Defense One: NATO Members’ Defense Spending, in Two Charts
The alliance’s easternmost members are ratcheting up their budgets as Russian threats loom.
Five NATO members are expected to meet the alliance’s 2 percent target for defense spending in 2015, according to data released on Monday.
Poland joins Britain, Estonia, Greece, and the United States as the only members of the 28-country alliance to meet the threshold.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg commended the change, but warned that total alliance spending will decline by roughly 1.5 percent this year.
Of the 28 countries, 18 are increasing their military spending in real terms, the data indicates. Still, alliance members will spend a collective total $892 billion on defense in 2015, down from $942 billion in 2014 and $968 billion in 2013.
Update: NATO’s Spending Slumber. The Alliance boosts staff benefits while Putin buys guns. -- WSJ
What I find funny/sad is that Greece is one of five NATO countries that meet the mark.
ReplyDeleteCatholic Dragon,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you can find something "funny" in this. When I first saw the chart, my first thoughts were I was "incredulous" at this and "Turkey." As in, as I understand it, Greece thinks they need to confront Turkey. Isn't Turkey a fellow NATO member?
If NATO fights against NATO, it would seem its usefulness is long over. I've long suggested the United States should withdraw from NATO. Such a situation as Greece trying to confront another NATO member or continuing to spend large amounts relative to its GDP on its military when it is bankrupt would seem rather stupid.
Frankly the citizens of some of the countries on this list have a better quality of life, more freedom, more choices available to them, and more opportunities for advancement that they take for granted and view as a birthright than most Americans would dare dream about would seem to suggest that America's military spending percentage of its GDP is rather insane.
With Greece's debt they can't possibly pay back in full it seems rather stupid to think they are somehow going to confront Turkey or anyone else for that matter
This has been going on for a long long time, at least since the 80's.
ReplyDelete