What’s the Holdup? Strengthening resilience across NATO

A new study by PwC and the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) analyzes five structural obstacles to building a resilient alliance – and uses examples from ten countries to show how these obstacles can be overcome.

Since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, NATO allies have made unprecedented efforts to strengthen their resilience. The 2025 The Hague Summit established the political and financial framework with the 1.5 percent target as part of the new 5 percent commitment. Military readiness, civil preparedness, industrial capacity, and societal mobilization are no longer separate agendas – they are functional building blocks of credible deterrence and defense.

Yet despite years of political commitments, implementation remains inconsistent. The problem, according to our central thesis, is not a lack of ideas – but a delivery gap. This is precisely where our joint study, “What’s the Holdup? Strengthening Resilience across NATO,” developed by our Defense & Security Institute in collaboration with the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi), comes in.

Even though national contexts differ, European NATO allies repeatedly encounter the same roadblocks. We identify five structural challenges that are hindering progress:

• Governance Fragmentation – Fragmented Responsibilities and Lengthy Decision-Making Processes
• The Preparedness Paradox – High Costs and Low Immediate Political Returns: Preparedness Rarely Wins Elections
• The Targeting Problem – Lack of Strategic Frameworks for Prioritizing Resilience Investments
• Operational Coordination – Implementation That Gets Stuck in Silos Between Civilian, Military, and Private-Sector Actors
• The Societal Readiness Challenge – Insufficient Involvement of the Public, Civil Society, and Businesses

The study views NATO’s diversity as a strategic asset: No country has to tackle every challenge on its own. In ten analytical spotlights, we show how individual allies have developed pragmatic and innovative solutions—and what others can learn from them.