In Prague, a familiar tension between alliance obligation and domestic necessity has taken on new urgency. Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, facing direct pressure from Washington and NATO to raise defense spending toward 3.5% of GDP, has chosen instead to honor electoral promises to older, less affluent voters who prioritize pensions and healthcare over military budgets. His wager — that personal goodwill with Donald Trump and a pledge to reach 2% by 2027 will suffice — unfolds against a backdrop of documented Russian hybrid warfare and neighbors who have already surpassed the new NATO thres
Czech PM Balks at NATO Defense Spending Demands Despite Russian Threat
We don't want World War III, do we?
Mark
So Babis is saying he can't afford to spend more on defense. But his government just approved a massive budget with a huge deficit. How does that add up?
Mimi
It adds up if you understand what his coalition promised voters. Older, less affluent people who are skeptical of Ukrainian refugees. They want pensions, healthcare, education. Defense spending wasn't part of the campaign pitch. The math works if you accept that domestic politics trumps NATO pressure.
Luke
But we should be careful here. The budget is real—386 billion crowns, second-highest deficit ever. That's a choice. The question isn't whether they can afford defense spending. It's whether they're choosing not to.
Mark
And the Russian threat? That's real too, right? Bombings, cyber attacks, hybrid warfare across the region?
Mimi
Absolutely. Czechia experienced it directly in 2014 when Russia bombed a weapons depot. Babis expelled 100 diplomats over it. Intelligence agencies across Central Europe are warning the threat is growing. Poland and the Baltics are already spending 5% of GDP on defense.
Luke
But here's what we don't know: how much of Babis's resistance is genuine fiscal constraint versus political calculation. He says he can't afford it. His budget suggests otherwise. The real answer is probably that he won't afford it—because his coalition partners, especially the far-right SPD that controls the defense ministry, are pushing him the other way.
Mark
So he's trapped between NATO and his own government?
Mimi
Trapped between NATO, his coalition partners, and his voters. He's betting Trump will protect him anyway. That's the real gamble here.
Luke
And we should note: the previous government, the one that was pro-Ukraine, also didn't meet the NATO target. This isn't unique to Babis. But the difference is he's actively downplaying the threat while they're cutting spending. That's a different posture entirely.
The Pulse
- NATO's raised spending target of 3.5% of GDP arrived in Prague not as an abstraction but in the person of US envoy Matthew Whitaker, making the alliance's impatience impossible to ignore.
- Czechia's own history — a Russian FSB bombing on its soil, mass expulsions of Russian diplomats — makes its current complacency toward hybrid warfare threats all the more striking to regional observers.
- Babis's coalition, anchored by far-right partners who control the defense ministry and pushed to cut spending further, leaves him navigating between NATO loyalty and the anti-system language his governing majority demands.
- A 386-billion-crown deficit budget approved on September 22 channels new spending overwhelmingly into social programs, revealing where the government's true priorities lie regardless of its NATO rhetoric.
- While Poland and the Baltic States race toward 5% defense spending, Czechia's trajectory toward a modest 2% by 2027 widens a credibility gap that neither personal diplomacy nor peace-themed T-shirts can easily close.
In Prague, a familiar tension between alliance obligation and domestic necessity has taken on new urgency. Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, facing direct pressure from Washington and NATO to raise defense spending toward 3.5% of GDP, has chosen instead to honor electoral promises to older, less affluent voters who prioritize pensions and healthcare over military budgets. His wager — that personal goodwill with Donald Trump and a pledge to reach 2% by 2027 will suffice — unfolds against a backdrop of documented Russian hybrid warfare and neighbors who have already surpassed the new NATO threshold. The episode illuminates a recurring dilemma of democratic governance: how a leader reconciles the long horizon of collective security with the immediate demands of the people who placed him in power.
When US envoy Matthew Whitaker arrived in Prague to press Czechia on defense spending, Prime Minister Andrej Babis listened and declined. NATO had raised its collective target to 3.5% of GDP as Russian pressure on Central Europe intensified, yet Czechia — still short of the old 2% benchmark — had actually cut its defense budget upon taking office, landing at roughly 1.7%. Babis pledged to reach 2% by 2027 and offered nothing further, betting that his personal rapport with Donald Trump would absorb the diplomatic cost.
The gamble carried real risk. Russian hybrid warfare — drones, suspected bombings, cyber intrusions — had already alarmed the region, and Czechia knew the threat firsthand: in 2021 it revealed that Russian intelligence had bombed a Czech weapons depot years earlier, prompting the expulsion of nearly 100 Russian diplomats. Despite that history, Prague lagged far behind Poland and the Baltic States, which had already met the new NATO target and were aiming for 5% the following year.
The explanation lay in domestic politics. Babis's ANO party and its far-right coalition partners — including the Freedom and Direct Democracy movement, which held the defense ministry — had campaigned on social spending, not security. Their voters, older and skeptical of the support flowing to Ukrainian refugees, wanted pensions, healthcare, and infrastructure. The 2027 budget reflected those priorities, projecting Czechia's second-largest deficit on record while directing most new funds away from defense. As political scientist Ales Michal put it, the claim of fiscal constraint was 'primarily rooted in domestic politics.'
Critics noted the contradiction sharply. Opposition leader Martin Kupka welcomed Babis's stated NATO commitment before asking when he would remove what he called the 'Kremlin fifth column' from his own cabinet. Yet the previous center-right government had also fallen short of NATO targets despite its vocal support for Ukraine. Defense analyst Andor Sandor offered the most sober verdict: weak spending growth was not optimal, but the deeper problem was a lack of strategic clarity about what Czechia's military was actually for. The collision between alliance demands, Russian aggression, and a fractured coalition's political arithmetic, he suggested, would shape Czech security for years to come.
Matthew Whitaker, the US envoy to NATO, arrived in Prague last week with a direct message: the Czech Republic needed to spend more on defense. "We expect our allies to step up," he said. Prime Minister Andrej Babis heard him out, then said no.
The demand itself was not new. NATO had raised its defense spending target from 2% to 3.5% of GDP as Russian threats mounted across Central Europe. But Czechia, along with Slovenia and Albania, had not even met the old benchmark. When Babis's government took office late last year, it actually cut the defense budget to around 1.7% of GDP. The prime minister acknowledged that NATO membership remained essential for his country's security, but he was blunt about the limits: the government could not afford to accelerate spending. He pledged to reach 2% by 2027 and promised nothing beyond that.
The position put Babis in a precarious spot. He was betting that personal rapport with US President Donald Trump would shield Czechia from the fallout of this defiance. But the threat he was downplaying was real and growing. Russian hybrid warfare—stray drones, suspected bombings, sabotage, cyber attacks—had spread alarm across the region. Germany and Poland, both key Czech partners, had reported high-profile incidents and linked them to Russian attempts to intimidate Ukrainian allies. Czechia should have understood the danger better than most. In 2021, the country's Security Information Service revealed that Russia's Federal Security Service had bombed a weapons depot linked to Ukraine seven years earlier. Babis, then in his first term as prime minister, responded by expelling roughly 100 Russian diplomats and freezing relations with Moscow. Yet despite that history, and despite warnings from intelligence agencies across Central Europe that the Russian threat was intensifying, Prague had failed to keep pace with its neighbors. Poland and the Baltic States had already met the new NATO target and planned to reach 5% next year. Czechia spent just 1.86% of GDP on defense in the previous year.
The gap between Babis's stated commitment to NATO and his refusal to fund it adequately reflected a deeper political calculation. His government had approved a 2027 budget on September 22 that would expand spending generously, targeting Czechia's second-highest deficit ever at 386 billion Czech crowns—roughly 15.8 billion euros or 18 billion dollars. But most of that money would go to pensions, education, healthcare, and infrastructure, not weapons. These were the promises Babis's ANO party and its junior coalition partners—the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy party and the radical-right Motorists for Themselves party—had made during last year's election campaign. Their voters, older and less affluent, resented the support being given to roughly 300,000 Ukrainian refugees. None of the governing parties had campaigned on higher defense spending.
Ales Michal, a political scientist at Charles University in Prague, explained the dynamic plainly: "The claim that the country cannot spend more on defense is primarily rooted in domestic politics. The major priority is investment in the social system." Critics argued the government was downplaying the Russian threat to justify this choice. Two days after Whitaker's rebuke, Babis appeared in a video wearing a T-shirt printed with "No War" in blue and yellow letters. He acknowledged the threat from Russia but called for greater efforts to find peace. "We don't want World War III, do we?" he asked, repeating his argument that Europe should work harder to end the conflict in Ukraine. The performance echoed the stance of Europe's radical right wing and had earned Babis the label "pro-Russian" in some international media.
The reality was more complicated. Babis was a pragmatist navigating a fractured coalition. His ANO electorate was populist and skeptical of Ukraine, but also strongly pro-Western. Polls showed that keeping defense spending at 2% of GDP matched their views precisely. Yet his divisive personality meant the party depended on extremist partners for enough votes to govern, forcing him to speak the anti-system, pro-Russian language of the SPD—which controlled the defense ministry and had pushed to cut spending even further in the 2027 budget. "A critical stance towards Ukraine also shapes the government's position on spending," Michal said. The pro-peace stance, downplaying Russian aggression, moved ANO "closer to the European radical right," but Babis was "guided by opinion polls" and trying to find "a balance between two polarizing positions."
The opposition saw this contradiction as a fatal weakness. Martin Kupka, leader of the center-right Civic Democrats, welcomed Babis's reiterated NATO commitment before asking pointedly: "When will you get rid of the Kremlin fifth column, which you took into the government and even entrusted with the Ministry of Defense?" Yet the ODS-led government that had held office from 2021 to 2025, despite offering fervent support to Ukraine, had also failed to meet the NATO spending target. Andor Sandor, a defense analyst and former commander of Czechia's Military Intelligence Service, offered a more measured assessment. While weak defense spending growth "is not optimal," he told DW, the bigger issue was a lack of strategic understanding about the military's proper size and role. "Our partners may be unhappy about the approach to spending," Sandor said, "but it's the reality of the political situation in our country." That reality—the collision between NATO's demands, Russia's growing aggression, and the domestic politics of a fractured coalition—would define Czechia's security posture for years to come.
Notable Quotes
The claim that the country cannot spend more on defense is primarily rooted in domestic politics. The major priority is investment in the social system.— Ales Michal, political scientist at Charles University
Our partners may be unhappy about the approach to spending, but it's the reality of the political situation in our country.— Andor Sandor, defense analyst and former commander of Czechia's Military Intelligence Service
Want the full story?
Read the original at Deutsche Welle ↗