[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 570 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
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115th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. RES. 570
Emphasizing the importance of meeting NATO spending commitments.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
July 10, 2018
Mr. Perdue (for himself, Mr. Lankford, Mr. Cotton, Mr. Inhofe, and Mr.
Lee) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the
Committee on Foreign Relations
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Emphasizing the importance of meeting NATO spending commitments.
Whereas, for over six decades, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has
been a successful intergovernmental political and military alliance;
Whereas NATO's collective defense serves as a deterrent against aggression from
adversaries and external security threats;
Whereas NATO strengthens the security of the United States by utilizing an
integrated military coalition;
Whereas Article 3 of the North Atlantic Treaty states that ``in order more
effectively to achieve the objectives of this Treaty, the Parties,
separately and jointly, by means of continuous and effective self-help
and mutual aid, will maintain and develop their individual and
collective capacity to resist armed attack'';
Whereas, since the formation of NATO, the United States has negotiated with NATO
allies over fair and equitable burden sharing;
Whereas, in 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower invited European NATO allies to
increase their contribution in defense spending, pointing out that the
``American well had run dry'';
Whereas, at a 1963 National Security Council meeting, President John F. Kennedy
stated that ``we cannot continue to pay for the military protection of
Europe while the NATO states are not paying their fair share and living
off the fat of the land'';
Whereas President Richard Nixon's Second Annual Report to the Congress on United
States Foreign Policy stated, ``The emphasis is no longer on their
sharing the cost of America's military commitment to Europe--although
financial arrangements may play a part--but on their providing the
national forces needed in conjunction with ours in support of an
effective common strategy.'';
Whereas the first NATO defense-spending target was issued in the 1977 NATO
Ministerial Guidance, where NATO allies agreed to increase defense
spending by 3 percent annually to address the substantially larger
defense resource allocations of the Soviet Union;
Whereas, during the 1980s, the United States drastically increased its defense
spending to combat threats posed by the Soviet Union, causing its share
of total NATO defense spending to rise dramatically, while at the same
time, NATO allies failed to meet the 1977 spending target;
Whereas the National Defense Authorization Act, 1985 (Public Law 98-525)
included a sense of Congress that the President should ``call on the
pertinent members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to meet or
exceed their pledges for an annual increase in defense spending'';
Whereas, in the 1988 NATO Summit Declaration, NATO allies reaffirmed their
``willingness to share fairly the risks, burdens and responsibilities as
well as the benefits of our common efforts'';
Whereas, in 1990, as the Soviet Union was trending towards collapse, NATO
defense ministers agreed to drop the 3-percent annual increase policy,
as allies looked to ``reap the benefits of the greatly improved climate
in East-West relations'';
Whereas, while defense spending among all NATO allies decreased throughout the
1990s, conflicts in Bosnia, and later in Kosovo, clearly illustrated
that European NATO allies severely lacked key military capabilities,
causing British Prime Minister Tony Blair to state, ``If Europe wants
the United States to maintain its commitment to Europe, Europe must
share more of the burden of defending the West's security interests.'';
Whereas, at the 2002 NATO Prague Summit, NATO allies entered into a nonbinding
agreement to raise defense spending to 2 percent of their gross domestic
product (GDP) in order to meet the goals set out in the Prague
Capabilities Commitment;
Whereas, before the 2006 NATO Riga Summit, United States Ambassador to NATO
Victoria Nuland called the 2-percent metric the ``unofficial floor'' on
defense spending in NATO;
Whereas, at the 2006 NATO Riga Summit, NATO allies declared that ``we encourage
nations whose defense spending is declining to halt that decline and to
aim to increase defense spending in real terms'';
Whereas, at the 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit, NATO allies reaffirmed their
defense-spending goal;
Whereas, in 2011, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said, ``The blunt reality is
that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S.
Congress--and in the American body politic writ large--to expend
increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently
unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary
changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.'';
Whereas, in 2014 at the NATO Wales Summit, NATO members officially declared to
increase their defense spending to 2 percent of their gross domestic
product by 2024;
Whereas the Wales Summit Declaration stated that ``[a]llies currently meeting
the NATO guideline to spend a minimum of 2% of their Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) on defense will aim to continue to do so'' and continued,
``Allies whose current proportion of GDP spent on defense is below this
level will: halt any decline in defense expenditure; aim to increase
defense expenditure in real terms as GDP grows; aim to move towards the
2% guideline within a decade with a view to meeting their NATO
Capability Targets and filling NATO's capability shortfalls.'';
Whereas, for the first time since 1990, there have been three consecutive years
of increases in NATO defense spending;
Whereas, since the end of 2014, defense expenditures by NATO Europe and Canada
have risen by $28,000,000,000, representing a 10-percent increase;
Whereas, in 2014, only three NATO allies met the 2-percent spending target,
while NATO expects eight allies to meet the target in 2018, and 15
allies to reach the target by 2024;
Whereas, while the 2-percent defense-spending target is an important measure of
allies' commitment to NATO, it is imperative that defense expenditures
are both interoperable with, and strengthen, NATO's critical military
capabilities;
Whereas Russia fundamentally challenges the peaceful world order that NATO has
sought to foster and aspires to extend as it continues its illegal
occupation of territory in Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia; and
Whereas strengthening NATO's capabilities is critical to the future of the
alliance to deter an increasingly aggressive Russia to NATO's east, the
threat posed by ISIS, and instability to NATO's south, as well as
emerging security challenges, including terrorism and cybersecurity:
Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) reaffirms the commitment of the United States to the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as the foundation of
transatlantic security and defense;
(2) encourages all member countries of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization to fulfill their commitments to levels and
composition of defense expenditures as agreed upon at the NATO
2014 Wales Summit;
(3) calls on NATO allies to finance, equip, and train their
armed forces to achieve interoperability and fulfill their
national and regional security interests; and
(4) recognizes NATO allies who meet their defense spending
commitments or are otherwise providing adequately for their
national and regional security interests.
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