Washington DC [US], April 29 : US Under Secretary of War Elbridge Colby on Tuesday (local time) held talks with NATO officials and stressed on the need to ramp up defence spending.
Colby said that his idea found a lot of takers for NATO 3.0 concept.
In a post on X, he said, "I had a very productive set of engagements with NATO colleagues yesterday, including a working dinner with twelve European ambassadors. In each, we had frank and productive discussions about NATO 3.0 and the urgent need for our allies to increase defense spending and accelerate burden-sharing to enable a European-led conventional defense of the continent. Fortunately, there is strong support for the NATO 3.0 concept. It is now essential that this rhetoric moves quickly to action."
}}}}I had a very productive set of engagements with NATO colleagues yesterday, including a working dinner with twelve European ambassadors. In each, we had frank and productive discussions about NATO 3.0 and the urgent need for our allies to increase defense spending and accelerate… pic.twitter.com/q0EHfyJ5iI— Under Secretary of War Elbridge Colby (@USWPColby) April 28, 2026
Colby had said on February 12, "What is needed is a "NATO 3.0" - something much closer to "NATO 1.0" than the approach of the last thirty-five years. This "NATO 3.0" requires much greater efforts by our allies to step up and assume primary responsibility for the conventional defense of Europe. Nor, I should stress, does it necessitate a one-sided focus on military strength alone. Rather, in line with "NATO 1.0"'s policy of the Harmel Report, it provides for an approach that classically matches such strengthening with diplomatic outreach - represented by the Dual Track approach of the 1970s and 1980s and today by President Trump's efforts to both strengthen NATO and negotiate an end to the tragic war in Ukraine."
Meanwhile, CNN reported on April 27 that global military spending surged by almost 3% in 2025, due to booming defence expenditures in Europe and Asia, according to a report released Monday by a respected arms watchdog group.
European defense spending jumped 14% from 2024, to $864 billion, and in Asia-Oceania the increase was 8.1%, to $681 billion, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in its annual "Trends in World Military Expenditure" report quoted by CNN.
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