President Donald Trump criticized Spain for not agreeing to new defense spending targets adopted by NATO and suggested the country could face tariffs twice as high from the US.
Trump stated that the US is negotiating a trade deal with Spain and threatened to make them pay twice as much, which caused Spain's benchmark stock index to extend its losses.
Spanish officials dismissed Trump's tariff threat, emphasizing that the European Commission handles trade matters for the EU and that individual member states don't negotiate trade deals on their own.
French and UK nukes, maybe EU nukes. Focus on strong Anti-Air, Anti-Missile and Drone capacities and Missiles/long range Artillery for instance.
Which needs good infrastructure investments, good education investments and good social security to protect local consumption. All these points will be jeopardized by spending on military instead.
The war in Ukraine shows that a land invasion in the 21. Century does not go well without massive troops and massive losses. Meanwhile EU countries paid more money for Russian Oil and Gas since the full scale invasion than Ukraine received in aid. If the EU had invested more in renewable energies that would have helped Ukraine by never filling the Russian war chest in the first place.
If the products are needed and the spending is efficient. Something that at least for Germany has often not been the case and very little showed for absurd amount of spending.
Which countries specifically at which times? UK and France have been invading and occupying well into the 60s and projecting military power in “friendly occupations” to steal resources until today, e.g. see West Africa.
For Germany i found the highest spending to GDP ratio at almost 5% in the 50s and 60s in western Germany. At that time western Germany was bankrolled by the US to ensure a “bullwark” against Communism. This would not have been possible standing on its own feet.
Russia is already invading. That is why they spending is so high. They do hope to finance it later by taking Ukrainian resources. If you think we should mimic Russia, whose resources should pay for our armies? Ukraine? Or should we invade Russia to secure their resources?
EDIT: Also we must not forget that the EU has almost triple the population of Russia. To defend against a possible Russian threat requires more EU unity and integration, rather than more individual military spending. But for such an integration you need to invest politically, economically and socially.
You can’t rely on another country starting a nuclear war to protect your country’s territorial integrity. And would you really want to use nuclear weapons in response to a conventional attack? It would in effect render the planet uninhabitable for humans for a long while.
Spending inefficiencies are an issue that would need to be addressed, and spending and industrial capacity would need to be increased gradually.
I was wrong. Sweden was at 4% for a little while in the sixties.
I don’t think we should mimic Russia. I think we should help the Ukraine defend itself, so that Russia’s way of doing things doesn’t pay off. I also think that we should have a credible conventional defense for when they’re done in the Ukraine and start invading the Baltic countries. In order to do this, spending has to increase.
Ideally, spending, R&D, and manufacturing should be coordinated across the EU. This is however not realistic. The EU can’t even agree on increasing sanctions. Euro sceptics are the largest party in Germany, France, and Italy. And they’re becoming more and more popular everywhere. A credible defense seems difficult without European integration, but I don’t think it’s something we can rely upon.
To add: The way the current “aid” for Ukraine is structured the ugly truth is: no matter which side wins the war - they will break apart and sell Ukraine in chunks.
Russia is obvious to most, but the western aid is not free of charge either (as is projected so often). They will take their aid agencies and carve up the most important industries Ukraine has: Agriculture, some mining and High-purity neon gas for chip producion. The golden straight jacket. Is it better than getting conquered by Russia: YES. We are not the saintly helpers our leaders would want us to think we are.
The US and the EU WILL be recuperating their costs from the ukrainian people. There will be an economic plundering akin to Greece - even if they win.