2026-05-31T12:47:24-04:00 / 福克斯新闻频道
北约成员国在海牙举行的北约峰会上，同意了到2035年将国防开支占国内生产总值（GDP）的比例提升至5%的新目标。
作者：摩根·菲利普斯 福克斯新闻频道
发布于2026年5月31日美国东部时间下午12:47
基伦·斯金纳警告：北约联盟正经历全球冲突下的“重大重组”
福克斯新闻频道特约评论员基伦·斯金纳分析了美北约关系的未来，强调北约内部正在进行重大重组。
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本文是审视北约联盟面临挑战的系列报道的第五篇。
三十多年来，美国一直承担着北约最大份额的军事负担，而许多欧洲盟国的国防开支远低于美国政府的要求。
这种失衡状态在冷战结束后、多届美国政府任内以及多次负担分摊辩论中都得以存续。直到近年来，在俄罗斯2022年入侵乌克兰以及唐纳德·特朗普总统的持续施压下，许多北约成员国才开始大幅增加国防开支。
那么，这种差距为何持续了如此之久？
防务分析师表示，答案在于后冷战时期的乐观情绪、国内政治优先事项以及美国的防务保护伞——这让欧洲大部分国家相信，它们可以安全地减少国防开支，同时不会牺牲自身安全。
（注：原文重复段落已按原文保留） For more than three decades, the U.S. carried the largest share of NATO’s military burden while many European allies spent far less on defense than Washington wanted.(Handout / Latin America News Agency via Reuters Connect)
全球体系在贸易和防务上占了美国的便宜，这种搭便车的时代已经结束
麻省理工学院政治学教授巴里·波森在接受福克斯新闻数字频道采访时表示：“在后冷战时期的大部分时间里，可以公平地说，欧洲人在国防上投资不足，部分原因是威胁程度较低，部分原因是多位美国总统竭尽所能让欧洲人相信，我们会永远留在那里。”
苏联解体强化了这种心态。
随着北约原本旨在威慑的主要威胁突然消失，欧洲各国政府纷纷收获所谓的“和平红利”，将资源转向国内优先事项，而非军事领域。
1992年至1999年间，欧洲北约成员国的国防开支下降了22%，这形成了持续数十年的投资不足模式，尽管美国仍在欧洲驻军，并继续作为北约的最终安全后盾。
德国公布新激励措施以加强军事招募，应对日益严峻的俄罗斯威胁
随着国防开支下降，许多欧洲政府扩大或维持了社会福利体系，这些体系占用了越来越多的公共预算。医疗保健、养老金和高等教育等项目在国内政治中根深蒂固，往往比军事开支更难削减。
由于美国继续提供北约的大部分军事力量，许多政府几乎没有立即扭转局面的压力。批评北约开支失衡的人士认为，美国纳税人实际上在为欧洲的安全提供补贴，让盟国能够将更大比例的公共资源用于国内优先事项。
其结果被一些防务分析师称为“道德风险”问题：由于美国对北约的承诺被视为不可动摇，盟国可以减少本国军事开支，而不必为这些决定承担全部后果。
“在后冷战时期的大部分时间里，可以公平地说，欧洲人在国防上投资不足，部分原因是威胁程度较低，部分原因是多位美国总统竭尽所能让欧洲人相信，我们会永远留在那里。”麻省理工学院政治学教授巴里·波森在接受福克斯新闻数字频道采访时表示。（美联社照片/达尔科·沃伊诺维奇，资料图）
北约秘书长警告：随着格陵兰岛局势紧张升级，欧洲无法脱离美国自保
随着时间推移，这种动态变得自我强化。随着欧洲军队规模缩减，许多盟国越来越依赖美国的各种能力，包括后勤、情报、导弹防御、战略空运和核威慑。
北约秘书长马克·吕特2026年初表示：“我们仍在欧洲保持强大的常规美军存在，当然还有作为我们最终保障的核保护伞。”
美国对负担分摊的不满几乎与北约本身一样悠久。
“我们仍在欧洲保持强大的常规美军存在，”北约秘书长马克·吕特2026年初表示，“当然还有作为我们最终保障的核保护伞。”（奥马尔·哈瓦纳/盖蒂图片社）
1953年，德怀特·D·艾森豪威尔总统警告欧洲盟国，“美国的储备可能会枯竭”，并敦促他们承担起联盟更大份额的防务负担。在接下来的几十年里，随着历届政府寻求欧洲为集体防务做出更大贡献，这个问题反复浮现。
这种担忧在冷战结束后依然存在。2011年，时任美国国防部长罗伯特·盖茨在布鲁塞尔发表直率的告别演讲，警告如果欧洲各国政府继续在军事上投资不足，北约将面临“即便不是黯淡，也是堪忧的未来”。盖茨警告称，美国议员和纳税人对承担不成比例的联盟防务成本的“兴趣和耐心将会减少”。
然而，尽管有数十年来的警告， underlying incentives 几乎没有改变。
华盛顿一再重申对北约的承诺，并在欧洲大陆保持大规模军事存在，减轻了盟国快速增加国防开支的压力。
前美国国防部欧洲和北约事务副助理部长吉姆·汤森告诉福克斯新闻数字频道：“每一届政府都在推动盟国增加本国国防开支。”
2014年俄罗斯吞并克里米亚后，这个问题获得了新的紧迫性，当时北约为成员国设定了至少将2%的GDP用于国防的基准。尽管开支逐渐增加，但整个联盟的进展仍然不均衡。
“各国开始缓慢地朝着这个目标前进。但过程一直很缓慢，”汤森说。
多年来，负担分摊争端遵循着熟悉的模式：美国官员敦促盟国增加开支，欧洲领导人承诺改善，而北约继续严重依赖美国的军事力量。汤森表示，最终打破这种循环的是俄罗斯日益加剧的侵略行为，以及特朗普愿意挑战影响联盟数十年的假设。
“真正让所有人警醒的是两件事，”汤森说。“一是普京2022年再次发动的入侵。二是特朗普。”
与前任总统不同，特朗普公开质疑美国是否应该为未达到国防开支承诺的盟国提供防御。在他的第一任期以及再次就职后，特朗普都辩称北约成员国一直在占美国纳税人的便宜，并表示美国的保护不应是无条件的。
无论欧洲领导人将特朗普的做法视为施压、警告还是谈判策略，它都改变了冷战结束以来塑造联盟的假设，并加速了这场酝酿了数十年的辩论。
这一转变在海牙北约峰会上达到高潮，各国盟国同意了到2035年将国防和国防相关投资开支占GDP的比例提升至5%的新目标。该协议与北约长期以来的2%基准相比有了大幅跃升，反映出越来越多的共识：联盟面临的安全环境比苏联解体后出现的环境危险得多。
该协议还表明，许多盟国已经得出了数十年来美国总统一直表达的结论：后冷战时期削减军事开支的时代已经结束。
特朗普推动北约大幅增加开支——现在更棘手的问题来了：欧洲真的能作战吗？
但分析师警告称，重建军事力量远比增加预算复杂得多。
汤森表示，欧洲在防空、后勤、情报和国防工业能力等方面仍然依赖美国。即使各国政府承诺增加国防开支，将这些投资转化为军事战备能力也需要数年时间。
美国“关注退伍军人组织”的约翰·伯恩表示，挑战不仅限于装备和开支水平。
他在谈到数十年来大型多国军事指挥机构几乎全部由美国军官领导的情况时告诉福克斯新闻数字频道：“他们没有相关经验。”
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他说，运行大型联合军事行动需要多年的制度知识和领导经验——这不是可以在一夜之间重建的。
“你可以购买装备，”伯恩说。“但你无法瞬间获得指挥经验。”
Why NATO’s defense spending imbalance lasted for decades
2026-05-31T12:47:24-04:00 / Fox News
NATO allies agreed to a new goal of spending 5% of GDP on defense by 2035 at the alliance’s summit in The Hague
By Morgan Phillips Fox News
Published May 31, 2026 12:47pm EDT
Kiron Skinner warns NATO alliance undergoing ‘major restructuring’ amid global conflicts
Fox News contributor Kiron Skinner analyzes the future of U.S.-NATO relations, emphasizing a major restructuring within the alliance.
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7 min
This is part five of a series examining the challenges confronting the NATO alliance.
For more than three decades, the U.S. carried the largest share of NATO’s military burden while many European allies spent far less on defense than Washington wanted.
The imbalance survived the Cold War, multiple U.S. administrations and repeated debates over burden sharing. Only in recent years — following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and renewed pressure from President Donald Trump — have many NATO members begun significantly increasing defense spending.
So why did the gap persist for so long?
Defense analysts say the answer lies in a combination of post-Cold War optimism, domestic political priorities and an American defense umbrella that convinced much of Europe it could safely spend less on defense without sacrificing its security.
For more than three decades, the U.S. carried the largest share of NATO’s military burden while many European allies spent far less on defense than Washington wanted.(Handout / Latin America News Agency via Reuters Connect)
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“For much of the post–Cold War period, it is fair to say that Europeans underinvested in defense, partly because threats were low, and partly because a series of U.S. presidents did everything they could to convince Europeans that we would stay there forever,” Barry Posen, a professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Fox News Digital.
The collapse of the Soviet Union reinforced that mindset.
With the primary threat NATO had been created to deter suddenly gone, governments across Europe moved to collect a so-called “peace dividend,” redirecting resources toward domestic priorities and away from their militaries.
Between 1992 and 1999, defense spending among European NATO members fell 22%, helping establish a pattern of underinvestment that would persist for decades even as the United States maintained troops in Europe and continued serving as NATO’s ultimate security backstop.
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As defense spending declined, many European governments expanded or maintained social welfare systems that consumed a growing share of public budgets. Programs such as healthcare, pensions and higher education became deeply embedded in domestic politics, often making them harder to cut than military spending.
With the U.S. continuing to provide the bulk of NATO’s military power, many governments faced little immediate pressure to reverse course. Critics of the alliance’s spending imbalance argued that American taxpayers were effectively subsidizing Europe’s security, allowing allies to devote a larger share of public resources to domestic priorities.
The result was what some defense analysts describe as a “moral hazard” problem: because the U.S. commitment to NATO was viewed as ironclad, allies could spend less on their own militaries without facing the full consequences of those decisions.
“For much of the post–Cold War period, it is fair to say that Europeans underinvested in defense, partly because threats were low, and partly because a series of U.S. presidents did everything they could to convince Europeans that we would stay there forever,” Barry Posen, a professor of political science at MIT, told Fox News Digital.(AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic, File)
NATO CHIEF WARNS EUROPE CAN’T DEFEND ITSELF WITHOUT US AS TENSIONS RISE OVER GREENLAND
Over time, that dynamic became self-reinforcing. As European militaries shrank, many allies grew increasingly dependent on American capabilities ranging from logistics and intelligence to missile defense, strategic airlift and nuclear deterrence.
“We are still having a strong, conventional U.S. presence in Europe,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said earlier in 2026, “and, of course, the nuclear umbrella as our ultimate guarantor.”
American frustration over burden sharing is nearly as old as NATO itself.
“We are still having a strong, conventional U.S. presence in Europe,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said earlier this year, “and, of course, the nuclear umbrella as our ultimate guarantor.”(Omar Havana/Getty Images)
In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned European allies that “the American well can run dry” and pressed them to assume a larger share of the alliance’s defense burden. The issue resurfaced repeatedly over the following decades as successive administrations sought greater European contributions to collective defense.
The concern persisted long after the Cold War. In a blunt 2011 farewell speech in Brussels, then-War Secretary Robert Gates warned of a “dim if not dismal future” for NATO if European governments continued underinvesting in their militaries. Gates cautioned that there would be “dwindling appetite and patience” among American lawmakers and taxpayers to bear a disproportionate share of the alliance’s defense costs.
Yet despite decades of warnings, the underlying incentives changed little.
Washington repeatedly reaffirmed its commitment to NATO and maintained a large military presence on the continent, reducing pressure on allies to rapidly increase defense spending.
“Every administration has been pushing allies to spend more money on their own defense,” former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Europe and NATO Jim Townsend told Fox News Digital.
The issue gained renewed urgency after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, when NATO established a benchmark for members to spend at least 2% of GDP on defense. While spending gradually increased, progress remained uneven across the alliance.
“Nations slowly began going to that. But it’s been slow,” Townsend said.
For years, burden-sharing disputes followed a familiar pattern: American officials urged allies to spend more, European leaders promised improvements and NATO continued to rely heavily on American military power. What finally broke that cycle, Townsend said, was the combination of Russia’s growing aggression and Trump’s willingness to challenge assumptions that had shaped the alliance for decades.
“What really woke everyone up were two things,” Townsend said. “One was the 2022 invasion by Putin the second time. And then the second was Trump.”
Unlike previous presidents, Trump openly questioned whether the United States should defend allies that failed to meet defense spending commitments. During his first term and again during his return to office, Trump argued that NATO members were taking advantage of American taxpayers and suggested U.S. protection should not be unconditional.
Whether European leaders viewed Trump’s approach as pressure, a warning or a negotiating tactic, it altered assumptions that had shaped the alliance since the end of the Cold War and accelerated a debate that had simmered for decades.
The shift culminated at NATO’s summit in The Hague, where allies agreed to a new goal of spending 5% of GDP on defense and defense-related investments by 2035. The agreement marked a dramatic leap from NATO’s long-standing 2% benchmark and reflected a growing consensus that the alliance faced a far more dangerous security environment than the one that emerged after the Soviet Union’s collapse.
The agreement also signaled that many allies had come to the same conclusion American presidents had voiced for decades: the post-Cold War era of reduced military spending was over.
TRUMP PUSHED NATO TO SPEND BIG — NOW COMES THE HARDER QUESTION: CAN EUROPE ACTUALLY FIGHT?
But analysts caution that rebuilding military power is far more complicated than increasing budgets.
Europe remains dependent on the U.S. for capabilities ranging from air defense and logistics to intelligence and defense industrial capacity, Townsend said. Even as governments commit more money to defense, translating those investments into military readiness will take years.
John Byrne of Concerned Veterans for America said the challenge extends beyond equipment and spending levels.
“They don’t have the experience,” Byrne told Fox News Digital, referring to the decades in which large multinational military commands were overwhelmingly led by American officers.
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Running large coalition military operations requires years of institutional knowledge and leadership experience, he said — something that cannot be rebuilt overnight.
“You can buy equipment,” Byrne said. “You can’t instantly buy command experience.”
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