Whereas, for over six decades, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been a successful intergovernmental political and military alliance; Whereas NATO's collective defense serves as a deterrent against aggression from adversaries and external security threats; Whereas NATO strengthens the security of the United States by utilizing an integrated military coalition; Whereas Article 3 of the North Atlantic Treaty states that in order more effectively to achieve the objectives of this Treaty, the Parties, separately and jointly, by means of continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack ; Whereas, since the formation of NATO, the United States has negotiated with NATO allies over fair and equitable burden sharing; Whereas, in 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower invited European NATO allies to increase their contribution in defense spending, pointing out that the American well had run dry ; Whereas, at a 1963 National Security Council meeting, President John F. Kennedy stated that we cannot continue to pay for the military protection of Europe while the NATO states are not paying their fair share and living off the fat of the land ; Whereas President Richard Nixon’s Second Annual Report to the Congress on United States Foreign Policy stated, The emphasis is no longer on their sharing the cost of America's military commitment to Europe—although financial arrangements may play a part—but on their providing the national forces needed in conjunction with ours in support of an effective common strategy. ; Whereas the first NATO defense-spending target was issued in the 1977 NATO Ministerial Guidance, where NATO allies agreed to increase defense spending by 3 percent annually to address the substantially larger defense resource allocations of the Soviet Union