U.S. and Allied Burden Sharing: A Progress Report

This episode of All About the Base, a video series analyzing critical industrial base topics, examines how U.S. allies and partners are responding to more contested regional security environments and what that means for burden-sharing, defense industrial capacity, and the future of allied collaboration. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the rise of strategic competition in the Asia-Pacific, allied governments across Europe and the Asia-Pacific have significantly increased investments in defense capabilities and launched new initiatives to strengthen domestic industrial capacity. At the same time, the Trump administration has pressed allies to spend more and take greater responsibility for their own security, a principle now codified as “burden-sharing” in the 2026 National Defense Strategy.  

What explains the sharp rise in European defense spending—up more than 50 percent since 2022, and far higher among allies closest to Russia? How are initiatives like AUKUS and the Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience shaping industrial cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, even as progress there remains more aspirational than realized? And as the Pentagon stands up a new assistant secretary of defense for international armaments cooperation, what strategic opportunities exist for the United States to deepen coproduction, licensed manufacturing, and technology-sharing with its allies?  

Host Dr. Jerry McGinn, Director of the Center for the Industrial Base, explores these questions by building upon a recent CSIS report and presenting data across key trends in allied defense spending, procurement, and industrial collaboration across NATO and the Asia-Pacific. Through 10 charts, he explains why burden-sharing has become less about defense spending alone and more about collective industrial capacity, identifies where allied industrial collaboration is advancing versus merely aspirational, and considers how the United States can seize this moment to build a more resilient system of collective deterrence and defense. 

The All About the Base series is made possible by general funding to CSIS.