Values-based defensive alliances are valuable. They support mutual security, creating political space and incentive for profitable economic and cultural exchanges. Most important of all, such alliances help to deter potential and, where necessary, defeat adversaries in armed conflict.
NATO is the most successful defensive military alliance in history. It greatly benefits Americans. But alliances require more than shared values and interests. To retain the credibility of democratic populations and governments, alliances require fair burden sharing. NATO continues to fall short here.
This concern bears note as the leaders of NATO’s 32 member states gather in Washington this week. We’re likely to hear a lot from the Biden administration and the media about how NATO members are finally bearing their fair share of the alliance’s burdens. And yes, former President Donald Trump’s exhortations and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have encouraged some allies to reach the alliance’s 2%-of-gross domestic product defense spending target.
Unfortunately, the data tell a less auspicious tale. Today, more than half of all NATO members are spending either less than or just barely more than the alliance’s 2%-of-GDP target.
All members pledged to move to this target in 2014. That was 10 years ago. That this is the situation more than two years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underpins NATO’s challenge with freeloading. This situation also both figuratively and literally jeopardizes the top agenda item for this week’s summit: “deterrence and defense.”
Don’t take my word for it; take NATO’s latest figures. They are clear.
Nine NATO members will spend less than 2% of GDP on defense in 2024. This ignominious list includes Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and Croatia. Another 10 NATO members will spend between 2% and 2.15% of their GDP on defense in 2024. Those expenditures reflect an impulse to do the bare minimum to evade political pressure rather than a more righteous interest in bolstering NATO’s deterrence-capability potential. Germany offers another good example of this problematic dynamic.
While Germany has finally reached the 2% target (2024 spending of 2.12% of GDP), the just-agreed 2025 budget only provides for a 2.3% increase in defense spending. Germany’s defense minister had called for an 11% boost. Canada and Belgium also deserve special recognition. They are also the only two members that fail to allocate 20% of their defense budgets to equipment expenditures. At a fundamental level, these choices do not reflect either the growing U.S. military diversion to counter China or Russia’s threat to Europe.
Military capability is ultimately delivered by investments in the means of waging war. But today, the United States continues to provide the outsize portion of NATO’s deep strike, air combat, air defense, and strategic airlift capabilities. And while Russia’s recent escalation narrative is more tentative than the Kremlin presents, President Vladimir Putin’s long-term threat to NATO is ideologically vested and militarily significant. Ukraine isn’t joining NATO anytime soon, but if NATO is to withstand otherwise misjudged criticism, its supporters must speak out far more forcefully against those allies that treat it as a joke. Those unfunny comedians are real and all too often excused for their failings. Consider a few examples.
Canada will spend just 1.37% of GDP on defense this year. Yet, for some reason, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government received praise from U.S. Ambassador David Cohen for a slight budget increase in April. Cohen said this constituted “real progress.” What kind of message does that send to Trudeau? It sends the message that the U.S. is happy to keep subsidizing Canada’s defense (as with NORAD).
Or how about Spain? Madrid was allowed to host the 2022 NATO leaders summit but went from 1.24%-of-GDP defense spending in 2023 to only 1.28% of GDP in 2024. Then there’s Belgium, which will spend just 1.30% of GDP in 2024 but continues to have the honor of hosting NATO headquarters. But as with Canada’s example, it’s understandable that Belgium won’t significantly increase defense spending when it receives free praise. Praise such as Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s assertion that “Belgium is a close NATO ally and a strong partner in security and defense.”
Fortunately, there are positives in the alliance. Especially when it comes to NATO’s eastern flank. The United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland, Greece, and the Baltic States all credibly exceed the 2%-of-GDP target. And Poland is a NATO star. It leads the alliance, spending 4.12% of GDP on defense. (Estonia, in second, spends 3.43% of GDP, and the U.S. spends 3.38% of GDP.) Again, however, the alliance cannot maintain its credibility if such a mismatch in allied commitments sustains. That brings us back to the need for NATO leaders and supporters to call out the freeloaders.
Poland offers a key example here. Prime Minister Donald Tusk has rightly called out Spain regarding this spending mismatch. That Poland has a GDP half the size of Spain but can somehow spend 320% more as a percentage of GDP on defense is damning for Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. But it cannot just be Poland that is taking on the weight of this pro-NATO, anti-freeloader rhetoric.
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Freeloading allies need to realize that the longer they keep playing this game, the more risk there is that a future U.S. president will reorientate the alliance to a 2%-of-GDP defense spending only club. (Trump has said he would “100%” order the defense of an ally that meets the 2% target.) While that would pose absolutely no problem for NATO’s eastern flank, it would be a big concern for Canada and other nations in Western Europe.
Top line: The alliance matters today as much as ever. But it is not nearly as healthy as some pretend.
