Global military expenditure reached USD 2,887 billion in 2025 — an increase of 2.9% in real terms over 2024 and the 11th consecutive year of increases, according to SIPRI’s April 27, 2026 publication on world military expenditure trends. Europe was the main driver, with spending rising 14% to USD 864 billion. According to NATO Secretary General Rutte’s annual report on March 26, 2026, European allies and Canada collectively invested USD 574 billion in defence in 2025 — a 20% real increase from 2024 — while the United States contributed USD 838 billion, bringing total NATO allied defence spend to over USD 1.4 trillion. For the first time, all 32 NATO member states met or exceeded the 2% GDP target. The NATO Hague Summit in June 2025 committed members to a new 5% of GDP target by 2035.
Germany was the largest military spender among European NATO members, with expenditure growing 24% year-on-year to USD 114 billion — exceeding 2% of GDP for the first time since 1990. Spain’s military spending jumped 50% to USD 40.2 billion. The supply base that has historically served civil aerospace is being actively recruited to qualify for defence programs, and that qualification carries quality management requirements that go significantly beyond EN 9100.
1. The Common Foundation and Where It Ends
AQAP 2110 — NATO Allied Quality Assurance Publication 2110, Edition 4 — is the NATO standardization agreement governing quality assurance requirements for design, development, and production in the defence context. Like EN 9100 / AS9100, it is built on ISO 9001. Like EN 9100, it requires documented quality management systems, risk-based thinking, configuration management, and supplier oversight. An organization certified to EN 9100 has a significant head start on AQAP 2110 compliance. But the gap is not in the quality system requirements themselves — it is in the oversight model, the documentation depth, and the consequence structure that applies when findings are identified.
2. Three Structural Differences That Matter
Government Quality Assurance
AQAP 2110 includes provisions for Government Quality Assurance — direct oversight by a national defence quality authority. In the United States: DCMA (Defense Contract Management Agency), which conducts approximately 1.8 million oversight actions per year across the U.S. defence industrial base. In Germany: BAAINBw (Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support). In the United Kingdom: DSTL. In France: DGA.
GQA is not a customer audit. It is regulatory oversight with independent authority and independent consequence. A GQA representative can issue findings that affect contract status, payment authorization, and — in extreme cases — suspension of approval to supply. They operate under their own authority derived from the contract and from NATO STANAG requirements. For organizations that have only experienced commercial customer audits, GQA oversight is a qualitatively different engagement. The records need to be complete, retrievable, and self-explanatory without a quality manager present to provide context — because the GQA representative may arrive without advance notice.
Configuration Management Documentation Depth
Defence programs operate on longer product lifecycles than most civil aerospace programs — 30-50 years is not uncommon for major platform programs. The Eurofighter Typhoon entered service in 2003 and is expected to operate into the 2040s. The configuration management requirements reflect this: the expectation is that the delivered product is traceable to its design baseline with full documentation of every authorized change, and that this traceability can be demonstrated years or decades after delivery.
For suppliers transitioning from civil to defence qualification, the configuration management gap is frequently underestimated. A civil aerospace configuration management system adequate for a 20-year product lifecycle — with OEM support periods that define record retention requirements — may be structurally inadequate for a 40-year defence lifecycle requirement. The differences are not in the principle but in the depth, the retention period, and the format requirements for configuration status accounting records.
Key Characteristics and Critical Safety Items
The identification, control, and traceability of Key Characteristics and Critical Safety Items in AQAP 2110 programs is more explicit and more auditable than the equivalent requirements in EN 9100. KCs must be identified in design documentation, flowed down to production planning, verified through First Article Inspection, controlled through SPC or equivalent process controls in production, and traceable through the product record to the specific serial number of every delivered item.
A GQA auditor reviewing KC controls will ask to see the specific measurement data for each KC on each delivered item — not a summary of process capability, but the individual measurement values that demonstrate the specific parts delivered conform to KC requirements. This requires a product record structure that links KCs to individual serial numbers with specific measurement data. Most EN 9100 quality systems generate process capability summaries. Defence programs require individual part traceability. Bridging that gap requires a deliberate change to the production record structure, not just an update to the quality plan.
3. Export Control Integration
Defence programs involve Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) in the U.S. context, and equivalent export control frameworks in European member states — BAFA oversight in Germany, DGA export authorization in France, ECJU in the UK. Suppliers qualifying for defence programs need to understand which of their products and technical data are controlled, implement access controls for controlled technical data, and comply with end-use verification requirements when exporting controlled items or technical data.
Quality Magazine’s January 2026 analysis of the IA9100/IATF 16949/CMMC convergence noted explicitly: „Begin updating supplier quality agreements to anticipate cyber and export-control clauses.“ For suppliers pursuing dual civil/defence qualification, export control compliance is a current qualification requirement — not future planning. The integration of export control processes into the QMS is a requirement that GQA auditors will assess against documented procedures, training records, and access control evidence.
3 Concrete Actions
1. Before pursuing AQAP 2110 qualification, conduct a gap analysis specifically against the three areas described above: GQA preparation and record management practices, configuration management depth and retention period against a 30-50 year lifecycle requirement, and KC/CSI traceability to individual delivered serial numbers with specific measurement data. These gaps are not visible in a standard EN 9100 gap analysis because the EN 9100 requirements, while related, do not require the same depth. Use AQAP 2110 Edition 4 as your reference, not your existing EN 9100 gap analysis.
2. Engage your national defence quality authority early in the qualification process. In Germany, BAAINBw provides supplier engagement mechanisms for organizations entering the defence supply base. In the U.S., DCMA has pre-award survey processes. The Atlantic Council’s April 2026 NATO Defence Spending Tracker confirmed that all NATO members are now increasing defence procurement — meaning national defence quality authorities are under growing demand. Engaging early gives you access to guidance and expectations that reading the standard alone cannot provide.
3. Review your export control compliance programme against the requirements for defence suppliers specifically. If your current EAR/ITAR or national equivalent compliance is limited to a classification list maintained by your legal department with no QMS integration, you have a gap that will be identified in the first GQA audit of your document control processes. The standard requirement: documented procedures for controlled technical data access management, training records demonstrating personnel awareness, and access control evidence for controlled information systems. Export control compliance for defence suppliers is a QMS requirement — not only a legal one.
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Sources
- SIPRI — Trends in World Military Expenditure 2025 (April 27, 2026), sipri.org
- SIPRI — Global Military Spending Rise Continues as European and Asian Expenditures Surge (April 27, 2026), sipri.org
- NATO — Secretary General Rutte Annual Report (March 26, 2026): All 32 Members Exceed 2% GDP, nato.int
- Atlantic Council — NATO Defence Spending Tracker (last updated April 9, 2026), atlanticcouncil.org
- CNBC — Europe’s Rearmament Push Drives Global Military Spending (April 27, 2026), cnbc.com
- The Global Statistics — NATO Budget by Country Statistics 2026 (April 13, 2026), theglobalstatistics.com
- Quality Magazine — ISO 9001 in 2026: How AS9100 (IA9100), IATF 16949, NIST and CMMC Fit Together (January 8, 2026), qualitymag.com
- AQAP 2110 — NATO Allied Quality Assurance Publication 2110, Edition 4
- NATO STANAG 4107 — Mutual Acceptance of Government Quality Assurance
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