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This article assesses contributions of NATO members to the alliance from the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine in 2022 to 2024/early 2025 and the correlation of these contributions with first geographic proximity to Russia and/or Ukraine and second the presence of right-wing populists in government. There was a strong correlation between proximity to Russia (and to some extent Ukraine) and a high contribution to NATO: those states bordering Russia (Finland, Poland, and the Baltic states) were amongst the highest contributors to NATO; virtually all the countries which made high or medium contributions to NATO were northern or eastern European states. The large majority of low contributors to NATO were southern or western European states which are relatively distant from Russia. The impact of right-wing populism was mixed, with populist leaders/governments in Hungary, Slovakia, and Türkiye deviating from the NATO consensus, Italy sticking to that consensus but being a low contributor, and Poland being a high contributor. The second Trump administration will be a major test of the impact of right-wing populism on NATO. A new NATO burden-sharing divide appears to be emerging between higher contributing eastern and northern European members and lower contributing western and southern European members.
Andrew Cottey (Thu,) studied this question.