while also stating that the proposed request would end a period of underinvestment in the U. S. military.
In terms of how money in the proposed budget would be spent, Hegseth said the majority of allocations would contribute directly to rebuilding the military, which is one of his primary goals for the U. S. Defence Department.
“ We’ re reviving the defence industrial base, reforming our acquisitions process [ while ] rapidly fielding emerging technologies to put the best weapons in the hands of our warfighters,” Hegseth said.
Specific funding proposals include US $ 25 billion for the planned Golden Dome for America missile defence shield; US $ 62- billion to modernise and sustain the military’ s nuclear forces; US $ 3.5 billion for the U. S. Air Force’ s F-47 sixth-generation fighter jet platform and US $ 47- billion towards shipbuilding.
In addition to financially contributing to the military’ s rebuild, both Hegseth and Caine said the proposed budget would support quality of life improvements for service members and their families.
On 18 June 2025, the U. S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced a Resilient Software Systems Accelerator programme to kick-start the widespread adoption of maths-based software development practices to make military systems inherently
Additive manufacturing( which creates three-dimensional objects by depositing materials layer by layer from a digital model) for military products.
NATO’ s Rapid Adoption Action Plan substantially accelerates the adoption and integration of new technological products for defence, across all military domains
Image: EDA. more secure against cyberthreats. The programme will provide seed funding to formal methods tool developers who partner with defence companies to apply formal methods tools and measure their level of effort to implement them.
As part of advancing formal methods within the U. S. DoD, DARPA is also partnering with each of the military services on a capstone demonstration of formal methods application. The U. S. Air Force is starting the capstone demonstration by retrofitting software on the MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft.
A sustainable approach
Lighter, stronger and more energy-efficient materials are being developed and incorporated into defence systems to enhance performance and reduce weight. New materials and manufacturing processes carry wide disruptive and emerging technological implications for defence forces.
The European Defence Agency’ s( EDA) Incubation Forum for Circular Economy in European Defence( IF CEED) held its 4th Annual General Conference from 20-22 May 2025 in Rome, placing a strong focus on the practical implementation and future direction of circular economy policies in the defence sector.
The conference heard that, in April 2025, three new IF CEED“ Starter Projects” were launched, targeting critical areas for sustainable transformation: military textiles, the secure supply and reuse of critical raw materials, and the integration of environmental management systems into defence operations. These initiatives are closely aligned with the White Paper for European Defence Readiness 2030, which advocates technological and policy solutions to enhance military capability while reducing environmental impact.
Throughout the event, policy leaders underscored the dual strategic value of circularity. This both bolsters environmental responsibility and reinforces operational resilience and readiness. Initiatives that reduce dependency on raw materials, improve equipment longevity and ensure cost-efficiency were highlighted as central to long-term defence planning.
“ Europe is currently facing global scenarios marked by strategic instability, technological competition, supply chain volatility and climaterelated emergencies. In this context, the circular economy— often seen as a marginal or purely environmental issue— must be understood as having a central role to our collective security. It is an operational tool, an industrial approach and a long-term political vision”, said Major General Paolo Sandri of the Italian Ministry of Defence. n
22 | ismr. net | ISMR July / August 2025