NATO Misses Pivotal Military Target

NATO may be stronger and more focused than it has been since the Cold War, but 2024 will see it miss "the mother of all targets" as it struggles with the return of major war to Europe.

Almost 10 years ago, in the shadow of Russia's annexation of Crimea and the fomentation of armed rebellion in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, NATO leaders met in Wales and set their sights on a new target. By 2024, they said, members would work towards spending 2 percent of GDP on their militaries.

Russia was back. NATO, emaciated by the "end of history" and a plethora of low-intensity counter-insurgency wars, wasn't ready.

Most members of the 31-nation alliance will this year fail to hit the "Defense Investment Pledge" 2 percent goal, even after Russian President Vladimir Putin crowned a decade of agitation with his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Among those still falling short are major powers like Germany, France, Turkey, Italy, and Spain. NATO, leaders have warned, remains unprepared for a direct war with Russia that appears increasingly likely.

"NATO better understands its mission and purpose than it has, I think, in a long time," Michael Allen, who served as special assistant to President George W. Bush and the senior director at the National Security Council, told Newsweek. "However, that makes the second part of this even more confusing."

"If they're not going to do it now, when are they going to do it?" he asked.

Such frustration has long reverberated around the halls of Congress and the White House, regardless of who sat in the Oval Office. Russia's war has again demonstrated Europe's reliance on American military and financial might, a reliance the Wales targets were intended to ease.

"Two percent is really the mother of all targets, simply because it strikes at the heart of the alliance as a transatlantic contract wherein the U.S. assures the security of Europe and the Europeans are expected to do their part," Fabrice Pothier—a former director of policy planning for NATO who worked on the Wales pledge—told Newsweek.

"Two percent is basically about convincing the United States."

NATO's Report Card

As of the last alliance summit in July 2023, 11 of NATO's 31 nations had surpassed the 2 percent target: Poland (3.9 percent), the U.S. (3.49 percent), Greece (3.01 percent), Estonia (2.73 percent), Lithuania (2.54 percent), Finland (2.45 percent), Romania (2.44 percent), Hungary (2.43 percent), Latvia (2.27 percent), the United Kingdom (2.07 percent), and Slovakia (2.03 percent).

The performance of those along the eastern frontier is notable. Norway (1.67 percent) is the only NATO state bordering Russia yet to hit the 2 percent target. The country's Defense Ministry did not reply to Newsweek's request for comment.

In the east, NATO states are even calling for the alliance to go further. Last year, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas committed Tallinn to a new 3 percent of GDP expenditure goal, telling Newsweek in May: "We are in a new security reality, and everybody has to do their share."

But those who are lagging say they may need a decade or more. Bringing up the rear are relatively small nations, including Belgium (1.26 percent), Slovenia (1.35 percent), and Portugal (1.48 percent).

Belgian Defense Minister Ludivine Dedonder said in a statement to Newsweek that the country is on course to hit 2 percent by 2035. Debonder said this represents a "progressive and, above all, realistic trajectory given the decreasing trend of the last 30 years."

Luxembourg (0.72 percent) is the alliance's lowest spender, though due to its size, it is the only NATO nation given an exception on the 2 percent target. The country's new goal is to spend 2 percent of gross national income (GNI).

It has "committed to reaching 1 percent of GDP by 2028 and 2 percent of GNI medium term," a Defense Ministry spokesperson told Newsweek, stressing the need to take the Russian threat "very seriously and invest in our common deterrence and defense."

More concerning for the alliance is the performance of major powers like Spain (1.26 percent), Turkey (1.31 percent), Italy (1.46 percent), Germany (1.57 percent) and France (1.9 percent).

Sluggish spending is not just a European problem. A Canadian Defense Ministry spokesperson told Newsweek that the country's 2023 military expenditure was 1.38 percent of GDP. According to an 2023 report by The Washington Post, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau even suggested privately that Canada may never hit the threshold.

"Some matter much more than others," Pothier said. "Obviously, it's great to have Baltic countries meeting and even going beyond 2 percent. But in the end, mass matters, especially in the high-intensity warfare that is now part of the mainstream scenarios that NATO defense planners have to take into account."

"You do need those with substantial enough GDPs so that the spending can really buy mass and make a difference in terms of our stockpiles and in terms of our strategic depth."

"That's why Germany—which was always the 'swing state' of European defense spending—is even more important now because of its defense industrial weight," Pothier added.

"And all the other members of what I used to call 'the middle class'—those who are not small, but they're not top tier, like Spain, Italy, and even the Netherlands—actually do matter in swinging European defense spending in the right direction."

A spokesperson for the German Defense Ministry told Newsweek that Berlin is on track.

"The minister, as well as the Chancellor, announced that in 2024, Germany will achieve the Defense Investment Pledge," the official said.

A Dutch Defense Ministry spokesperson likewise noted the allied decision at the 2023 Vilnius Summit that the 2 percent goal "is a floor, not a ceiling." But the country, they told Newsweek, is projected to reach 1.93 percent of GP by 2025, with subsequent progress depending on the policies of the incoming government.

A Pivotal Year

The collective picture may be somewhat rosier come the release of the alliance's annual data at the July summit in Washington, D.C. A Montenegrin Defense Ministry spokesperson told Newsweek the country is now spending 2.01 percent of its GDP on defense, while a North Macedonian defense official said they will reach 2.05 percent this year.

Denmark (spending 1.65 percent of GDP in July) "has allocated defense funds amounting to 2 percent of GDP on a permanent basis from 2023 and onward," a Defense Ministry official told Newsweek.

Sweden—still waiting on parliamentary ratification from Turkey and Hungary to become the alliance's thirty-second state—will "reach and surpass the 2 percent goal with the budget of 2024," a Defense Ministry official told Newsweek. The projected figure for this year is 2.2 percent.

Defense Minister Pål Jonson, they said, "is of the opinion that Sweden will have to stay not only on but above the 2 percent level for the foreseeable future." Stockholm, the official added, expects to join NATO "soon."

If the pledges made to Newsweek are fulfilled—and if Sweden finally becomes the thirty-second alliance member—half of NATO's members will reach 2 percent by the end of this year.

Overall, Pothier said, the results "are mixed" as the alliance approaches its Wales deadline.

"The trend is going up, and not down. But I think there is a big question mark about what's next," he said.

Charles Kupchan of the Council on Foreign Relations concurred that the "overall picture" is encouraging. He told Newsweek: "Not only have you seen more countries move to reach the 2 percent target, but other changes have occurred concurrently, including the substantial beefing up of the eastern flank."

"Finland has joined, and Finland has a quite capable military. I'm guessing that Sweden will be a member of the alliance relatively near future, too," Kupchan, who served on the National Security Council of Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, said.

But even a 2 percent target now appears insufficient, given Russia's war on Ukraine. NATO nations have mobilized to help Kyiv but are proving unable to keep up with the demands of a full-scale modern war. Addressing the shortfall, officials have warned, could take years.

The 2 percent figure was first raised at the NATO summit in Riga in 2006, "which arguably was one of the most peaceful periods in European history," James Rogers, the co-founder and director of research at the U.K.'s Council on Geostrategy, told Newsweek. "That was considered, at the time, to be the bare minimum that you need under peacetime conditions."

"Whether 2 percent is actually enough in radically different conditions is the big question. And I think countries in Eastern Europe, particularly the Poles, are going to make this case increasingly robustly."

"If countries like Poland and the Baltic states can afford it—and they have GDPs and GDPs per capita significantly lower than countries like Germany, France, or even Italy and Spain—then there's really no reason why very wealthy countries in central and western Europe can't."

"Europeans, particularly western Europeans, need to get their act together and start taking this more seriously than they currently are," Rogers said.

Testing America's Patience

The failure to meet the 2 percent goal speaks to a deeper problem within Europe. Some leaders—primarily French President Emmanuel Macron—are pushing for more collective defense policy and self-reliance. But Ukraine's fight for survival has laid bare both the political and logistical limitations still hampering European defense consolidation.

"On the defense budget side, things are moving forward," Kupchan said. "On the collectivization of defense policy and the rationalization of defense spending, Europe has made less progress."

Thankfully for Europe, Russia launched its military gambit while one of the most pro-European American presidents in recent history sat behind the Resolute desk. But Putin's war might outlast President Joe Biden's term, and his successor—whether in 2025 or beyond—might not be so patient with U.S. allies.

"What they're risking is more isolationist tendencies in the United States, more resentment, that the United States carries most or all of the weight—or at least does all the heavy lifting—with the Europeans just along for the ride," Allen said.

"When you really start to look, and you can see that they have stepped up on Ukraine, but have they stepped up enough? I think if you start talking to House Republican Congressmen, they're immensely frustrated."

"If the Europeans truly want the United States to continue to be a major player in NATO and, of course, European security, they have to step up in some tangible way that U.S. politicians can point can see and point to, and say to the American people: 'We're not the only people footing the bill across the world.'"

Update 1/22/24, 10:05 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from the Canadian Defense Ministry.