The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded in 1949 and has grown to 32 nations.
Not surprisingly, the United States of America is the largest contributor to the organization, supplying 16% of the overall NATO budget and has the largest expenditure on national defense, totaling $980 billion, which is 62% of the overall defense spending of all member nations.
Realizing that many nations were freeloading and not contributing their fair share, in 2014, the leadership of NATO mandated that members spend at least 2% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defense spending. Unfortunately, in 2024, then NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg admitted that nine member nations had still not met their 2% goal.
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