This letter from Senator Mike Lee to President Obama makes three main points: 1) While NATO remains strategically important, European allies need to take on more responsibility for their own defense given changes since WWII. 2) The letter agrees with Obama that not all European NATO members contribute 2% of GDP to defense as committed. It urges Obama to seek commitments on defense spending at the upcoming NATO summit. 3) The letter argues that instead of continued US defense aid, European allies who have not met decade-old commitments should invest more in their own budgets now to sustain NATO in the 21st century.

1. June xx, 2016
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C., 20500
Dear President Obama:
As elected officials, we are proud to serve a nation that has earned the reputation as the leader of
the free world. Following the devastation of many of our allies during the Second World War
and the looming threat of Soviet expansion, the United States took on the burden of European
defense. That commitment multiplied our security and economic advantages in the second half
of the 20th Century, culminating with the collapse of the Soviet Union. We believe that the
function of this alliance is still of strategic importance; however, there have been great geo-
political changes since the 1940s, and we believe that the viability of the alliance in the coming
decades is contingent upon economically prosperous allies in Europe taking on more
responsibility for their own defenses.
You stated in your speech to the people of Europe in Hannover, Germany, on April 25, “That’s
why every NATO member should be contributing its full share – 2 percent of GDP – towards our
common security, something that doesn’t always happen. And I’ll be honest, sometimes Europe
has been complacent about its own defense.” We agree with you on this point, and urge you to
continue actively seeking commitments and tangible results from our European allies at the
upcoming NATO Warsaw Summit on July 8 and 9.
According to NATO, the combined wealth of the non-US Allies, measured in gross domestic
product (GDP), exceeds that of the United States. However, “[t]oday, the volume of the US
defense expenditure effectively represents 73 per cent of the defense spending of the Alliance as
a whole. This does not mean that the United States covers 73 per cent of the costs involved in the
operational running of NATO as an organization, including its headquarters in Brussels and its
subordinate military commands, but it does mean that there is an over-reliance by the Alliance as
a whole on the United States for the provision of essential capabilities, including for instance, in
regard to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; air-to-air refuelling; ballistic missile
defence; and airborne electronic warfare.1”
Further concerns arise when the U.S. authorizes billions of dollars in additional funding to
“reassure” our allies in Europe through various forms of defense aid as part of the European
Reassurance Initiative (ERI).
1 Source: NATO website - http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_67655.htm

2. In 2006, NATO member countries agreed to commit a minimum of 2 percent of their GDP to
spending on their individual defense budgets. Ten years later, that commitment has yet to be met
by more than half of the NATO members. While there is a worthwhile debate about what
specific defense investments our European allies need to make, the failure to meet even this basic
threshold commitment is unacceptable.
Mr. President, we believe it is time for our actions to match our rhetoric. The commitments we
brought back from the Wales Summit with regard to national defense spending on major
equipment have a ten-year time horizon for action. In lieu of giving our highly capable European
allies a crutch of defense aid for years to come, we must begin making this aid contingent upon
real investment from their governments starting with adjustments to their national budgets now.
A criticism leveled by American defense and diplomatic leaders is that our well-intentioned
defense commitments actually incentivize European nations to prioritize high-priced non-defense
programs over security spending in their budgets. It is simply inconceivable to most Americans
that their hard-earned tax dollars are used to reassure financially capable allies who have failed
to meet decade-old commitments. These are no longer the economically fraught post-WWII
days of Europe. Twenty-First Century European nations must face – and are capable of deterring
– an economically and politically vulnerable Russia while addressing an immigration problem
largely of their own making.
At a press conference intended to lay the groundwork for the upcoming summit, NATO
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reiterated that “[a]llies must spend more on defense to sustain
this shift in NATO’s defense posture. […] Following a long decline in defense spending, 2015
was the first year after many when the Alliance registered a small increase in defense spending.
‘So this is real progress. After many years of going in the wrong direction, we are starting to go
into the right direction.’”
Mr. President, we must continue to push this same agenda that Secretary General Stoltenberg has
laid out and that you and our diplomatic and defense leaders have supported. But such rhetoric
must be followed by action.
Recent events across the European continent should serve as wake-up calls to leaders of these
European nations. We believe that the best way to keep the alliance strong in the 21st Century is
a more equitable distribution of the collective defense burden, and we respectfully request that
you make this a priority in Warsaw next month.
Sincerely,
Mike Lee
Unite States Senate