Where NATO Defense Expenditure Stands

The goal of 2 percent of GDP in military spending that NATO has set for itself in 2014 was not reached in many European members for years but made major gains recently, especially in 2024. Countries upped spending as fear of new wars persisted and doubts about the U.S. continuing its global projection of military power under re-elected President Donald Trump rose. As of June last year, 23 out of 31 NATO members with armed forces were projected to reach the goal that year, up from just 10 out of 30 a year earlier. Sweden and Finland are two new members which joined the military alliance in 2023 and 2024 and upped their military spending above 2 percent of GDP on the occassion.

While the definition as agreed upon during NATO's Wales summit 10 years ago is vague, the 2-percent target has nevertheless been considered a hallmark of NATO's success as well as a point of contention within the organization and in public discourse. The data also shows that the U.S. continues to be the largest spender in the organization, allocating more to the military than all other members combined (the equivalent of 3.4 percent of GDP), while non-U.S. military spending grew more over the past 10 years, now reaching more than 2 percent on average.

According to data released as of June 17, the remaining laggards for the goal were Southern European members like Spain, Italy, Portugal and Croatia as well as Belgium, Canada, Slovenia and Luxembourg.

Former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said that the organization is currently undergoing “the biggest overhaul of collective defense and deterrence since the Cold War” after the organization has emerged as the chief supporter of Ukraine in its defense effort against a Russian invasion. But even before war on the European continent became a reality again in 2022, tensions had been running high about the state of NATO's military infrastructure as most European nations had adopted a lackluster approach to defense spending in peace times. U.S. President Trump in 2018 had already brought the issue to the forefront as he criticized a number of NATO member states, especially Germany, for not making enough enough effort to meet the 2-percent-of-GDP spending threshold.