by 11 of the 31 members of the alliance. uk prime minister rishi sunak is expected to urge nato allies to learn the lessons from russia s invasion of ukraine and invest more in defence. joining me now is hugo brennan, research director at the risk intelligence company verisk maplecroft. good morning to you, hugo. so, just talk us through the level of defence spending going on at the moment. because this has been a contentious issue for years within nato, hasn t it? it very much has been, yeah. i mean, the first thing to say is the question of who foots the bill to pay for the alliance? as you say, that s long been a question mark. you ll remember back to 2019, when donald trump made it very much top of the agenda. and again, it s going to be in this latest nato summit. as you said, we re expecting some sort of agreement that will make it a requirement for nato member states to spend at least 2% of their gdp on defence spending, which would build on that 2014 agreement you r
leave nato, saying, we foot the bill, at the end of the day no one else is putting any money in the pot. and this could become an issue going forward, couldn t it, depending on the outcome of the us election next year? firstly, eah - election next year? firstly, yeah - as election next year? firstly, yeah - as you election next year? firstly, yeah - as you say, - election next year? firstly, yeah - as you say, it- election next year? firstly, yeah - as you say, it is- yeah as you say, it is complicated. it s a question of prioritisation. if you look at european states, governments are trying to tackling high inflation. it s a tough sell to electorates to say actually, we need to curb spending on education or health and put it into defence spending. certainly pre russia invasion that s changed things a bit, as you said, with nearly all member states increasing their defence spending, with the germans introducing a 100 billion euro fund to fund the german military, aiming