NATO to ask allies for 30% capability boost, top commander says
By Rudy Ruitenberg
Friday, Mar 14, 2025
Dutch soldiers disembark a Spanish military cargo plane at 71 Aerial Base Campia Turzii, Romania, in May 2024. (Daniel Mihailescu/AFP via Getty Images)
PARIS — NATO will ask alliance members to raise their military capability targets by 30% as the organization seeks to boost its force posture, according to the commander in charge of defense planning at the 32-nation alliance.
The proposed capability targets have been accepted by 80% of the allies, with a goal of full consensus before a NATO summit in The Hague; Netherlands, in June, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation Adm. Pierre Vandier said in a March 12 press briefing at the Paris Defence and Strategy Forum here. He said the biggest NATO members are signed on, “even those who didn’t usually accept,” without naming countries.
The capability targets refer to the pool of forces and capabilities NATO considers necessary to fulfill its missions. Vandier said NATO asks allies to provide capabilities such as a localized brigade or an air and naval group rather than numbers of troops or equipment, with the details for national governments to fill in, and with no time constraints on when countries meet the targets.
Allies are already 30% behind in delivering on existing capability targets, so the proposed increase means “there’s a huge hole,” Vandier said. “We’re at a moment in time where everything is important, we’re lacking everything, and so we have to be quite astute.”
https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2025/03/14/nato-to-ask-allies-for-30-capability-boost-top-commander-says/
