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The NATO Summit
This week the member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) met at The Hague, Netherlands, for its annual summit with an agenda headlined by the following interrelated issues.
NATO is a “cooperative security” agreement between 32 countries. The heart of NATO is expressed in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which founded the alliance on April 4, 1949. In it the signatory members agree that “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” This week NATO members reaffirmed their “ironclad commitment” to Article 5, which has been invoked only once—after the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.
Defense spending hikePreviously, member countries were required to contribute at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) to defense spending. But this week the organization’s leaders agreed to increase that figure to a minimum of 5 percent of their GDP by 2035 “to ensure our individual and collective obligations.” The hike had been a sticking point to the leaders of some NATO members, particularly U.S. Pres. Donald Trump, who advocated for it, and smaller countries such as Spain, which opposed it.
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