All 32 NATO allies committed in June 2025 to invest 5 percent of GDP annually in defense by 2035 — at least 3.5 percent on core defense requirements and up to 1.5 percent on defense- and security-related spending — per the Hague Summit Declaration dated June 25, 2025. That superseded the 2014 Wales pledge to move toward 2 percent.
What did the Wales Summit pledge in 2014 actually require?
The 2 percent figure entered alliance policy at the Wales Summit in September 2014, and the official declaration was careful about what it demanded. Allies already at 2 percent were asked to stay there; allies below it were asked to halt declines, grow spending in real terms, and, in the declaration's words, "aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade with a view to meeting their NATO Capability Targets and filling NATO's capability shortfalls," per the Wales Summit Declaration dated September 5, 2014. A companion commitment asked allies spending more than 20 percent of defense budgets on major equipment, including research and development, to continue doing so.
The starting line was low. The Congressional Research Service reported that in 2013, total defense spending by NATO's European allies ran at about 1.6 percent of GDP, and just four allies — Estonia, Greece, the United Kingdom, and the United States — met the 2 percent goal, per CRS report R43698 on the Wales outcomes. CRS also noted that the Wales pledges "were widely viewed as falling well short of the shorter-term, binding commitments thought to be sought by NATO officials and the U.S. Administration." That gap between aspiration and obligation is the recurring engine of burden-sharing debates in Washington.
What changed at The Hague in June 2025?
The Hague Summit Declaration raised both the headline number and the precision of the target. Allies committed, in the declaration's text, to "invest 5% of GDP annually on core defence requirements as well as defence-and security-related spending by 2035," and agreed that the commitment comprises two categories: at least 3.5 percent of GDP annually for core defense requirements under the agreed NATO definition of defense expenditure, and up to 1.5 percent for infrastructure protection, network defense, civil preparedness, and resilience, per the declaration. The declaration also set a checkpoint: the trajectory and balance of spending will be reviewed in 2029.
The split matters for how the pledge will be judged. Core defense spending is measured against the alliance's long-standing definition of NATO defense expenditure, while the 1.5 percent category covers investments — such as infrastructure and cyber resilience — that sit outside that definition. Allies also agreed to submit annual plans showing credible, incremental movement toward the targets. In practice, that converts a one-time summit promise into a recurring reporting obligation, which is precisely the mechanism burden-sharing advocates in Congress have sought since Wales.
How do the two pledges compare on paper?
The two declarations differ in target, structure, deadline, and follow-up, as the comparison below shows from the texts themselves.
| Feature | Wales 2014 | Hague 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Headline target | Move toward 2% of GDP on defense | Invest 5% of GDP annually on defense |
| Structure | Single spending guideline | At least 3.5% core defense; up to 1.5% defense- and security-related |
| Time horizon | Within a decade (by 2024) | By 2035 |
| Follow-up mechanism | Annual national plans agreed at later summits | Review of trajectory and balance in 2029; annual allied plans |
| Starting point | European allies at about 1.6% of GDP in 2013, per CRS | Baseline set against the agreed NATO definition of defense expenditure |
What is the 20 percent equipment pledge that came with it?
The Wales language had two prongs, not one, and the second is often missed. Alongside the 2 percent guideline, the declaration stated that "Allies spending more than 20% of their defence budgets on major equipment, including related Research & Development, will continue to do so," per the Wales Summit Declaration. The equipment test exists because total spending can satisfy a headline number while buying little new capability — personnel and operating costs can absorb entire budgets.
That dual structure carried into the Hague framework in a different form. The 2025 declaration's split between a 3.5 percent core measured "based on the agreed definition of NATO defence expenditure" and a 1.5 percent category for infrastructure, networks, and resilience asks a version of the same question: which spending genuinely builds military capability, and which is supporting investment. Allies agreed to submit annual plans showing credible, incremental movement toward the targets, converting the equipment-and-total pairing of Wales into a plans-and-review pairing for the 5 percent era.
How is allied defence spending measured?
Against the alliance's agreed definition of NATO defence expenditure, a common accounting standard that lets 32 national budgets be compared on one scale. The Hague declaration anchors its core 3.5 percent target to that definition explicitly, which matters because national accounting choices — what counts as defense spending, how pensions or dual-use infrastructure are booked — can move a country's ratio without changing its armed forces.
The measurement disputes are a documented feature of every burden-sharing debate. CRS, reviewing the Wales-era pledges, recorded the baseline dispute plainly: European allies collectively spent about 1.6 percent of GDP in 2013 by NATO's own count, yet the pledge itself was non-binding, and analysts of the day judged it weaker than what NATO officials and the U.S. administration had sought. The same scrutiny now attaches to the Hague targets, with the 2029 review as the fixed checkpoint at which trajectories — not just totals — will be compared.
What is at stake at the 2029 review?
The checkpoint is written into the declaration itself: "The trajectory and balance of spending under this plan will be reviewed in 2029, in light of the strategic environment and updated Capability Targets." Two judgments get made at once there. The trajectory question asks whether national spending paths, documented in the annual plans allies agreed to submit, are arcing toward the 2035 endpoint. The balance question asks whether the split between the 3.5 percent core and the 1.5 percent related category is holding — or drifting into categories that pad the headline number.
For Washington, the review is the first scheduled moment at which the pledge can be formally recalibrated rather than merely criticized. Allies whose plans fall short face peer pressure in the review, not sanctions; the declaration contains no penalty mechanism, as its 2014 predecessor did not. The difference from Wales is evidentiary: the Hague framework's annual plans and the alliance's agreed measurement definition give the 2029 review a documented record to work from, which the 2014 pledge — assessed against CRS's finding that it fell short of binding commitments — never had.
Why does Congress keep auditing these pledges?
Because the money is the point. The Wales pledge was a political commitment, not a treaty obligation, and CRS recorded at the time that it fell short of the binding commitments some in the U.S. administration had wanted. Every subsequent American debate — over troop levels in Europe, over procurement offsets, over the balance of conventional capability — has leaned on NATO's own published spending estimates to argue either that allies are finally carrying the load or that the gap persists.
The Hague framework gives both camps new material. A 3.5 percent core target with a 2029 review and annual allied plans produces a documented trajectory that can be checked year by year against the alliance's own definition of defense expenditure. What the declarations do not produce is an enforcement mechanism: no ally faces a penalty for missing the target, and the 1.5 percent category allows differing national accounting choices. The department has not said how it will weigh the second category in its own burden-sharing assessments.
