Whereas the 31-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is the world’s preeminent military alliance, accounting for more than half of global defense expenditure and deploying the world’s most advanced military capabilities; Whereas, at the 2014 NATO Summit in Wales, NATO allies adopted the Wales Defense Investment Pledge, agreeing to halt any decline in defense expenditure and move toward committing a minimum of 2 percent of their GDP on annual defense spending and allocating at least 20 percent of defense budgets on major equipment, including related research and development, within a decade; Whereas, following the 2014 NATO Summit in Wales, defense spending within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has increased for nine consecutive years, resulting in additional defense expenditures of approximately $450,000,000,000 in real terms since 2014; Whereas, while three members of NATO met the 2 percent of GDP defense spending target in 2014, NATO reports that as of July 2023, 11 allies met the 2 percent target, and all 31 allies met the goal to allocate at least 20 percent of defense expenditure to major new equipment; Whereas 19 NATO allies have a plan to meet or exceed NATO’s 2 percent of GDP defense spending target by 2024, and an additional seven members reportedly have plans in place to meet the target between 2025 and 2030; Whereas, at the 2023 NATO Summit in Vilnius, allies unanimously adopted new regional defense plans and force structure requirements, which NATO military authorities characterize as the Alliance’s most comprehensive since the end of the Cold War; Whereas NATO allies, in order to resource those plans and requirements, reaffirmed the commitment to invest at least 2 percent of GDP annually on defense, affirming that in many cases, expenditure beyond 2 percent of GDP will be needed in order to remedy existing shortfalls and meet requirements across all domains