Department Of Defense Report On Allied Contributions To The Common Defense

This report responds to Congress' interest in the extent to which our principal allies are contributing their fair share of the effort to provide for our common defense. It analyzes various burdensharing indices and factors for the United States, our NATO allies and Japan, offers some conclusions as to recent and current performance, and describes what is being done to encourage the allies to do more. Our defense arrangements with members of NATO and with Japan rest on formal commitments, freely made by sovereign nations, to contribute by collective efforts to our common security. Alliances, like other agreements, remain healthy so long as they respond to shared national interests. These remain acceptable to members so long as risks and responsibilities are -- and are perceived as being -- equitably shared. The contributions of partners include both material (quantifiable) factors as well as intangible (e.g., political) factors, as when governments persevere in policies serving overall security interests in the face of competing domestic and international pressures. Keywords: Statistical data; Tables(Data).