This is John Batchel, a conversation with colleague Judy Dempsey in Berlin for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,

reflecting on the recent NATO meeting at the Hague.

The question raised about Spain getting a waiver and stepping back from the commitment for 3.5% of GDP,

another 1.5% for cyber, 5% by such and such a date.

I asked Judy about that waiver. Her response is complex. It has to do with expectations, aspirations, and Spain.

Here's Judy Dempsey on NATO and its dollar commitment, monetary commitment, accounting a commitment to secure Europe from the depredations of someone who's acting like a barbarian,

but is, in fact, the Russian Federation.

More of this later.

It's about having peace of mind inside NATO.

It's about not rocking the boat.

It's about trying to keep the NATO consensus strong.

And a waiver, I mean, there's all sort of waivers. Frankly, John,

we don't know what other kind of waivers or little concessions were made to some of the other member

states. I mean, Spain isn't the only one that isn't going to meet the 5% target. There are other

countries as well. And so frankly, for the

interests of NATO, and especially when President Trump did fly over to the capital of the Netherlands

for the recent NATO summit, they papered it over and kept everything quiet and gave the waiver to Spain.

And time is needed on the part of Madrid,

which is very convoluted politics and very unstable politics

that swings from center to left to right,

just let things settle, just get on with it and keep it quiet for the moment.