A record more than 20 NATO member nations are expected to hit the Western military alliance’s defense spending target this year, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday, as the war in Ukraine drives worldwide concerns.
The estimated figure, announced by Stoltenberg during a talk at the Wilson Center in Washington, marks a nearly fourfold increase from 2021 in the ranks of the 32 NATO member nations meeting the alliance's defense spending guideline. Only six nations were meeting the goal that year, ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
