So, European NATO members have finally been dragged, kicking and screaming, into living up to their treaty commitments on defence – and, boy, aren’t the legacy media mad. In fact, for the first time in their post-war history, Europe is showing that it’s not going to simply hide behind the USA’s apron strings while thumbing its nose behind America’s back.
Each member of the alliance has committed to spending five per cent of their GDP on defence, up from a current target of two per cent. An analysis of NATO’s published figures suggests that would mean an extra $2.52 trillion a year, up from the $1.85 trillion a year that its member states – including the US – spend now.
That amount is roughly equal to the entire GDP of Spain, a member of the alliance that is known for spending little on defence and refusing the target.
In other words, they’re feckless moochers who should have been thrown out of the alliance years ago.
The only reason the EU is having to lift its defence spend so dramatically is because it has decades of neglect to make up for. Instead of providing for their defence, EU nations relied on America to do the heavy lifting, while they squandered their fortunes on cradle-to-grave welfare and importing the Third World.
Governments around the world agreeing to the change will need to make some tough decisions in the context of other budget pressures, says Euan Graham, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
“How the government cuts the pie of the tax take is going to require hard, hard decisions,” Graham says.
The UK, for example, which has agreed to hit the five per cent target by 2035, is slashing foreign aid to pay for its additional $155 billion defence spending bill.
“That is not an announcement that I am happy to make,” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said of the change.
Note that: Starmer is unhappy that he has to spend more money on defending his own citizens than pouring rivers of welfare down the gullets of mendicant third-world grifters. The horror of it: the tinpot dictators of Bananaland will have to cut back the number of Rolls Royces in their private collections! No more transgender operas for Derkaderkastan!
Other countries lifting their spending to meet the new target include Germany, France and Italy. They will need to boost their annual spending by $220 billion, $153 billion and $135 billion, respectively.
Earlier this month, [NATO secretary general Mark Rutte] warned NATO members that if they didn’t pledge to up defence spending to five per cent, “you’d better learn to speak Russian”.
But Spain, which spent just 1.3 per cent of its GDP on defence last year, refused the increase. The extra spending would force the country to “drastically raise taxes on the middle class, or severely cut the size of our welfare state,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said.
Then boot them out of the alliance and let them squeal.
But what’s really got the Age clutching its pearls is how much this is exposing Australia’s reckless neglect of its own defence.
The NATO agreement could see Australia dragged further into the debate over defence spending by bolstering the Trump White House’s argument that US allies can spend more on defence. US Defence Secretary Peter Hegseth has told Australia to increase defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP, which the Albanese has pushed back against in favour of its plan to lift expenditure to 2.3 per cent […]
Rabobank senior strategist Ben Picton said the debate was about “guns or butter”...
No, it isn’t. It’s about defence or welfare.
“The Australian government is faced with choices between increasing the defence budget to expand capability or increasing spending on social programs like the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), aged care, and childcare,” Picton said in a research note this week […]
But Graham says Australians would understand a cut to services – like the NDIS – if the government was “honest about the nature of the threat” posed to national security.
The Albanese government? Honest? Now, that’s a good one.
