NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance needs to prepare for a prolonged war in Ukraine by ramping up its defense spending beyond the 2% GDP pledge made nearly a decade ago.
including Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, have reached their spending agreements, along with the U.S., U.K., Poland and Greece.
But Stoltenberg said he would like to see more nations hit this goal this year and noted this week that this will be a major focus of the alliance in the upcoming July summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. "While I welcome all the progress that has been made, it’s obvious we need to do more. And we need to do it faster," Stoltenberg told reporters Tuesday from Brussels.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg speaks at a press conference at NATO Headquarters in Brussels on March 21, 2023.Stoltenberg said the 2% spending budget is the minimum that member nations should be spending on defense, not the limit. "At our summit in Vilnius in July, I expect allies to agree to a more ambitious, new defense investment pledge – with 2% of GDP as a minimum to be invested in our defense," he said."In this new and more contested world, we cannot take our security for granted.
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