Spending this year by NATO countries combined on major defense equipment is expected to expected to increase 25 percent versus an estimated 8.5 percent rise in 2022, according to an Alliance report released last Friday showing defense expenditures by country between 2014 and 2023.
The report also estimates that NATO defense spending in the aggregate will increase 8.3 percent in 2023 versus 2 percent in 2022 and 2.8 percent and 4.6 percent, respectively, in the previous two years.
In 2006, NATO defense ministers pledged to spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense. The Alliance estimates that of the 30 members, including new entrant Finland, only 11 will meet or exceed the target this year.
Poland tops the list at 3.9 percent of GDP, followed by the U.S. at 3.5 percent, with Greece, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, Romania, Hungary, Latvia, the United Kingdom, and the Slovak Republic also hitting the target. France is expected to spend 1.9 percent of its GDP on defense in 2023 and Germany nearly 1.6 percent.
Overall, in 2023 NATO is expected to spend $1.1 trillion on defense, up from and estimated $1.052 trillion in 2022, $1.036 trillion in 2021, and $1.018 trillion in 2020, the first year the Alliance topped the trillion-dollar mark. The U.S. to no surprise makes up the bulk of NATO defense spending, with the estimate for 2023 coming in at $743 billion.
Defense spending by the Alliance has been increasing since Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and of late has been fueled by Russia’s unprovoked war against Ukraine that begin in February 2022. In 2014, NATO members also agreed to spend more than 20 percent of their defense budgets on major equipment, including research and development.
Every NATO member is expected to hit the 20 percent target this year, the report says. Leading the way as a percentage of their respective defense budgets is Poland at more than 52 percent, followed by Finland at just over 50 percent and Luxembourg at more than 48 percent. The U.S. is expected to spend 29.3 percent of its 2023 defense budget on major equipment and R&D.