NATO's 5% Pledge Enters Its Hard Phase as Allies Race to Rearm by 2035

Setting a target is easy. Hitting it is not. A year after NATO leaders gathered at The Hague and committed to the largest defense-spending increase in the alliance’s history, 2026 has become the year of the hard part: turning a headline number into actual budgets, factories and forces across 32 member states.

What was agreed

At the 2025 NATO summit, allies signed the Hague Summit Declaration committing to invest 5% of GDP annually on defense and security-related spending by 2035. It is a remarkable leap. The previous benchmark, set at the 2014 Wales summit, was 2% — a figure many members struggled for years to reach.

The new target is not a single bucket. It splits into at least 3.5% of GDP on core defense, the spending needed to meet NATO’s capability targets, plus up to 1.5% on a broader category of security-related investment. Allies agreed to submit annual plans showing a credible, incremental path toward the goal.

From 2% to 5%

The jump from 2% to 5% is steep enough that its acceptance was itself a political event. The Atlantic Council described the Hague gathering as a “low-drama” summit that nonetheless delivered the ambitious target — and a clear win for President Trump, who had long pressed European allies to spend more on their own defense.

That framing matters. The pledge is as much about the transatlantic bargain — and European anxiety about the durability of the U.S. security guarantee — as it is about any single threat.

The 1.5%: flexibility or loophole?

The most debated piece is the 1.5% security-related category. It covers critical-infrastructure protection, network defense, civil preparedness and resilience, innovation, and the defense industrial base. Supporters say it reflects a modern understanding of security, where cyberattacks and infrastructure sabotage matter as much as tanks. Skeptics worry it is a soft category that lets governments hit the 5% headline without buying much hard military capability.

How members fill that 1.5% will reveal how serious the commitment really is.

Who can actually pay

The deeper challenge is fiscal. A 5% target lands very differently on a frontline state near Russia than on a member with stretched public finances and competing domestic demands. Beyond budgets, there are defense-industrial bottlenecks: even where the money exists, the capacity to produce ammunition, air defenses and armored vehicles at scale does not yet match the ambition.

The geopolitical driver

Behind it all is Russia. The war in Ukraine, the threat of further aggression, and uncertainty about long-term U.S. commitment are the forces that made a number as large as 5% politically possible. The pledge ties directly to NATO’s capability targets — the specific forces and equipment the alliance says it needs.

What to watch

The test is no longer the target but the delivery. The first annual plans will show whether spending is actually tracking toward the goal or merely promised toward it. Future summits will measure progress. And the 1.5% category will be scrutinized for whether it funds genuine resilience or simply pads the percentage. The Hague produced the ambition. The next decade will reveal whether the alliance can pay for it.

Sources

1. NATO — The Hague Summit Declaration (June 25, 2025)
2. NATO — Defence expenditure and the 5% commitment
3. Atlantic Council — Experts react: NATO’s 5% defense-spending target