Washington is tired of being NATO’s security blanket. U.S. President Donald Trump is urging the alliance’s 32 members to increase their minimum defense spending pledge from 2 percent to 5 percent of GDP, saying Europe should take greater responsibility for its own security. As of 2023, total NATO defense spending totaled $1.28 trillion.
But with Russia breathing down Europe’s neck and Washington wanting to focus more heavily on the Indo-Pacific, calls for greater defense spending are quickly becoming mainstream in Europe.
“To be honest, 2 percent is not nearly enough,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said in January. “To stay safe in the years to come, allies will need to spend considerably more.” His suggestion—a new minimum threshold of up to 3.7 percent—also came with a warning: “If you don’t do it, get your Russian-language courses or go to New Zealand.”
Who is currently meeting the 2 percent threshold?
Around 75 percent of NATO members in 2024 met or surpassed the 2 percent defense spending minimum. That leaves eight countries—Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain—that have failed to do so.
If all 32 states were to meet this target over the next five years, then the alliance would bring in an extra $156 billion.
Alternatively, member nations could boost the amount of defense spending allocated to equipment from 20 to 30 percent, according to research by Travis Sharp, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Such a boost would be commensurate with every NATO country reaching the 2 percent threshold, without the eight countries having to actually do so. Only two nations are currently not compliant with the 20 percent equipment target: Belgium and Canada.
The United States far surpasses the rest of the world in defense spending. In 2024, the U.S. Defense Department recorded a defense budget of $968 billion—more than double the total amount that NATO’s European pillar brings in and more than double the combined total of Chinese and Russian defense spending. Still, the United States’ NATO allies remain some of the biggest defense heavy hitters. Of the top 15 defense spenders in the world, six are in NATO.
Is a 5 percent minimum truly feasible?
Very few countries in the world spend 5 percent or more of their GDP on defense. In 2023, these nations included Algeria, Armenia, Israel, Lebanon, Oman, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan, and Ukraine. The CIA believes that Eritrea and North Korea also surpass the 5 percent threshold, but a lack of government transparency makes these figures difficult to confirm.
Notably, most of these countries were recently or are currently at war—and none are in NATO.
“The feasibility of military spending is directly proportional to how dire your security situation is,” said Cullen Hendrix, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “If you’re a country like Ukraine, which is fighting for its existence at this point, you may temporarily be mobilizing up to anywhere from a sixth to a fifth and even more of your economy just to invest in defense.”
Almost none of NATO’s 32 members are anywhere near Trump’s 5 percent proposal. Only Poland comes remotely close at 4.12 percent, though Polish President Andrzej Duda vowed last month to increase annual spending to 4.7 percent this year. And in January, Lithuania and Estonia became the first countries to pledge to spend more than 5 percent of their GDP on defense beginning next year until at least 2030.
“It is existential for us to have real war-fighting capabilities here,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys told the Financial Times.
Is that what the United States wants?
Trump has repeatedly criticized Washington’s fellow NATO members for failing to take on proportional burden-sharing. In 2023, U.S. defense spending made up nearly 69 percent of NATO’s total. The next highest proportion was from the United Kingdom at roughly 5.4 percent.
At the same time, though, some experts worry that Trump’s 5 percent proposal is less about global deterrence and more about U.S. economic strength. “What the Trump administration would be looking for is not necessarily an expansion of a particular capability but the procurement of that capability from U.S. arms manufacturers,” Hendrix said.
Such a strategy would align with the White House’s tariff policy, which has imposed or threatened to impose sweeping duties on virtually all of Washington’s trade partners to encourage foreign companies to move their operations to the United States. “There are no Tariffs if you manufacture or build your product in the United States,” Trump posted on Truth Social in February.
Other experts fear that Trump’s 5 percent call is intended to foment an excuse for Washington to pull out of NATO entirely. “My worry is that this 5 percent is actually setting up allies for failure,” said Krista Viksnins, an expert at the Center for European Policy Analysis’s trans-Atlantic defense and security program. “The moment that Trump says, ‘Oh, look, no one’s spending 5 percent,’ and he decides to then pull the U.S. out of NATO, that actually hurts allies more than perhaps having lower thresholds for defense spending.”
What would spending 5 percent mean for military capabilities?
To counter a Russian invasion of a European NATO member, the alliance would need to prioritize investing in mechanized infantry battalions, U.S. Patriot missile systems, and fifth-generation fighter squadrons, according to Sharp. If all countries were to meet the 5 percent threshold, then the number of these capabilities would skyrocket.
But even that may not be enough to meet what Kyiv is currently asking for—let alone to put Ukraine’s neighbors more at ease.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has suggested that having 100,000 to 150,000 European troops in Ukraine as part of a deterrence force could be a sufficient security guarantee. To meet that demand, keeping in mind troop rotations and the length of time that they may be required to stay in the region for, NATO officials estimate that a pool of at least half a million troops would be needed.
“You’re going to have to issue like two NATO armies—the NATO army of NATO and the NATO of Ukraine—which are going to probably be pretty much the same sort of size,” said Jamie Shae, a former NATO deputy assistant secretary-general for emerging security challenges.
Experts, however, say that spending differently may be more beneficial than spending more in terms of actual preparedness and safety.
“I think we need to shift the debate from burden-sharing to capability generation,” said Katherine Dahlstrand, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “I think in this moment—especially when you’re facing a potentially resurgent Russia, an active war on the continent, and the possibility of a United States that might be less active in Europe—then capabilities are really what is important here.”
What would happen if the United States left NATO?
During his first term, Trump expressed his desire to withdraw the United States from NATO, though he ultimately did not take that step. This time around, he has not publicly said that he wants to pull the United States from the alliance, and he has even said that he supports NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense clause.
However, Tesla CEO and influential presidential advisor Elon Musk has voiced support for the United States leaving NATO, as have several of Trump’s Republican allies.
Even with a 5 percent target, losing U.S. membership would trigger a massive loss in NATO’s key defense capabilities, experts say. Among these would likely include U.S. missile defense systems, such as the Arrow 3; command-and-control infrastructure; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance abilities; aerial refueling support; and strategic air lift and sea lift.
“The U.S. supplies the majority of NATO’s heavy transport aircraft and seacraft capabilities, which are really essential for deploying troops and equipment in forward areas,” Hendrix said. “So, without those assets, NATO’s ability to mobilize forces quickly, especially if that includes significant airlifts to, say, taking combat troops to remote areas, that would be severely constrained.”
Are there ways to bolster NATO’s defense without increasing spending or relying on U.S. support?
Most NATO countries are of the opinion that boosting the alliance’s defense strength is vital to ending the Russia-Ukraine war. “You need to have some sort of hard power behind you to be really sitting at the table now,” said Giedrimas Jeglinskas, the chair of the Lithuanian parliament’s National Security and Defense Committee.
But not all military advancements need to be expensive to achieve strong results.
“Ukraine has shown that through the use of relatively low-cost drones, you can massively increase your defensive capabilities [by] using largely civilian off-the-shelf technology, which is significantly less expensive,” Hendrix said.
Russia has adopted a similar model with the use of Iranian-designed Shahed attack drones. According to Ukrainian military intelligence officer Andriy Cherniak, such drones can cost as little as $10,000 each despite their long range.
Looking at the region’s future security, though, many NATO experts maintain that there is only one viable option. “I think that we really have to make sure we’re on the right path for Ukraine to join NATO,” Viksnins said. “It’s really the only long-term security guarantee.”
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