There were 20 more NATO countries expected to meet the alliance’s defense spending benchmark this year compared to a decade ago.
In 2014, only the United States, Greece, and the United Kingdom met the goal of spending 2% of each country’s GDP on defense. Earlier this week, NATO released data for 2024, which showed that 23 of the 31 members are expected to hit that 2% mark.
Daniel Kochis, a foreign policy analyst who focuses on NATO, attributes the increased spending to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the threat Russia could pose to the alliance if it succeeds in Ukraine.
“I think [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s decision [to invade Ukraine] was really the galvanizing force to crystallize minds in Europe to put in place the plans, and to do it quickly, to reach the 2% threshold,” Kochis, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told the Washington Examiner. “I don’t know that we would have gotten there with the same speed and with the same number of countries absent that threat perception from Russia.”
Poland spends the highest share of its GDP on defense among the alliance, at 4.12%. Estonia is second at 3.43%, and the U.S. is third at 3.38%, followed by Latvia at 3.15%, Greece at 3.08%, Lithuania at 2.85%, and Finland at 2.41%. Of those countries, only the U.S. and Greece do not share a border with Russia.
The NATO allies that share a border with Russia are “realizing that 2% is probably not going to be enough to do the sort of things in terms of capability rebuild that they need to in order to deter the Russians,” Kochis added.
Sweden and Finland joined NATO last year after watching Russia invade Ukraine.
“Putin’s war is not the result of NATO enlargement. Putin’s war is a cause of NATO enlargement, and NATO is more resolute and more capable than ever,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said last week.
The allies that didn’t reach the 2% marker are expected to be Croatia, Portugal, Italy, Canada, Belgium, Luxembourg, Slovenia, and Spain. Iceland is a NATO ally but does not have a military.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg declined to say when he believed every member of the alliance would hit the 2% threshold when talking to reporters at the Wilson Center this week, though he said he was “very encouraged by what we’ve seen.”
Austin, who met with NATO ministers of defense last week, added emphasis to the fact that the alliance is committed “to spend at least 2% of GDP on defense,” and he stressed, “Let me underscore the words ‘at least 2%.'”
The 2% benchmark was first agreed upon by the alliance in 2006 and then was agreed to in the 2014 Defense Investment Pledge.
U.K. Defense Secretary Grant Shapps announced in April that the alliance should increase the benchmark to 2.5%, which he said would make a “real difference.”
There’s a second significant guideline, which is that at least 20% should be spent on equipment, weapons, and other capabilities.
Dalibor Rohac, a senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, told the Washington Examiner that militaries can “act as big, bloated bureaucracies” and that militaries can spend “a lot of money on salaries, pensions, benefits, and veteran care.”
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All but two countries hit this marker: Canada and Belgium, which also fell short of the 2% benchmark.
Canada is “the biggest laggard within the alliance,” Kochis explained. “Canada should be living up to its obligations, and it isn’t.”