How can NATO allies meet their commitments?

On March 7^th German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen announced that the country will be buying MQ-4C Triton drones from the U.S. firm Northrop Grumman to be delivered by 2025. Tritons are meant to replace the cancelled Euro-Hawk drone program, which was cancelled in 2013 because it could cost as much as 600 million euros to get the system approved for use in civilian airspace.

The planned upgrades follow a promise by Berlin and other NATO members to spend 2% of their GDP on NATO by 2024. Right now only 5 NATO members (U.S., U.K., Poland, Greece, and Estonia) out of 28 meet the required 2% GDP spending target.

The problem with such guarantees is that at the 2006 Riga Summit NATO members also made a promise to meet their commitments, but later backed out.

With the ongoing Russian hostility in Eastern Europe it would be unwise for NATO members to renege on their promises this time. In 2014 Moscow annexed Crimea and fomented civil war in Ukraine, a country that is at NATO’s doorstep. At the same time Russia has been threatening Eastern Europe, even going as far as launching a cyberattack against Estonia in 2007.

That year hackers connected to Moscow launched a week-long denial-of-service attack on Estonian’s banks, media, and government institutions. As a result ATMs shutdown and access to important government and commercial websites was blocked. The attack put European allies on edge in part because such activities were later incorporated into Russian tactics prior to the invasion of Georgia in 2008.

In response to the Ukraine crisis and the possible Russian meddling in the Baltics NATO is planning to station battalions in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland starting in 2017. Such moves might reassure NATO’s Eastern allies as their national armies will be reinforced with NATO forces.

NATO calls these battalions Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) and these forces may become more effective if their members hold up their promise and increase the defense spending to equal or surpass the 2% GDP threshold.

For example, Germany currently spends 1.2% of its GDP on defense and this year it is planning to raise that number to 1.22% or 37 billion euros. An increase to the required 2% would put the German military budget at 60 billion euros and if all European NATO members spent their 2% NATO might have additional $90 billion in annual expenditures.

The extra cash generated by alliance members meeting their 2% commitments could help NATO avoid the problems it had with its 2011 Libya mission. In 2011 during NATO’s fight against the Gadhafi regime U.S. allowed Europeans to run most of the operations. European partners suffered from a lack of aircraft and munitions, ran short of cruise missiles, and exposed substantial disagreements between members.

Increasing defense spending will be necessary for NATO members to prevent a similar situation from occurring in the future, particularly if NATO is to fulfill its original purpose as an alliance aimed at containing a Russian force that has seen successes in utilizing an asymmetric warfare, which has proven more effective in Syria and Ukraine than was previously expected.

A way to make sure NATO members do not renege on their commitments could be to have America follow up on its threat to decrease its involvement in the alliance if agreements are not met. Up to 75% of the alliance’s assets belong to America, which includes equipment such as ships, tanks, and batteries. Any reduction in U.S. support could have serious effects on NATO’s ability to resupply and defend itself. The U.S. should make clear that it’s preferred policy is for a strong and capable NATO, but that overreliance on U.S. assets benefits neither U.S security nor the alliance as a whole.