Nearly five months have passed since the June 2025 NATO summit in The Hague, where allied leaders unveiled what seemed like a bold new commitment – a collective defense-spending benchmark of 5% of GDP by 2035. The headline figure grabbed attention. But the devil is in the details.
The new framework divides the pledge into two parts: 3.5% of GDP for traditional, “hard” defense accounts, such as personnel, equipment, operations, research and development.
An additional 1.5% is for the broader category of defense- and security-related spending, meant to cover investments that make societies more resilient, like critical infrastructure protection, cyber defense, military mobility, civil preparedness, and support for the defense-industrial base.
Yet, as often in diplomacy, this political compromise has created conceptual ambiguity with practical consequences.
A framework without a playbook
The problem is simple: No one knows exactly what counts toward that 1.5%, and the first progress check slated in the summit declaration is set for 2029. The declaration text provided no definitions, no annex of eligible categories, no oversight mechanism, and no reporting standards.
This ambiguity allows governments to adapt spending to national needs. But without a common framework, the 1.5% risks morphing into a bookkeeping loophole, a space where countries pad their defense numbers by re-labeling existing civilian programs as “security-related.”
In an era of tight budgets, creative accounting is a temptation few finance ministries can resist.
The stakes are not merely bureaucratic. NATO’s cohesion has always depended on comparable effort and transparent burden-sharing. If resilience spending becomes a gray zone of unverifiable claims, the 5% target may dilute, rather than reinforce, allied solidarity.
NATO must apply the right lessons
Some allies questioned the need to raise defense spending to these levels and saw the deal in The Hague mainly as a way to appease U.S. President Donald Trump. They may choose to list existing infrastructure projects under the 1.5% and would rather not be told by NATO HQ what to do.
By contrast, allies along NATO’s eastern frontier interpret the 5% pledge in far more concrete terms. For them, the 3.5% benchmark for “hard defense“ represents the minimum necessary for deterrence, and the 1.5% resilience component is just as important.
But doubling down exclusively on tanks and ammunition would miss the point of modern deterrence and defense. Resilience is not an alternative to hard power, but its enabler. Frontline states themselves have experienced repeated sabotage, cyberattacks and energy infrastructure disruptions. And in an age of hybrid campaigns, protection of energy and digital infrastructure that sustains societal stability under pressure is precisely what the 1.5% window should fund.
Downplaying investment in resilience would also weaken deterrence and defense. The challenge is not whether to spend on resilience, but how to do it credibly and coherently.
Resilience is defense by other means
NATO has discussed resilience since the 2016 Warsaw Summit, which established seven “baseline requirements”: continuity of government, secure energy and communications, civil transportation, food and water security, and the ability to manage mass casualties and population movements.
These are not soft issues. Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression demonstrates that military power relies on the integrity of civilian systems and its industrial base. A brigade cannot deploy if bridges are not strong enough or ports jammed; command networks fail if cyberattacks cripple civilian grids. Investing in resilient energy systems, hardened digital infrastructure, and military logistics is not charity – it is crucial combat support.
Toward real results
To get there, NATO must turn political aspiration into measurable practice by implementing the following steps:
- A shared taxonomy defining what qualifies as resilience spending and establishing tiers or priorities by categories or localities linked to NATO regional defense plans.
- Transparent reporting standards to compare and verify national contributions.
- Outcome-based metrics to assess whether projects tangibly enhance military readiness rather than just adding new budget lines.
- Strict no-relabeling rules allowing only genuine dual-use enhancements to qualify. For example, reinforcing civilian infrastructure to carry heavy armored equipment is legitimate; claiming the entire cost of a new high-speed rail line is not.
- Major new multinational projects through the existing NATO Security Investment Programme (NSIP) to ensure unity and scrutiny on the planning and financing side.
- Integration of 1.5% spending into the NATO Defense Planning Process, where appropriate, to align projects with existing defense plans for Europe.
- Building a Joint NATO-EU coordination cell to prevent duplication and close operational gaps.
Without these guardrails, the 1.5% pillar will invite creative accounting and undercut the credibility of the entire spending pledge.
From compromise to capability
The clock is ticking, and the alliance should prepare next steps in time for discussions at the 2026 NATO Summit in Turkey. The political compromise struck in The Hague bought NATO time and consensus. The alliance must now turn the resilience component into a force multiplier that hardens collective defense.
The debate already unfolding on NATO’s eastern flank illustrates the stakes. It is less about budgets than about strategic balance: Strength means purely military mass to fight the next war, but also a resilient society that is well equipped to function through a crisis below the level of armed conflict.
Handled with urgency, commitment, discipline, and transparency – and enabled by innovation and collaboration – the new benchmark could become one of NATO’s most significant steps in decades.
Justina Budginaite-Froehly, LeAnne Noelani Howard, and Timo Koster are nonresident senior fellows with the Transatlantic Security Initiative within the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
Read the full article here
