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Why NATO’s defense spending imbalance lasted for decades

This is part five of a series examining the challenges confronting the NATO alliance.For more than three decades, the U.S. carried the largest share of NATO's military burden while many European allies spent far less on defense than Washington wanted.The imbalance survived the Cold War, multiple U.S. administrations and repeated debates over burden sharing. Only in recent years — following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine and renewed pressure from President Donald Trump — have many NATO members begun significantly increasing defense spending.So why did the gap persist for so long?Defense anal...