Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appeared to all but dismiss the two per cent target during a visit to Germany last month, saying: “There are many ways of evaluating one’s contribution to NATO.”

no one said we should double it, but we are what .9%? it should be 2%, I would be happy with 1.5%.

It doesn't matter how some countries are funding NATO what matters is that according to the original and current funding model we're not spending the 2% we promised in 1949 and have only met or exceeded that percentage intermittently.

So they can try and spin apples into oranges all they want but we've been remiss in our obligations more often than not and it's time we started to pay our fair share. Here's a list of charts that show just how the members have done when it comes to paying their fair share.

https://www.google.ca/search?q=nato+fun ... VHjm-9aiEM:

This isn't political or which party did what, it's about the will to do what's right and yes, the "Conservatives" are just as responsible for underfunding as the Liberals. People decry the fact that Putin's Russia is running wild and demand that someone stand up to him but if we aren't willing to properly pay for that ability there's zero chance he's going to stop being the aggressor. We can't rely on the Americans for everything anymore. They've got a new regime that seems to be intent on ensuring they aren't the ones paying a lions share of NATO's bills and they seem to be more than willing to pull out of NATO if all the countries not living up to their commitments don't get the shit together and pay their own way.

So, the current Gov't can try and use creative accounting methods to fudge the amount of funding we contribute to NATO which will likely make it look better in the short term than it really is but, I seriously doubt we'll be able to fool anyone for long and at some point we have to have to pay the piper.

I'm not sure how much relevance NATO has anymore, hence am reluctant to make it a spending priority.

Good post, and you actually made me think about this for a bit. We may have agreed to 2% in '49, but the Russians had just detonated a hydrogen bomb, had fleets of long-range bombers that could come over the Arctic, so it was a much scarier time. I'm not sure how much relevance NATO has anymore, hence am reluctant to make it a spending priority.

While all NATO members agreed in 2014 to work towards spending two per cent of their gross domestic product, or GDP, on defence, only five have reached that goal.

Look at Georgia, Ukraine, Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania and the Russians dream of expansion is clear. NATO has as much relevance today as it ever had.

Yes do. Other than Poland the rush to get the others into NATO has proven to Russians they were right to fear the West. They were all historically in the Russian sphere of influence and only Poland deserved membership. Poking the sleeping bear with a stick and being surprised at the result, more or less.