event
Carnegie Europe

The Cost of European Security

Thu. September 17th, 2015
Carnegie Europe

The members of NATO pledged in 2014 to increase their defense spending to 2 percent of their GDPs by 2024. It is unlikely that this goal will ever be reached by all 28 allies, and yet the 2 percent metric persists, as does European military dependence on the United States.

As a security vacuum in Europe grows, a wider, strategic question remains unanswered: Who is responsible for keeping Europe safe and free, and at what cost? In his latest paper, “The Politics of 2 Percent: NATO and the Security Vacuum in Europe,” Carnegie’s Jan Techau weighs the political significance of NATO’s 2 percent defense investment pledge for the future of the alliance.

Techau discussed these critical issues with Malcolm Chalmers, research director and director for UK Defense Policy at the Royal United Services Institute, and Douglas Lute, U.S. ambassador to NATO. Judy Dempsey, nonresident senior associate at Carnegie Europe and editor in chief of the Strategic Europe blog, moderated.

Video

Podcast

Malcolm Chalmers

Malcolm Chalmers is research director and director for UK Defense Policy at the Royal United Services Institute.

Douglas Lute

Douglas Lute is the U.S. ambassador to NATO.

Jan Techau

Jan Techau is the director of Carnegie Europe.

Judy Dempsey

Judy Dempsey is a nonresident senior associate at Carnegie Europe and editor in chief of the Strategic Europe blog.

Foreign PolicySecurityEuropeNorth America
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
event speakers

Malcolm Chalmers

RUSI

Douglas Lute

Ambassador Douglas Lute is the former United States Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s standing political body. Appointed by President Obama, he assumed the Brussels-based post in 2013 and served until 2017. During this period he was instrumental in designing and implementing the 28-nation Alliance’s responses to the most severe security challenges in Europe since the end of the Cold War.

Jan Techau

Director , Carnegie Europe

Techau was the director of Carnegie Europe, the European center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Techau works on EU integration and foreign policy, transatlantic affairs, and German foreign and security policy.

Judy Dempsey

Nonresident Senior Fellow, Carnegie Europe

Dempsey is a nonresident senior fellow at Carnegie Europe