The creation of a Defence, Resilience and Security (DRS) Bank could exploit the bond markets to secure triple A credit loans to help finance increases in defence spending. The DSR Bank would be a new multilateral lending institution that would pool the creditworthiness of participating nations to raise funds in global financial markets for spending on security, defence and resilience requirements.
The Bank should start operations in Europe, then enlarge to North American Allies and subsequently to Asian democracies. It would become bigger as new democratic allies come on board and could ultimately generate trillions of dollars/euros for new defence investment, obtaining the lowest rated loans available for all participating governments.
The DSR Bank would operate within a not-for-profit framework and a multinational board. It would promote greater coordination in defence investment and interoperability by design. By unlocking large-scale capital for defence production the Bank would help get defence inflation under control and keep new procurement affordable. The DSR Bank could be the kind of innovation that Europe needs in order to rearm.
Robert Grant, Julian Lindley-French and Bryan Wells
April 2025
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