III 

115TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION S. RES. 570 

Emphasizing the importance of meeting NATO spending commitments. 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

JULY 10, 2018 

Mr. PERDUE (for himself, Mr. LANKFORD, Mr. COTTON, Mr. INHOFE, and 

Mr. LEE) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 

Committee on Foreign Relations 

RESOLUTION 

Emphasizing the importance of meeting NATO spending 

commitments. 

Whereas, for over six decades, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been a successful intergovernmental political and military alliance; 

Whereas NATO’s collective defense serves as a deterrent 

against aggression from adversaries and external security 

threats; 

Whereas NATO strengthens the security of the United States 

by utilizing an integrated military coalition; 

Whereas Article 3 of the North Atlantic Treaty states that 

‘‘in order more effectively to achieve the objectives of this 

Treaty, the Parties, separately and jointly, by means of 

continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, will 


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maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack’’; 

Whereas, since the formation of NATO, the United States 

has negotiated with NATO allies over fair and equitable 

burden sharing; 

Whereas, in 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower invited European NATO allies to increase their contribution in defense spending, pointing out that the ‘‘American well had 

run dry’’; 

Whereas, at a 1963 National Security Council meeting, 

President John F. Kennedy stated that ‘‘we cannot continue to pay for the military protection of Europe while 

the NATO states are not paying their fair share and living off the fat of the land’’; 

Whereas President Richard Nixon’s Second Annual Report to 

the Congress on United States Foreign Policy stated, 

‘‘The emphasis is no longer on their sharing the cost of 

America’s military commitment to Europe—although financial arrangements may play a part—but on their providing the national forces needed in conjunction with ours 

in support of an effective common strategy.’’; 

Whereas the first NATO defense-spending target was issued 

in the 1977 NATO Ministerial Guidance, where NATO 

allies agreed to increase defense spending by 3 percent 

annually to address the substantially larger defense resource allocations of the Soviet Union; 

Whereas, during the 1980s, the United States drastically increased its defense spending to combat threats posed by 

the Soviet Union, causing its share of total NATO defense spending to rise dramatically, while at the same 


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time, NATO allies failed to meet the 1977 spending target; 

Whereas the National Defense Authorization Act, 1985 (Public Law 98–525) included a sense of Congress that the 

President should ‘‘call on the pertinent members of the 

North Atlantic Treaty Organization to meet or exceed 

their pledges for an annual increase in defense spending’’; 

Whereas, in the 1988 NATO Summit Declaration, NATO allies reaffirmed their ‘‘willingness to share fairly the risks, 

burdens and responsibilities as well as the benefits of our 

common efforts’’; 

Whereas, in 1990, as the Soviet Union was trending towards 

collapse, NATO defense ministers agreed to drop the 3- 

percent annual increase policy, as allies looked to ‘‘reap 

the benefits of the greatly improved climate in East-West 

relations’’; 

Whereas, while defense spending among all NATO allies decreased throughout the 1990s, conflicts in Bosnia, and 

later in Kosovo, clearly illustrated that European NATO 

allies severely lacked key military capabilities, causing 

British Prime Minister Tony Blair to state, ‘‘If Europe 

wants the United States to maintain its commitment to 

Europe, Europe must share more of the burden of defending the West’s security interests.’’; 

Whereas, at the 2002 NATO Prague Summit, NATO allies 

entered into a nonbinding agreement to raise defense 

spending to 2 percent of their gross domestic product 

(GDP) in order to meet the goals set out in the Prague 

Capabilities Commitment; 


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Whereas, before the 2006 NATO Riga Summit, United 

States Ambassador to NATO Victoria Nuland called the 

2-percent metric the ‘‘unofficial floor’’ on defense spending in NATO; 

Whereas, at the 2006 NATO Riga Summit, NATO allies declared that ‘‘we encourage nations whose defense spending is declining to halt that decline and to aim to increase defense spending in real terms’’; 

Whereas, at the 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit, NATO allies reaffirmed their defense-spending goal; 

Whereas, in 2011, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said, 

‘‘The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite 

and patience in the U.S. Congress—and in the American 

body politic writ large—to expend increasingly precious 

funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling 

to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary 

changes to be serious and capable partners in their own 

defense.’’; 

Whereas, in 2014 at the NATO Wales Summit, NATO members officially declared to increase their defense spending 

to 2 percent of their gross domestic product by 2024; 

Whereas the Wales Summit Declaration stated that ‘‘[a]llies 

currently meeting the NATO guideline to spend a minimum of 2% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on 

defense will aim to continue to do so’’ and continued, 

‘‘Allies whose current proportion of GDP spent on defense is below this level will: halt any decline in defense 

expenditure; aim to increase defense expenditure in real 

terms as GDP grows; aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade with a view to meeting their NATO 


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Capability Targets and filling NATO’s capability shortfalls.’’; 

Whereas, for the first time since 1990, there have been three 

consecutive years of increases in NATO defense spending; 

Whereas, since the end of 2014, defense expenditures by 

NATO Europe and Canada have risen by 

$28,000,000,000, representing a 10-percent increase; 

Whereas, in 2014, only three NATO allies met the 2-percent 

spending target, while NATO expects eight allies to meet 

the target in 2018, and 15 allies to reach the target by 

2024; 

Whereas, while the 2-percent defense-spending target is an 

important measure of allies’ commitment to NATO, it is 

imperative that defense expenditures are both interoperable with, and strengthen, NATO’s critical military capabilities; 

Whereas Russia fundamentally challenges the peaceful world 

order that NATO has sought to foster and aspires to extend as it continues its illegal occupation of territory in 

Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia; and 

Whereas strengthening NATO’s capabilities is critical to the 

future of the alliance to deter an increasingly aggressive 

Russia to NATO’s east, the threat posed by ISIS, and 

instability to NATO’s south, as well as emerging security 

challenges, including terrorism and cybersecurity: Now, 

therefore, be it 

1 Resolved, That the Senate— 

2 (1) reaffirms the commitment of the United 

3 States to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization 


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1 (NATO) as the foundation of transatlantic security 

2 and defense; 

3 (2) encourages all member countries of the 

4 North Atlantic Treaty Organization to fulfill their 

5 commitments to levels and composition of defense 

6 expenditures as agreed upon at the NATO 2014 

7 Wales Summit; 

8 (3) calls on NATO allies to finance, equip, and 

9 train their armed forces to achieve interoperability 

10 and fulfill their national and regional security inter11 ests; and 

12 (4) recognizes NATO allies who meet their de13 fense spending commitments or are otherwise pro14 viding adequately for their national and regional se15 curity interests. 

Æ 


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