Why does burden sharing matter? Equitable burden sharing among allies is not only a matter of principle, but it also has operational and even tactical implications. Without equitable burden sharing, the allies will quickly prove unable to meet their security commitments.

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How does NATO currently measure burden sharing? NATO relies on eleven metrics to measure burden-sharing, but it only releases information on two of these -- the amount of money each ally spends on defense as a percent of its GDP, and the percentage of each ally's defense budget spent on acquisition and related research and development.

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Is this the Defense Investment Pledge? Yes, these two 'input' measures formed the basis for the 2014 Defense Investment Pledge (DIP). The DIP was noteworthy not because allies had committed to the 2 percent/20 percent targets—in fact, the 2 percent target had existed for many years prior—but rather because the commitments were made by alliance heads of state and government. In the past, alliance defense ministers were the ones who had committed to the defense spending targets.

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Is there a problem with the DIP? In isolation, the DIP does not accurately reflect burden sharing within the alliance. For example, the DIP fails to consider allied contributions to current NATO operations or the degree to which allied forces are trained and ready for combat. In short, a more complete picture is needed to adequately measure transatlantic burden sharing.

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How can we better measure burden sharing? Because NATO only releases data on two of the 11 measures it tracks, we have to use proxy variables. Although NATO burden sharing is an inherently subjective and political issue, it makes sense to base an alternative set of measures on NATO’s three pillars of burden-sharing: cash, capabilities, and commitments (the "3 C’s”). The selection of the burden sharing variables included in the NATO Burden Sharing Project model were informed by existing scholarship, NATO strategic documents, and publicly available data sets. The project model includes six key variables, weighted as follows:

• Defense Expenditures as a Share of GDP = 0.25

• Defense Expenditures by Category = 0.15

• Troops Per Capita = 0.10

• Force Usability = 0.20

• Military Mobility (Force Deployability) = 0.10

• Current Operations Contributions = 0.20

The weightings were crowd sourced through an informal polling of NATO experts. To understand more about each of these, check out the Variables and Data page.

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Who's the audience for this? The NATO Burden Sharing Project hopes to provide a useful reference for policymakers, legislators, academics, journalists, and citizens interested in burden sharing within NATO. The project shows the contributions for each NATO member and the alliance as a whole. Each member's dashboard shows their ranking, force capabilities, defense expenditures, troops per capita, and other factors affecting their ranking.