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Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good

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June 26, 2025

News Quiz: Which NATO Member Spends the Most on Defense, as a Share of GDP?

As NATO wraps up the second and final day of its annual summit, leaders gathered in The Hague are set to raise their countries’ defense-spending levels to 5% of GDP, an increase agreed to on Sunday. It’s a priority for US President Donald Trump and the top item on NATO’s agenda (although questions about America’s future commitment to the alliance also loom large).
 
The US spends more money on defense than any other NATO country in total, but not as a share of GDP. Which NATO member spends the most, as a share of its GDP?
 
a) UK
b) France
c) Poland
d) Greece

Scroll down to see the answer …

Mission Not Accomplished in Iran?

An early US intelligence assessment suggested American strikes over the weekend had not completely destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities, as President Donald Trump has claimed, CNN reported.
 
Trump disputed that, insisting the US had achieved “total obliteration” of Iran’s nuclear program. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe said Iran’s nuclear facilities had been seriously damaged or destroyed. Although US–Iran talks will take place next week, as Trump noted, the president said he thinks a nuclear deal with Iran is now unnecessary.

In striking Iran and then forging a ceasefire, it’s not entirely clear whether Trump has secured a “quick win” or has committed the US to another Middle East “quagmire,” The Economist writes. “[T]his maddening uncertainty” over the state of Iran’s nuclear program after the US strikes “is not a bug—it is an inherent feature of this kind of air-war and bombing operation. And it highlights a deeply uncomfortable question. If Iran’s leaders cling to power and continue to pursue a clandestine nuclear programme, dealing with it will require America’s long-term military commitment to the region. Is it really up for it?”
 
Iran may be left isolated and weakened but enraged, which would present “a long-term military dilemma for Israel,” The Economist writes elsewhere. Israel has shown impressive military power in recent weeks, but it lacks the heft to act as a true regional hegemon. As for what happens next, that “points to negotiations [with Iran] from a position of strength.”
 
“For many in Israel, the euphoria shared by Israeli leaders and Trump has become a source of embarrassment,” Al-Monitor’s Ben Caspit writes. “Israeli defense sources who spoke with Al-Monitor agreed with the US assessments that the Iranian nuclear program had been set back and not destroyed.” The US strikes do not harbinger a permanent end to Iran’s nuclear program, one senior Israeli military official tells Caspit: “Since Trump is committed to preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, we will receive at least three and a half years of quiet, until the end of his term.”

Is Nuclear War More or Less Likely Today, vs Last Week?

Regardless of the damage level, some analysts have warned that US and Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear program could, paradoxically, make Iran more likely to obtain a nuclear bomb.

Getting one might take longer, the reasoning goes, but Iran has remained intentionally on the threshold of nuclear-weapons capability for a long time, as a way to deter enemies and gain geopolitical leverage with the implicit threat of building a nuclear weapon. The US and Israeli attacks could teach Iran’s leadership that having an actual bomb is the only way to keep enemies at bay, leading the theocratic regime to regather and refocus on building a bomb, likely in secret.
 
“[I]f the recent ceasefire holds and leads to further negotiations over the country’s nuclear future, Iran is unlikely to formally give up its ‘right’ to [uranium] enrichment, although it may be willing to accept limits,” Gary Samore, an arms-control coordinator in the Obama White House, writes in a Financial Times op-ed. “However, US and Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities could also drive Iran to withdraw from the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and ‘race’ to acquire nuclear weapons.” Iran is unlikely to try to rebuild its damaged facilities, Samore writes. “Instead, it is more likely to build a new enrichment facility in secret, using salvaged components and whatever spare centrifuges it has been able to hide from the [International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA].”
 
Others disagree. By joining Israel and striking Iran’s nuclear sites over the weekend, Trump made the spread of nuclear weapons throughout the world less likely, the Atlantic Council’s Matthew Kroenig argues in a Washington Post op-ed.
 
After the US strikes, it became clear to all that edging toward a nuclear bomb is a dangerous endeavor, Kroenig writes. Over the decades, the US “has gone to great lengths to stop the spread of nuclear weapons in the past by extending its nuclear umbrella to friends and pressuring adversaries. Israel’s efforts, however, have been more kinetic—bolt-out-of-the-blue strikes on nuclear reactors in Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007. Washington also bombed nuclear facilities as part of ongoing wars against Nazi Germany and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. But, until last week, the United States had never launched military strikes on the nuclear facilities of a country with which it was not at war. By bombing Iran, the U.S. has reset expectations.”
 
Still, some say the global nuclear-danger level is far too high—and rising.
 
As recently as 2009, nuclear weapons looked “superfluous,” nuclear-security scholars Vipin Narang and Pranay Vaddi write for Foreign Affairs. The Cold War had ended, nuclear nonproliferation treaties were intact, and the nature of conflict had gravitated toward America’s global counterterrorism campaign and conventional wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
 
Now, things are different. Some key US–Russia nuclear nonproliferation agreements were scrapped during Trump’s first administration, and the US “now faces a Category 5 hurricane of nuclear threats,” Narang and Vaddi write. “After decades of maintaining only a minimal nuclear capability, China is on pace to nearly quintuple its 2019 stockpile of some 300 nuclear warheads by 2035, in a quest to attain an arsenal equivalent in strength to Russia’s and the United States’. Far from being a partner in arms reductions, Russia is using the threat of nuclear weapons as a shield for its aggression in Ukraine. Meanwhile, North Korea continues to expand its arsenal, which now includes missiles capable of hitting the continental United States.” Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan scuffled over an attack in Kashmir earlier this year, raising nuclear anxieties.
 
“Never before has the United States had to deter and protect its allies from multiple nuclear-armed great-power rivals at the same time,” Narang and Vaddi write. “Like Russia, both China and North Korea may integrate nuclear weapons into offensive planning, seeking a nuclear shield to enable conventional aggression against nonnuclear neighbors.” Because of that, the US needs to develop stronger nuclear capabilities and better strategies for deterring nuclear rivals, Narang and Vaddi argue: “Given the scale of the problem, nuclear concerns can no longer be treated as a niche issue managed by a small community of experts. Officials at the highest levels of government will need to incorporate them into core defense policy in each of the major theaters of vital interest to the United States.”

Why Bukele’s Draconian Model Might Not Spread

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, rose to popularity by largely quashing his country’s formerly astronomical levels of gang violence. His methods have included, notably, a state of emergency and mass detentions of young men without due process. Given Bukele’s political and security successes, analysts have been asking for years: Will his draconian model spread to other countries?
 
Probably not, international-relations professor Oliver Stuenkel of Brazil’s Getulio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo argues in a Foreign Policy op-ed.
 
“The presidents of Honduras and Ecuador have emulated parts of Bukele’s playbook by declaring states of emergency and suspending constitutional rights to crack down on crime,” Stuenkel writes. “Policymakers from the Dominican Republic and Honduras have drawn inspiration from the Bukele administration’s approach to fighting gangs.”

That said, Stuenkel writes: “Despite all the hype, it is unlikely that other Latin American governments will fully implement Bukele-style policies, as some forecasted. Right-wing politicians in the region more often allude to Bukele as a talking point to burnish a tough-on-crime image than as an actual blueprint for policy.” There are four main reasons for this, Stuenkel writes: El Salvador is unique, due to its small size; its gangs are weaker than other Latin American cartels; Bukele’s policies have dented Salvadoran democracy; and “predictions that Bukele’s approach will spread across Latin America are often based on the assumption that violence in the region is getting worse,” which is only true in some countries.

News Quiz:

The Answer Is …

Poland spends the most on defense among NATO countries, as a share of its GDP—followed by Estonia, the US, Latvia and Greece.

Image credit: NATO

In 2014, nudged by US President Barack Obama and facing a newly aggressive Russia—which had seized Crimea and backed pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine months earlier—NATO member states agreed to a new, nonbinding defense-spending target of 2% of GDP. (The new, just-agreed-to 5% target is similarly nonbinding, described by NATO countries in a joint declaration as a “commitment.”)

Since then, NATO countries’ defense spending has differed along two loose divides: size and geography.
 
There are exceptions, but NATO’s larger economies and historic military powers (the US, UK and France) generally spend more heavily than smaller ones, as a share of GDP. NATO members in the former Eastern Bloc, closer to Russia and more vulnerable to its potential aggression, also spend more than many of their Western, Southern and Northern European counterparts. (Spain, NATO’s smallest defense spender by share of GDP, is opting out of the new 5% commitment.)
 
“It’s absolutely necessary,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said today at the NATO summit, of spending more on defense. “We have to spend as much money for defense as NATO countries spent during the Cold War. … You see the threat of Russian potential aggression, you see the Russian imperialist policy.” Last month, the EU approved Poland’s plan to repurpose nearly €6 billion in leftover Covid-relief funding for defense.
 
Further highlighting NATO’s east-west divide, Estonia—which ranks second to Poland in defense spending by GDP share—has emerged in recent years as another strong voice for heavier NATO defense spending and a tougher line on Russia. John Haltwinger and Rishi Iyengar write for Foreign Policy’s weekly Situation Report security digest: “Estonia sees itself and other NATO members in close proximity to Russia’s borders as the alliance’s front door. … It therefore comes as no surprise that Estonia is one of the biggest cheerleaders for NATO’s new 5 percent defense spending goal—portraying the ambitious objective as long overdue. ‘Europe has been like a lazy, fat cat not doing anything with the defense. Even after 2014, when Russia invaded Ukraine, nothing happened. Some sanctions, but no reaction,’ Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna told SitRep at the NATO summit. Tsahkna said NATO should have moved in this direction a decade ago. ‘But finally, we’re here,’ he said.”