Record number of Nato allies ‘expected to hit defence spending target’

Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg announced the estimated figure on Monday (Virginia Mayo/AP)

A record more than 20 Nato member nations are expected to hit the Western military alliance’s defence spending target this year, Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday, as the war in Ukraine drives worldwide concerns.

The estimated figure, announced by Mr Stoltenberg during a talk at the Wilson Centre in Washington, marks a near fourfold increase from 2021 in the ranks of the 32 Nato member nations meeting the alliance’s defence spending guideline.

Only six nations were meeting the goal that year, ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Nato member countries agreed last year to spend at least 2% of their gross domestic product on defence.

The surge in spending reflects the worries of Western allies about the war in Ukraine.

Some countries also are concerned about the possible re-election of former US president Donald Trump, who has repeatedly characterised many Nato allies as freeloading on US military spending and said on the campaign trail that he would not defend Nato members that do nott meet defence spending targets.

Mr Stoltenberg’s visit is laying the groundwork for what is expected to be a pivotal summit of Nato leaders in Washington next month. The mutual-defence alliance has grown in strength and size since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine two years ago, with both Sweden and Finland joining.

Defence spending by many European countries fell after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union seemed to neutralise what was then the prime security threat to the West.

But after Russia seized Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, Nato members unanimously agreed to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defence within a decade.

The full-scale invasion that Vladimir Putin launched in 2022 spurred European countries newly on the front line of a war in the heart of Europe to pour more resources into meeting that target.

Mr Stoltenberg is meeting US President Joe Biden later on Monday at the White House.