Top Predictions For 2026: Defense Developments

Contractors will pick up the cadence of technology portfolio additions with targeted acquisitions to adapt to changing market expectations.

Laser weapons will gain wider adoption as companies promote technology for everything from counterdrone to countermissile to counterspace applications.

Concerns about the threat from Russia and antagonism from the Trump administration will drive growth in European defense spending, which will top that of the U.S.

The Royal Thai Air Force launched the Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT+) program with an order for one aircraft. The coming year should see a more meaningful boost to program backlog.

After staging a behind-the-scenes stand in 2025 to defend the Boeing E-7 program from threatened cancellation, a new Air Force leadership will decide in 2026 to surrender the once-promising airborne early warning and control program, choosing instead to fight other battles with Pentagon bureaucracy.

Boeing’s T-7 trainer program has largely focused on delivering the first aircraft to the U.S. Air Force. Now the company will start gaining traction in efforts to expand the aircraft’s customer base and is set to emerge as the front-runner for the Navy’s Undergraduate Jet Training System program.

More air forces will commit to fielding electronic attack aircraft after seeing in Ukraine the importance of being able to jam radars and control the electromagnetic battlespace more broadly to deliver weapon effects.

As military establishments realize that the high ground in battle is now outside the atmosphere, more air forces will embrace the shift by becoming air and space forces.