NATO members under pressure to reach 3 per cent defence spending
As NATO faces its most perilous moment since the end of the Cold War, several officials revealed today that the European military alliance is preparing plans to raise its defence spending goal for member countries to as much as 3 per cent of GDP.
According to the officials involved in the private talks, who spoke to Bloomberg under the condition of anonymity, NATO is preparing to assign new concrete targets for the number of new weapons that alliance members need to produce. Priorities would include boosting air defences and nuclear deterent capabilities, and the plans may require a more ambitious 3 per cent spending goal.
As for a timeline, the officials admitted that the deadline could be challenging to meet, with the plan being that governments would face these higher capability targets, including for ammunition, as soon as next year.
NATO currently asks its 32 members to spend 2 per cent of GDP on defence. The alliance’s new general secretary, Mark Rutte, admitted earlier this month that the figure is “is simply not enough” to sustain deterrence levels in the long-run.
But a 3 per cent target is a tall order, especially when many alliance members have only recently hit the 2 per cent benchmark, set by Barack Obama a decade ago. Several others - Spain, Belgium, Slovenia and Luxembourg - are yet to even hit 1.5 per cent.
The UK is currently is currently on 2.3 per cent and the government has committed to increasing that to 2.5 per cent, albeit by an unspecified date.
The discrepancies between member countries are glaring. Poland - the alliance’s top spender in relation to its size - has committed a record 186.6 billion zloty ($46 billion) on defence this year, comprising 4.7 per cent of GDP.
Estonia and the US are in joint second place on 3.4%, with America spending roughly the same level for the last decade.
Pressure is piling on countries lagging behind to play catch up, what with Putin waging a war in Europe. And, following the re-election of Donald Trump, the need for European nations to spend more has taken on a fresh sense of urgency.
Aside from repeatedly threatening to cut off all US aid to Ukraine, the President-elect has also threatened to pull out of the alliance altogether, unless European members accept a greater share of defence responsibilities.
His complaint that most other NATO countries aren’t pulling their weight is not unfounded. In fact, some might even say that Trump’s hostility towards the alliance has done it a favour in the long-term, by drawing attention to the alarming extent to which European security depends on the American taxpayer.
Washington alone is responsible for providing over two thirds of NATO’s overall budget.
Though filling the gap is no small task: in 2024, the US had GDP equal to all other alliance members combined.
Caitlin Allen
Deputy Editor
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