Benchmark
Putin Has Eastern Europe Hearing Trump's Call to Arms
The region is notching NATO’s biggest spending gains
This article is for subscribers only.
Proximity to Russia is bolstering defense expenditure across eastern Europe, right at a time when Donald Trump is signaling U.S. military backing could depend on those nations paying their way inside NATO.
Romania, Lithuania and Latvia – mindful of shared land and maritime borders with their former Soviet master – are behind this year’s biggest advances. Other front-line countries such as Estonia and Poland also spend more proportionally than western members, meeting or surpassing the 28-nation alliance’s guideline of allocating 2 percent of economic output.