NATO allies, Led by UK, pledge to raise defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035 amid global threats

NATO allies have adopted a new pledge to raise combined defence and security-related spending to 5% of GDP by 2035, with the UK cast as a leading proponent of the deal at the 2025 NATO summit in The Hague. Under what NATO calls The Hague Investment Plan, at least 3.5% of GDP is to be devoted to core military spending (armed forces, equipment, operations, maintenance), while up to 1.5% of GDP can go to wider security items such as cyber defence, critical infrastructure protection, resilience and defence‑industrial investment. Allies must file annual national plans showing a credible, incremental path to the 2035 target, and a collective review of progress is scheduled for 2029. The move marks a significant escalation from NATO’s previous guideline of 2% of GDP for defence, a level only some members consistently met in recent years. According to NATO and independent trackers, all allies now exceed 2% following Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine, but most still remain well below the new 5% benchmark. The UK government has framed the agreement as a “historic” step that will both reinforce NATO deterrence and underpin domestic plans to lift British core defence spending towards around 3.5–4% of GDP over the next decade, with broader security outlays bringing its total contribution towards the 5% threshold. Strategically, the pledge signals that NATO members are preparing for a more prolonged period of high‑end confrontation and systemic rivalry, requiring sustained investment not only in traditional armed forces but also in cyber, infrastructure resilience and industrial capacity.

✨ AI-generated background, compiled from web sources — not editorial content.

More coverage

• Defence expenditures and NATO's 5% commitment (nato.int)
• Agreement on 5% NATO defence spending by 2035 - Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
• Finance and economics annual statistical bulletin: international ... (gov.uk)
• UK defence spending: composition, commitments and challenges - IFS (ifs.org.uk)
• NATO defense spending tracker - Atlantic Council (atlanticcouncil.org)

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