What’s in a Number? Making NATO’s 1.5% Spending Goal Work for European Resilience

NATO allies are expected to adopt a new defence spending target of 5% of GDP at the upcoming The Hague Summit. While this marks a significant increase from the previous 2% goal, the real innovation lies in its structure: 1.5% is earmarked for areas beyond traditional military defence. Unlike the clearly defined 3.5% military component, however, the civilian share remains conceptually broad, functionally vague, and open to national interpretation.

With diverse traditions of civil preparedness across member states, this risks creative accounting and opportunistic prioritisation, while hampering cooperation. If the 1.5% target fails to deliver measurable improvements in European resilience, it could backfire and strain transatlantic trust.

To transcend its symbolic value into a tangible instrument for resilience planning:

• NATO should establish a structured capability planning process mirroring its defence capability planning process, with clear alliance-wide objectives.
• The EU should expand its existing Union Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM) towards civil preparedness, enabling member states and non-EU partners to coordinate and scale their contributions.
• Germany, with its clear conceptualisation of civil preparedness and financial flexibility, should lead by leveraging the political momentum at home to shape a coherent European framework.

Resilience’s relevance for NATO

As NATO leaders prepare to meet at the 2025 Summit in The Hague, attention is turning to how the Alliance will translate its evolving security agenda into concrete commitments. It’s an agenda that is shaped by Russia’s war of aggression, rising geopolitical tensions and hybrid threats, such as cyberattacks, disinformation and sabotage. One of the key proposals on the table is a 1.5% spending target dedicated to civil preparedness – intended to strengthen resilience alongside traditional military capabilities.

Resilience – understood as the capacity to withstand, adapt to and recover from disruptions – depends on robust, responsive civilian systems that can act swiftly and in coordination, including cooperation with armed forces. This involves ensuring government continuity, maintaining essential services and supporting operations throughout the whole Alliance by civilian means.

However, the proposal – reportedly influenced by discussions between NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and US President Donald Trump – remains vaguely defined. The 1.5% could cover a broad range of expenditures, from cyber and intelligence to military-related infrastructure. With negotiations ongoing, there is a significant risk that the target will lack clarity. This could result in inconsistent national interpretations and reduce the overall impact.

As set out in Article 3 of the Alliance’s founding treaty, the rationale behind collective resilience is firmly established. Civil preparedness should therefore be enforced not only as a national responsibility, but as a strategic function central to NATO’s core mandate.

A legacy of civilian emergency planning

In NATO’s early decades, civil preparedness, formerly known as civilian emergency planning, was a central pillar of the Alliance. In the 1950s, NATO’s Senior Civil Emergency Planning Committee established functional planning bodies to ensure civilian support for military operations across transport, energy, communications and food systems.

Exercises such as CIVLOG 65 and ’69 tested operational readiness. The objectives were threefold: sustaining military defence, ensuring governmental continuity, and protecting the civilian population. Following the 1953 North Sea floods, NATO began coordinating disaster relief, as a practical necessity and a means of building public support.

After the Cold War, NATO’s focus shifted toward partnership and crisis management, while traditional civil emergency planning structures were significantly scaled back. This trend began to reverse gradually, particularly after Russia’s war in Georgia in 2008 and its invasion of Ukraine in 2014, which renewed focus on resilience as a core component of security.

Refocussing attention

Since the 2014 Wales Summit, resilience has become part of NATO’s strategic vocabulary. At the 2016 Warsaw Summit, allies adopted the Commitment to Enhance Resilience, defining it as a national responsibility guided by shared minimum standards. These seven baseline requirements for resilience cover continuity of government and essential services, critical infrastructure protection, and civil support for military forces. Institutional reforms soon followed. Now, a high-level Resilience Committee leads coordination, while regular meetings of senior officials enhance political alignment between NATO and national capitals.

Introduced after the 2021 Brussels Summit and formalised at the 2022 Madrid Summit, a resilience planning and review cycle was integrated into the NATO Defence Planning Process (NDPP). This initiative has renewed focus on allied resilience capabilities within strategic assessments and defence planning.

The current cycle, which is set to conclude in 2026, might provide the clearest picture in decades of how reliably the allies understand their national resilience postures. Nevertheless, these efforts remain largely overshadowed by the continued dominance of traditional military defence logic.

At the 2023 Vilnius Summit, the allies adopted shared resilience objectives aligned with national risk profiles. A classified resilience dashboard was introduced to monitor overall preparedness using national reports, intelligence and open-source data. However, the dashboard still lacks a quantifiable operationalisation of targets or a clear assessment of allied performance.

European diverging approaches – and the risks they pose

Across Europe, institutional approaches, prioritisation and multinational coordination regarding civil preparedness remain fragmented. While military capabilities are benchmarked through NATO and managed by defence ministries, civil preparedness is nationally defined, shaped by history, geography, threat perception, political systems and economic constraints. No multilateral body exists to align these efforts. The absence of a shared framework risks incentivising creative accounting, opportunistic prioritisation and hampering transnational cooperation.

Structural fragmentation

National fragmentation is deep-rooted in history. During the Second World War and the Cold War era, many NATO states developed total defence concepts that encompassed civilian and military aspects based on large-scale conflict scenarios.

After 1990, Western European countries dismantled or repurposed these systems, shifting the focus of civil preparedness toward civil protection in non-military crises. Finland and Sweden adapted their total defence approaches to broader societal resilience. By contrast, countries such as Germany, Italy and Spain largely dismantled – or never built – structured civilian defence systems.

Poland exemplifies another model. Despite allocating more than 4% of its GDP to defence in 2024, the integration of civil preparedness and societal involvement remains limited. Similarly, the Netherlands has never adopted a total defence concept and remains hesitant to embrace a whole-of-society approach to defence. Both countries show the institutional and conceptual hurdles in creating or reactivating total defence structures from scratch.

While learning – or re-learning – what civil preparedness entails is challenging for many NATO members, agreeing on a European framework is even harder. Civil preparedness agendas are handled by different institutions across different countries, reflecting varied political systems.

France centralises the task in its General Secretariat for Defence and National Security (SGDSN) under the prime minister’s office. Germany, meanwhile, assigns this function to the Ministry of the Interior. Others rely on inter-institutional coordination. Finland’s Security Committee embodies its whole-of-society model, while 61 government agencies are responsible for civil preparedness in Sweden.

Diverging priorities

Diverging priorities in civil preparedness and resilience areas are not surprising given the different situations allies find themselves in. Some allies are still grappling with how to distinguish military defence and civil preparedness spending, while others are trying to ensure their national priorities are reflected in the new framework.

Southern European countries argue that disaster response capacities – shaped by recent extreme weather events – should be counted, aligning with NATO’s climate security agenda. In Germany, by contrast, the debate has largely narrowed to infrastructure investment, given its role as a logistics hub and the poor state of national infrastructure. Even for countries often held up as role models, like Finland or Sweden, the proposed 1.5% spending goal raises difficult questions of delineation. If defence is understood as a whole-of-society effort, what can genuinely be excluded from the accounting?

Beyond the complex question of whether diverse national approaches can meaningfully add up to collective resilience, establishing common standards remains a major challenge while responsibility remains at the national level. This becomes especially problematic when concerns arise about the Alliance only being as strong as its “weakest link”, as outlined in former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s November 2021 outlook speech.

Multinational Organisation’s Role in Shaping Civil Preparedness

NATO – like the EU – provides an institutional framework with the potential to structure national strategies and promote a shared understanding of societal security. This is achieved through procedures, norms and coordination mechanisms that guide national concepts towards common standards.

The Alliance has made progress in framing resilience as a strategic domain, but civil preparedness still lacks a common institutional home. Unlike military defence, which is coordinated through NATO’s structured planning processes, civil preparedness lacks equivalent mechanisms.

Since the Cold War ended, NATO has scaled back its civil emergency planning role and no other institution has fully stepped in to fill the gap. Although the EU started the process of expanding its role by providing a framework for these efforts in March 2025 with the Preparedness Union Strategy, its implementation depends on the will of the member states.

As previous developments in both institutions have shown: Where a multinational consensus exists, such as NATO’s baseline requirements for resilience, it is necessarily conceptualised in the broadest possible sense to gain approval from all member states.

Three emerging risks

From the lack of a shared understanding and clear coordination, three strategic risks emerge:

First, without clear definitions, countries are incentivised to engage in creative accounting. This issue is already undermining the credibility of the existing 2% target. For example, national fire brigades or childcare costs for defence personnel have been counted as defence-related spending. Some of these costs, currently claimed under the 2%, may be more appropriately assigned to the future 1.5% category, if guidelines were clear.

Second, the pressure to meet spending targets quickly may lead to opportunistic prioritisation. Instead of addressing actual resilience and defence needs, countries may focus on areas where funding or planning and industrial capacity is available. Germany’s experience with its military special fund, where availability of capacity shaped spending more than strategic gaps, illustrates this risk.

Third, unclear and uncoordinated investment priorities hinder the development of cross-border cooperation needed to raise Europe’s overall defence readiness. Without alignment on civil preparedness, opportunities for burden-sharing and joint capability development are lost.

Only with a shared and transparent understanding of what constitutes civil preparedness spending – and how it contributes to deterrence and readiness – can Europe transform its patchwork of national approaches into a coherent, resilient security architecture.

However, if the increase in civil preparedness spending fails to produce credible and measurable improvements in Europe’s defence and deterrence posture, the initiative risks ultimately backfiring. In the medium term, this could erode trust, fuel political disillusionment and strain the transatlantic relationship.

Recommendations: Common planning with distributed and coordinated implementation

Ensuring the 1.5% goal translates into meaningful resilience gains and fosters deeper cooperation will require action at national and European policy levels. Above all, Europe requires a common understanding of civil preparedness. This understanding should allow for the coordination of national priorities, capabilities and approaches, while enabling joint operation where synergies and a sensible division of labour can be achieved.

In summary, three vital steps needed to operationalise the goal include:

1. NATO establishing a dedicated, capability-based planning for resilience. This needs to be separate from – but complementary to – the existing NDPP. This would give NATO allies a shared basis for evaluating and developing civil preparedness capabilities, while operationalising the 1.5% target with clear metrics, benchmarks and monitoring mechanisms.
2. The EU leveraging its planned Preparedness Union actions – particularly the expansion of the Union Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM) – for deeper coordination, resource pooling, and functioning collaboration among member states. With participation from non-EU NATO members, the UCPM is already well suited to serve as a bridge between EU and NATO efforts.
3. Germany serving as an active supporter of these initiatives. Not only is the German government interested in improving civil preparedness in Europe, it has a clearly defined concept of civilian defence. With new financial flexibility, Germany can set a precedent by strengthening preparedness at home, while helping shape a coherent European framework.

1. Strategic capability planning in resilience as a NATO imperative

Effective deterrence and defence depend not only on military capabilities, but on resilient civilian systems that can absorb and recover from hostile disruptions, protect the population and support military operations. To that end, civilian capabilities must be clearly defined in alignment with NATO’s strategic objectives – and in response to an increasingly complex threat environment.

To meet this challenge, NATO should establish a dedicated NATO Resilience Planning Process (NRPP) as a distinct planning track for civil preparedness. This process would ensure that developing civil resilience, a complex process, receives the necessary political attention, strategic direction and targeted resources. It would serve to operationalise the concept of resilience by setting measurable benchmarks, assessing progress across allies, identifying capability gaps and facilitating coordinated action.

Crucially, the NRPP would provide a credible framework for implementing the 1.5% civil preparedness spending target. By turning this figure from a symbolic gesture into a substantive contribution to the Alliance’s overall deterrence and defence posture, the process would help allies justify increased investment in domestic audiences and ensure that spending is strategic and transparently attributable to the alliance’s resilience goals.

Fortunately, there is no need to reinvent the wheel in this process. Detailed expert recommendations have been circulating since 2022. Additionally, NATO can build on established military procedures, most notably, the NDPP, which has been developed, refined and institutionalised over decades. NATO’s baseline requirements and resilience objectives already define the key civilian sectors essential to the Alliance’s defence posture.

The central challenge lies in their further operationalisation. Unlike military defence, quantifying resilience is far more complex. Many of the civilian capabilities lie outside government control, so it will take time for all allies to systematically identify, assess and account for them.

While the integration of resilience into the NDPP marks an important first step, Germany’s approach offers a valuable reference point for further development. With its clear and distinct conceptualisation of civil preparedness – interlinked with, but institutionally separate from, military defence – the German model can provide meaningful guidance in two directions. First, it provides a template and conceptual orientation for countries that have yet to adopt a comprehensive or integrated approach to national and societal defence. Second, for countries that already pursue a whole-of-government or whole-of-society model, it demonstrates how civilian defence elements can be clearly delineated within that broader framework.

Particularly noteworthy is the 1972 White Paper on Civilian Defence of the Federal Republic of Germany. This presents a detailed breakdown of expenditure categories and functional tasks, many of which remain relevant today. This document could serve as a practical model for identifying, naming and structuring specific civilian defence measures and cost items within NATO’s evolving resilience agenda.

2. Leverage the EU’s Union Civil Protection Mechanism to coordinate and scale civil preparedness

Given the deep interconnectedness and interdependence of modern societies and the complexity of transnational risks, civil preparedness demands coordinated European effort. Joint action not only enhances collective resilience, but enables more efficient use of limited national resources through burden-sharing and strategic complementarity.

Despite enduring structural barriers between NATO and the EU – particularly limited information sharing – it is up to the member states to drive forward synergies between the two organisations. Greater alignment would allow NATO’s resilience requirements to inform EU planning processes, helping to create a more integrated and equitable division of labour, so collective resilience becomes more than the sum of national contributions.

This need for coordination extends beyond well-known areas such as military mobility, protection of critical infrastructure and cybersecurity, where the EU has already established strong regulatory roles. One of the most promising and ready-made instruments for deeper integration is the UCPM. It is uniquely positioned to bundle and coordinate newly developed or strengthened civilian capabilities, including those emerging from NATO’s 1.5% goal.

Grounded in the principle of solidarity, the UCPM has proven effective in strengthening civil protection cooperation among EU member states and 10 participating non-EU countries. The mechanism facilitates prevention, preparedness, and response efforts, with the European Commission coordinating assistance and co-financing deployments for disaster-hit countries.

Member states should support the European Commission’s initiative to expand the UCPM as part of the Preparedness Union Strategy Actions. By expanding the scope of the UCPM to explicitly coordinate national civil preparedness contributions – including from NATO allies outside the EU – the EU could facilitate deeper coordination, resource pooling and functional division of labour. This would reduce redundancy, identify complementary capabilities and build a more coherent and interoperable European preparedness system. The existing participation of key NATO allies, such as Turkey, and the UCPM’s operational role in conflict zones, including Ukraine, further enhance its compatibility with NATO initiatives.

In addition, the rescEU reserve, which covers supplies, such as generators, field hospitals and aerial firefighting equipment, could be expanded to include capabilities tailored to civil preparedness tasks. This could include medical evacuation trains for mass casualty events or mobile infrastructure for critical services.

Ultimately, the integration of EU and NATO efforts through instruments such as the UCPM could provide an effective civil preparedness coordination mechanism. This has been lacking since the dismantling of NATO’s Cold War-era emergency planning structures. Under current conditions, such a mechanism is urgently needed to reinforce deterrence and defence, while enhancing Europe’s capacity to respond to other large-scale disasters.

3. Germany as an essential enabler for reform

Although Germany still faces challenges in operationalising its own comprehensive security approach and fostering domestic resilience , it has the potential to take a leading role in shaping Europe’s civil preparedness agenda. As a NATO transit and deployment hub at the centre of the continent – and a frequent target of hybrid threats – Germany has a direct strategic interest in strengthening collective resilience. It is a powerful member state with strong commitments to NATO and the EU, making the country likely to serve as a reference point for European partners in handling the 1.5% civil preparedness spending goal.

Germany enters this phase with a favourable starting position. While attention in recent years has largely focused on military readiness, its pivotal role in NATO’s force deployment plans has brought renewed focus on its long-neglected transport infrastructure and military mobility.

Despite ongoing implementation challenges for its civilian defence concept, the special infrastructure fund – and exemption from the debt brake for defence spending – have created political momentum. Following intense negotiations between the main political parties, the concept of defence has been expanded to encompass civil protection and preparedness. Although the exact fund allocation is still being finalised, Germany’s debate is already ahead of many of its European counterparts.

In terms of leveraging the overlapping resilience and preparedness agendas of the EU and NATO, upcoming negotiations on the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) will be critical in determining the resourcing and realisation of the Commission’s preparedness agenda. This will include the expansion of the UCPM. In an internal position paper, the German government has already signalled that crisis preparedness must be taken into account in the MFF. Germany can play a leading role here, not just as a contributor, but as an enabler of European resilience.

Conclusion

To ensure NATO’s 1.5% civilian spending target becomes more than a symbolic benchmark, it must be embedded in a credible, coordinated framework. Without clear definitions, common planning and robust coordination mechanisms, the risk of fragmentation, inefficiency and political backlash remains high.

NATO and the EU must work in parallel – NATO by operationalising resilience through dedicated capability planning, and the EU by scaling its preparedness tools through the UCPM. Germany, with its strategic position and financial flexibility, is well placed to lead by example. If pursued collectively and with strategic coherence, the 1.5% target could catalyse the transformation in Europe’s approach to civil preparedness and resilience.

About the authors

Helena Quis is Project Manager in the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Europe Programme, focusing on comprehensive preparedness, civilian defence and societal resilience.

Torben Schütz is Senior Expert in the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Europe Programme.