NATO requires its members to spend two percent of GDP on defense. A new report shows that only a third of countries achieve this minimum figure.
Of the 31 allies, only 11 had defense spending of at least two percent of their gross domestic product last year, according to a report presented Thursday by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The other states were significantly lower in some cases.
Poland is the leader
According to the latest NATO calculations, Germany has achieved a quota of 1.66 percent in 2023. At the bottom of the ranking are countries such as Spain (1.24 percent), Belgium (1.21 percent) and Luxembourg (1.01 percent). The NATO goal was achieved by the US, Poland, Great Britain, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary and Slovakia, as well as the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia.
Stoltenberg’s explanation for assessment:
The quota leader was Poland, with defense spending reaching 3.92 percent of GDP. The country is still ahead of the US, which reached 3.24 percent in 2023, according to the most recent calculations.
Trump the boogeyman
The figures are particularly explosive because of the scenario in which Donald Trump returns to the White House after the US presidential elections in November. During his term from 2017 to 2021, the Republican had repeatedly complained about what he saw as under-defense spending by European allies and at times even threatened that the US would leave the alliance.
Trump recently made clear during a campaign appearance that he would not provide U.S. support to allies with low defense spending in the event of a Russian attack.
Oslo wants to reach this milestone this year
Norway wants to achieve the two percent target set by NATO this year. A revised budget for the Scandinavian country, due to be presented in the spring, proposes a significant reinforcement of the Norwegian armed forces, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre announced on Thursday. This is intended to achieve NATO’s target of spending two percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defense.
A new defense plan will be presented in April. “We will probably have to live with a more dangerous and unpredictable Russia for a long time,” Støre said at the press conference. The security situation around Norway in Europe is serious, “perhaps the most serious we have had in many decades.”
Source: Krone
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