NATO Chief Eyes Bigger Defense Budgets, Hard Spending Target

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on February 15 urged the alliance's 30 member countries to commit to spending at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense by a set date, as Russia’s war on Ukraine and other threats eat into military spending. NATO allies agreed in 2014, after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, to halt the spending cuts they had made after the Cold War and move toward spending 2 percent of GDP on their defense budgets by 2024. That pledge expires next year, and NATO is working on a new target. To read the original story by AP, click here.