BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday urged the 30 member countries to commit to spending at least 2% of their gross domestic product on defense by a set date.
NATO allies agreed in 2014, to halt the spending cuts they had made after the Cold War and move toward spending 2% of GDP on their defense budgets by 2024. That pledge expires next year, and NATO is working on a new target.
NATO allies in Europe and Canada increased defense spending for the eighth consecutive year in 2022, adding around $350 billion to their budgets. According to NATO’s most recent estimates, 10 countries are close to or above the 2% guideline. Thirteen spend around 1.5% or less.
Several member countries insist that the figure was only ever a guideline, and not a hard target.
The United States spends more on its defense budget than all the other allies combined, putting 3.47% of GDP into its military coffers, according to NATO estimates for last year. Some members have suggested that NATO should move toward a 2.5% guideline. Others say that’s unrealistic.
Many countries insist that it’s the quality of the equipment and the amount of contributions that allies make to NATO operations that is most important. GDP percentages are also a slippery metric. When economies tanked during the COVID-19 pandemic, defense budgets looked bigger.
Germany’s defense minister said he was in favor of raising NATO’s military spending target, as allies gathered in Brussels on Wednesday for talks on whether defense expenditures of 2% of GDP are sufficient with a war raging in Ukraine.
At their Wales summit in 2014, NATO leaders agreed to move towards spending at least 2% of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defence within a decade.
NATO’s decision was a reaction to what it perceived as a severely deteriorated security situation in Europe months after Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula Crimea.