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How much should NATO spend on defence?

What % of GDP should NATO spend on defence?

  • 2%

  • 2.5%

  • 3%

  • 3.5%

  • 4%

  • 4.5%

  • 5%

  • 5.5%

  • 6%

  • 7%

  • 8%

  • 9%

  • 10%


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Quintillus

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A topic of much discussion since the summer.

Andrzej Duda (Poland) has said 3%. Hanno Pevkur (Estonia) has said 2.5 or 3%. Kyriakos Mitsotakis (Greece) said 2.5%. Bill Blair (Canada) said Canada must do more. Roger Wicker (R-MS, USA) said 5%. Source for numbers.

So what do you think? 2% is the current target and was agreed to in 2014, so I've set that as the baseline, as I haven't seen any serious suggestions of lower numbers over the past two years.
 
Those who border Russia tends to spend more, and want to spend more. Push huge spending, i.e. outright militarization of Europe, across the board and you will probably start seeing countries further removed leave NATO as the expense piles on, around 5% or so. (Which is a pretty ridiculous number, why not 10% when at it?)
 
For context, Russia is at 6.3% of GDP on defense. Israel is at 5.3%.

I don't think NATO needs to equal that or come close to it, but I think it does need to increase noticeably, as the pre-2022 status quo clearly was not enough to deter aggression. Probably 3 or 3.5% IMO. 3% would be my long term pick, but 3.5% may be necessary in the shorter term to replenish stockpiles and increase both naval and land capabilities.
 
The specific percentage is irrelevant, IMO...the bigger problem, from the US imperial perspective, is reforming the US military-industrial complex to be both more flexible and more capable of producing a greater volume of less sophisticated weapons systems.
 
From a purely Imperial perspective, the lack of a system that can reliably shoot down ICBMs is the issue. Presuming there actually is such a lack, and we have developed no weapons systems in secret(TR3b woo), the hard limit to the expression of power is nuclear deterrence.

A high-tech MIC makes sense if you take the long view, in which there is no certainty that direct conflict between great powers remains a really bad idea.
 
What's the tech slider set to? How much can NATO afford each turn before they're in the red?
In the spirit of Civ3, you should spend as much that the defense minister says "compared to these guys, we have a strong military!".
Drones and other cheap weapons are currently far more useful in confined settings. But a huge military industry can't be supported by that, when one airplane costs so much. Of course you won't be seeing nato sides using airplanes against Russia, unless we are in a planet-ending war.
First strike/war to end all wars didn't even make sense before missiles and nuclear weapons. Now it is just a slogan.
 
In the spirit of Civ3, you should spend as much that the defense minister says "compared to these guys, we have a strong military!".
Drones and other cheap weapons are currently far more useful in confined settings. But a huge military industry can't be supported by that, when one airplane costs so much. Of course you won't be seeing nato sides using airplanes against Russia, unless we are in a planet-ending war.
First strike/war to end all wars didn't even make sense before missiles and nuclear weapons. Now it is just a slogan.

I have been playing civ 3 again lol.
 
My first foray into the Civ franchise was actually a demo of Civ 3.
I clicked on a bunch of stuff and didn't know what was happening and quit like 5 minutes in.
That was before PC games really had in-game tutorials and most information you got from printed manuals that came in the box. And long before Steam.
 
A flat percentage for all NATO members is a bit silly, it depends on the size of you army and your GNP obviously, currently we spend around 1,2 % iirc, that is enough to order anything we might want for an army of less than 25k men, probably 7 billion per year.

We could try to double that, but then we’d have to pay all our soldiers several times what they earn now, they would be rich, immediately quit the service, buy a house in Ibiza and party all night long 😊
 
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I think it is the wrong question. The question is what defence should NATO have, and how should we go about getting that.

First, why link to GDP? Irelands GDP is inflated 'cos the Big Tech companies put their headquarters there. Does that man they need to spend more on defense? I know they are not in NATO, but the point stands.

Second, surely the question is what are we spending it on? The UK spent £52.8 billion is 2022/3, which is approaching 2%, but they spent most of that on ships that will be close to useless in an existential war, and a lot of the rest on foreign adventures. That does not help if the proverbial faeces hits the fan.

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NATO member states spending 2-2½% of GDP should be more than adequate, if spent wisely. It's still almost two thirds of Russia's entire annual GDP, or 5-6 times higher than China's defense budget.

Keep in mind that Russia's current defense spending, isn't being spent on primarily adding more capacity and more material, to what it already has. It's being spent to replace all the material that the Russian army is losing in Ukraine and excessive salaries and bonuses and they still can't keep up.

Also, a lot of the Russian funds allocated to defense and security, will never be used to that purpose except on paper. Instead, it disappears into pockets and bank accounts among Russian officers and the military-industrial bureaucracy, never to be spent on a single bullet or shell. Russia as well is China, are plagued by massive systemic corruption and it starts at the top.
 
Also, a lot of the Russian funds allocated to defense and security, will never be used to that purpose except on paper. Instead it disappears into pockets and bank accounts among Russian officers and the military-industrial bureaucracy, never to be spent on a single bullet or shell.
I do not think that is unique to Russia. Just last week:

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has initiated an investigation into allegations of bribery and corruption involving the multinational aviation and defence electronics group Thales.

The investigation has sparked parliamentary inquiries into its potential impact on the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD). Mark Francois MP, in a series of written questions, sought clarity on the implications for defence contracts and the use of Thales products by the MOD.

Link
 
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