
The U.S. Department of Defense is encouraged that NATO members are starting to reverse years of shrinking defense budgets, but more work is needed to ensure the recovery continues, a Pentagon official said July 13.Since the NATO summit in Wales in 2014, a majority of NATO allies have halted or reversed declines in defense spending, said Rachel Ellehuus, principal director for European and NATO policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. And in 2016, overall NATO defense spending…