Whenever NATO gets together, as they did at last week’s summit, you can count on a push for military spending increases. NATO’s official targets is 2% of every member nation’s GDP in military spending, and almost no nation is spending that much.
And there’s no need, according to German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, who instead of letting the NATO push go in one ear and out the other insisted publicly that there was no reason for her nation to so dramatically increase its military budget.
Germany already has one of the top 10 militaries on the planet, but with the fifth largest economy it spends only 1.4% of its GDP on that military. Von der Leyen insists that spending should be in line with what the military is doing, as opposed to some arbitrary NATO-imposed percent.
Since World War 2, Germany has nominally had a pacifist constitution, and while that didn’t stop them from sending troops to Kosovo or Afghanistan, the country remains skiddish about jumping too deeply into NATO military adventures.
They aren’t alone. Britain and France usually clear the NATO 2% goal by a bit, as does Turkey. The United States spends 4.4% of GDP on its gargantuan military, but that’s basically it. In 2013 Greece slipped above the 2% mark, but only because their GDP was plummeting in the midst of an economic crisis.
Germany’s 1.4% is actually in line with most NATO members’ actual percentages of spending, and most of the nations simply refuse to deficit fund the sort of military that will keep NATO’s leadership, and US arms exporters, happy.
"Von der Leyen insists that spending should be in line with what the military is doing, as opposed to some arbitrary NATO-imposed percent."
Woah someone has a brain. Did that 2% idea crawl out of McCain's brain of genius? Inquiring minds want to know?
NATO is just the marketing department of the US+EU defense industry.
… and sometimes other industrialists or businesses too, when it comes to the distribution of captured people-owned businesses of former socialist countries.
e.g. after the so-called German "Social democrats" (SPD) with chanceler Schroeder did bomb Yugoslavia (allegedly for "humanitarian" resons" ;-)) jointly with NATO into submission, they took over the press flag ship of Serbia, the newspaper POLITIKA.
The former chanceler minister Bodo Hombach became chief editor of this important newspaper in the Balkans and so could conduct any political project or any politician to be dropped away or put on top. Owner of the newspaper became the SPD-party-related WAZ-Mediengruppe. About 2 years ago they very profitable sold POLITIKA for 4 billions to a Russian company.
Till then, they could easily write their own "international press review" stating "… and the Serb newspaper POLITIKA means …."
What great, quite and well hidden neo-imperialism !
The point about US arms exports is important. Europe sees US imposition of US arms on NATO during the cold war as having wrecked whole sectors of European industry. Money will be more easily forthcoming if it is to spent on members own armaments industry. I could see a deal whereby the EU Member States buy from the EU armaments industry, the US, naturally, buys from its own industry and everybody else can choose. Arms supplied to Ukraine, Georgia or Moldova will be chosen by the country paying for them. Since most of those arms will be provided by the US, that will mean mostly American equipment (and an incitement to the US to foot most of the bill!). That way, everybody gets a slice of the cake and the EU economy could use the stimulation which extra military spending will bring.
There is also no need for NATO itself. Look at the map accompanying this article. You will see that nine nations have borders with Germany. Not one of those countries is the slightest threat to Germany (not that this stops the USA from keeping over 40,000 troops there). Who exactly are those American troops supposed to be defending Germans from?
Germany's MIC apparently has no where near the bribing power as America's MIC. Now, If Germany were to withdraw from NATO and tell them to go pack sand, my respect for them (which is already high) would skyrocket past the stratosphere..