American conservatives have long called for allies to increase their defense spending. America’s allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific should expect this discussion to continue and even intensify over the coming months.

The American military is stretched thin, dealing with a wide variety of security crises and deterrence operations from Europe to the Middle East to the Pacific. Handling all these security commitments isn’t easy or cheap, and our allies need to be active, contributing security partners if it is going to work. This American-led system is good for Americans, but it’s also good for Europeans, Japanese, Koreans, Taiwanese, Australians, and many others. Our allies also have a stake in preventing countries like China from overturning the current system, which has made all our allies and partners safer, wealthier, and freer for generations.

However, the cost needs to be shared more equitably. That means those same allies must be far more active players in international security in the future. Our European allies are more than capable of providing the bulk of conventional deterrence in Europe. Within NATO, our European allies not only have a vastly larger population than Russia, but they also constitute an economy that dwarfs that of the Russian Federation.

France, Germany, and the United Kingdom each have economies larger than Russia’s. And they’ve used that wealth to generate substantial military forces in the not-too-distant past. During the Cold War, these countries fielded large, impressive militaries that faced down the Soviets for decades and dissuaded Moscow from launching a war of aggression against a NATO member. This is something they can do again—they only need to choose to do it.

Case in point: In 1985, European NATO member defense spending averaged 3.1 percent of GDP. This number dropped to a mere 1.43 percent by 2015 and rose only to 1.7 percent by 2022.

There have been some positive trends since 2022, with Germany and France finally hitting the 2 percent minimum. However, we still have a NATO where countries like Italy, Spain, and Canada spend well below the minimum level.

Furthermore, it will be necessary for wealthy countries like Germany and France to spend well above 2 percent. Spending might need to surge as high as 3 or 3.5 percent, as Germany’s defense minister has indicated, to make up for the lackluster defense spending of the last three decades and acquire the requisite quantities of modern ships and planes that modern militaries need. General Christopher Cavoli, the Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, stated for the record in 2022 that 2 percent was no longer an adequate minimum. Recently-departed U.N. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said the same.

In the Indo-Pacific, things are even worse. China’s threat is far greater than that posed anywhere else, and there is no unified security structure like NATO. Japan and Australia are moving in the right direction, but Japan still only spends 1.6 percent of its GDP on defense.

Japanese defense planning is very good, but things are not moving quickly enough. To move faster, Japan must accelerate its defense spending increases, among other things. Likewise, Australia is heading in the right direction and hitting the 2 percent benchmark. Yet, its defense budget will likely not be enough to fulfill the goals the Australian government has laid out in its new National Defence Strategy. Here, too, more is needed—and sooner.

Taiwan should be the one government taking the current state of affairs most seriously, spending at least as much as the United States (roughly 3.4 percent) on defense in order to deter Chinese aggression. Instead, Taiwanese defense spending stands at only 2.5 percent of GDP, far lower than other frontline U.S. allies like Poland and Estonia (respectively, 4.1 and 3.4 percent), who face the more manageable challenge posed by Russia and have the whole NATO alliance to rely on. For comparison, Israel’s defense spending in 2023 was 5.3 percent of GDP.

The United States will have to rebuild its own military as well. For decades, the United States has been distracted by nation-building and counterinsurgency campaigns in the Middle East, as opposed to the more pressing challenge posed by great power competition. Our naval power, in particular, has atrophied, and the U.S. military faces severe shortages of precision-guided missiles and air and missile defenses—both key capabilities in deterring Chinese aggression.

The defense budget for Fiscal Year 2026 will need to shift resources into priority areas like procurement of ships, planes, and munitions if the U.S. military is to be capable of deterring great power conflict this decade.

Both America and her allies have a stake in deterring aggression and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific and Atlantic. To that end, Americans should continue to push for allies to maintain defense spending increases.

About the Author: 

Wilson Beaver is a defense policy advisor in the Allison Center for National Security at The Heritage Foundation. Follow him on X: @WilsonCBeaver.

Image: Creative Commons.