Over the past month, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump stirred controversy by saying that a second Trump administration might not protect allies that are falling short in their contributions to the NATO alliance. He recounted a conversation with an unidentified NATO member in which he said, “You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent? No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.”
Over the past month, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump stirred controversy by saying that a second Trump administration might not protect allies that are falling short in their contributions to the NATO alliance. He recounted a conversation with an unidentified NATO member in which he said, “You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent? No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.”
Trump’s statement predictably drew widespread condemnation and caused many panicked Europeans to contemplate a world without U.S. protection.
The more constructive response to Trump’s comments, however, would be for NATO members to acknowledge that Trump has a point. For too long, many allies have failed to live up to their commitments, and they will need to step up and do much more if the free world is going to deter China, Russia, and other rivals and achieve peace and stability in Europe and Asia.
Trump’s criticisms are not entirely new. U.S. leaders have been protesting inadequate European contributions to NATO for many years. In 2011, then-President Barack Obama’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, gave a major speech in Brussels, warning of “NATO’s serious capability gaps … the military—and political—necessity of fixing these shortcomings if the transatlantic security alliance is going to be viable going forward; and more broadly, the growing difficulty for the U.S. to sustain current support for NATO if the American taxpayer continues to carry most of the burden in the alliance.”
Unfortunately, Gates’s warnings went largely unheeded. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, NATO members unanimously agreed to spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense within a decade. Following Russia’s further invasion of Ukraine in 2022, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that 2 percent is increasingly a “floor, not a ceiling.” Yet by the end of 2023, only 11 of 31 NATO members had met the 2 percent threshold. In 2024, that number is expected to rise to 18, but that still means that more than one-third of the alliance’s members are shirking their responsibilities.
This is not an abstract discussion. Defense spending translates into concrete capabilities needed for transatlantic defense. In 2023, NATO agreed to new “regional plans” under which all members were given specific capability targets, but inadequate spending is resulting in capability shortfalls. In other words, NATO’s supreme allied commander does not have what he needs to properly defend Europe.
Many were outraged by Trump’s comments, but it is outrageous for countries to neglect their obligations in NATO and still demand the full benefits of membership. If one stopped paying monthly gym fees, one would expect access to be cut off; European defense should be treated with at least as much seriousness as Zumba.
If, God forbid, Russian President Vladimir Putin attacked NATO’s European members, why should American soldiers be expected to die to save European countries that shirked their responsibilities, weakened the alliance, and thereby tempted Russian aggression? NATO’s Article 5 security guarantee is important, but so too is Article 3, in which members promise to “maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.”
The flip side of Trump’s statement is that NATO members that pay their bills will be protected. Instead of condemning Trump, therefore, the more constructive path forward would be for all NATO members to simply step up and meet their defense commitments.
Savvy European officials are already following this script. At the Munich Security Conference, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and British Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy were among those who publicly validated American concerns and affirmed that Europe must do much more. Pistorius, for example, said that 2 percent will “only be the start of it” and that Germany “might even hit 3.5 percent. It depends on what is happening in the world.” Lammy said he “understands” Washington’s calls “for more equitable burden sharing” and would welcome “tough conversations” on this topic with “seriousness and respect.” In private conversations at Munich, several senior European officials confided that Trump is right.
Indeed, NATO allies are getting a bargain. The United States spends 3.5 percent of its GDP on defense and thereby accounts for more than two-thirds of all NATO defense spending. It is estimated that to meet the capability targets called for in the new regional plans, allied defense spending will need to increase to up to 3 percent. During the Cold War, the United States and its allies frequently spent more than 3 percent, and we recommend that NATO looks to set a new, higher floor of 3 percent at a future summit.
This is not just a matter of fairness but about meeting requirements for an effective global deterrence and defense strategy. The United States and its allies are entering a new Cold War more dangerous than the first. There is an ongoing war in Europe that could spill over into a direct NATO-Russia conflict. Iran is waging a shadow war against U.S. and allied interests in the Middle East that could escalate. Meanwhile, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has threatened to use force if necessary to take Taiwan. A major conflict with China in Asia would likely spread to engulf the Korean Peninsula and draw North Korea into the fighting. The United States and its allies in the free world, therefore, need the ability to deter and, if necessary, defeat China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea in overlapping time frames.
The United States remains the world’s preeminent military power, but it cannot do it all on its own. Washington already lacks the defense industrial base, and possibly the political will, to simultaneously provide weapons to its allies in Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific.
The formula for an effective free-world deterrence and defense strategy, as one of us has argued in these pages, is threefold. First, the United States needs to increase defense spending and revitalize its defense industrial base. Second, like during the first Cold War, the United States needs to increase reliance on nuclear deterrence. And third, allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific are going to have to step up big time.
Trump’s statements are scaring the free world straight. European countries now have at least three reasons to meet their defense spending commitments. First, it is the right thing to do. Second, they can tell a future President Trump that they are not freeloaders; they are doing their fair share and are worthy of protection. Third, in the highly unlikely event that the United States actually turns its back on NATO, they are better positioned to defend themselves.
Indeed, the largest recent increases in European defense spending occurred during Trump’s first term, and, given the energy generated by Trump’s recent statements, we would likely see another burst of European defense spending in a second Trump administration.
To be sure, the suggestion that the United States might “encourage” Russia to attack delinquent NATO members risks undermining deterrence, but Trump’s campaign advisors have said that this was an off-the-cuff remark that should not be taken as a literal statement of policy.
Salena Zito, a journalist at the Washington Examiner, famously wrote that we should take Trump “seriously, not literally.”
There is nothing more serious than deterring World War III. It is time to stop complaining about indelicate political rhetoric, and time to step up and defend the free world.
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