For the annual North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit, a who’s-who of the world’s leaders are expected to approve significant increases in defense spending in response to American pressure.
In response to the growing global instability and the Middle East’s ongoing conflicts, the two-day NATO meeting will begin in The Hague on Tuesday. A resolution to significantly increase defense spending across the 32 member states is at the top of the agenda. Donald Trump, president of the United States, has made some sharp criticism of his administration, claiming that the country carries too much military burden.
Trump has urged NATO allies to increase their defense spending from the current 2 percent target to 5 percent of GDP. He has threatened to leave the alliance and has questioned whether it should support nations that don’t meet the spending goals.
Prior to the summit’s scheduled start time on Tuesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters in The Hague that NATO members would approve “historic new spending targets.”
She referred to it as a “once-in-a-generation tectonic shift” and said, “The security architecture that we have relied on for decades cannot no longer be taken for granted.”
Europe has taken action recently that “seen unthinkable a year ago,” she said. The “Europe of defense has finally awakened.”
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte emphasized the US’s “total commitment” to the alliance ahead of the summit, but he also noted that it was anticipated to see a rise in defense spending.
US pressure
At a meeting in Brussels earlier this month, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued an ultimatum to NATO defense ministers, stating that the commitment to 5% spending “must be completed by the summit at The Hague.”
In response to the pressure, Rutte will request from the summit members to approve new quotas of 5 percent of GDP for their defense budgets by 2032, with the remaining 3 percent going toward “soft spending” on infrastructure and cybersecurity, and the remaining 5% going toward “soft spending.”
NATO leaders agreed to increase defense spending targets from 1.5% to 2.5% of GDP in response to Russia’s war against Ukraine in 2023. Only 22 of the 32 alliance members, however, completed the revised goals.
While some nations, like Spain, have criticized the most recent proposed hike as unfeigned, other members have already made plans to significantly increase military spending in response to a changing security environment.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz stated in a significant foreign policy statement on Tuesday that Germany would increase spending to “Europe’s strongest conventional army” rather than “favor” Washington in response to the threat posed by Russia.
He said, “We must be concerned that Russia wants to keep fighting outside of Ukraine.”
No one should dare to attack us because we must unite to be so strong.
Kremlin: NATO was “created for conflict.”
The leaders of allied nations, including Japan, New Zealand, and Ukraine, will also be present at the summit along with the leaders of all 32 of the transatlantic alliance’s members.
The Kremlin cited Kyiv’s desire to join NATO as one of the reasons it attacked Ukraine in 2022 despite not being a member of the alliance.
Moscow, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, had no intention of attacking NATO on Tuesday, but that it was a “waste effort” to assure the alliance because it was determined to demonize Russia as a “fiend of hell.”
According to Peskov, the Reuters news agency, “It is an alliance made for confrontation.”
The Warsaw Pact, an alliance of communist-occupied eastern bloc countries established in 1955 as a counterbalance to NATO, was presided over by the Soviet Union. At the conclusion of the Cold War, it disintegrated in 1991. Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, has set out to restore Moscow’s standing as a force in the face of NATO’s alleged encroachment on its borders and security.
Source: Aljazeera
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