NATO Says All Countries to Hit Spending Goal

The 32-nation military alliance agreed at a June summit in the Hague to massively hike defense spending over the next decade under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump.

The mercurial U.S. leader rammed through a commitment from allies to cough up 5 percent of their GDPs on security-related spending in a move seen as key to keeping him engaged with NATO.

That headline figure breaks down as 3.5 percent on core defense spending and 1.5 percent on a looser range of areas such as infrastructure and cyber security.

The new target replaces the alliance's former military spending goal of 2 percent that was first set back in 2014.

NATO said in a statement that all allies were now expected to reach that goal in 2025 and that overall defense spending across the alliance would top $1.5 trillion for the year.

That comes after a group of stragglers, including Spain, Belgium and Italy, hastily announced plans to reach 2 percent ahead of the Hague gathering.

The struggle to reach that figure highlights how difficult it will be for NATO countries in Europe to achieve Trump's far higher new target set this year.

But officials insist European countries must make good on their pledge if they are to have the capabilities needed to ward off Russia.

Numerous Western militaries and intelligence services have warned that Moscow could be ready to attack a NATO country within three to five years if the war in Ukraine ends.

Washington, which has underpinned European security since World War II, meanwhile, insists it wants to shift more of the responsibility for the continent's defenses onto European countries.