Do you want Germany to raise military expenses?

[Pannonian]

This "NATO Mandate" thing is interesting and I always believed it. However, recently the German press and politicians wrote and said more about it and apparently there is no such mandate. I think it was Sigmar Gabriel who said there is no hhard spending requirement in any of the NATO contracts and in some article I read that there was only a conference in 2014 where the members loosely agreed to work towards a 2% goal by 2024 or thereabout. But even that was not binding. So what's this mandate all about?

There probably weren't firm guarantees that allied troops would fight to the death to protect West Germany either in the event of a Soviet invasion, only a promise to commit troops. So legally NATO could have skirmished for a token period before withdrawing back to France and nuking Germany to stop the Soviet advance. Would this have been against the spirit of the alliance? Aye, but do the legal details of the NATO contract demand anything more?