US NATO allies increase defence spending but still short of target

US allies in Europe and Canada have increased defense spending for a sixth consecutive year but most of them will still fail to achieve a NATO spending ambition by the target date of 2024, according to new figures being discussed by defense ministers on Thursday.

NATO countries slashed their military budgets in the 1990s after the Cold War, but they were spurred back into action when Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014. That year, the allies pledged to halt the cuts and move toward spending 2 per cent of their gross domestic product on defense by 2024.

According to the new data, France and Norway are forecast to join eight other countries spending at least 2% of their GDP on defense this year. Those others are Britain, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and the United States which has a bigger budget than all 29 of its allies combined.

But the other 20 allies will not make the cut, according to the projections. Their spending ranges from just below 2 per cent in Bulgaria, Croatia, North Macedonia, Slovakia and Turkey to less than 1 per cent in Luxembourg. Canada and Italy are forecast to spend just under 1.5 per cent this year.

The figures were being discussed Thursday by NATO defense ministers at a two-day videoconference.