NATO’s laggards should take notice of a world grown more treacherous

[Boats]

NATO’s laggards should take notice of a world grown more treacherous
By:The Editorial Board - The Washington Post News - 09-01-23
Re: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...russia-canada/

Photo of the NATO Mob: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-ap...ized.jpg&w=691

NATO leaders pose for a group photo after the official welcome for the NATO summit in Madrid in June 2022. (Bernat Armangue/AP)

The United States and its Western allies have embarked on a campaign to beef up military preparedness, galvanized by the grave threat posed by Russia’s bloody invasion of Ukraine 18 months ago. Yet even as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s overall defense spending is surging, some of the alliance’s 31 member states are dragging their heels to meet what all acknowledge is a collective responsibility.

[Note: 74% percentage of people overestimate this key figure.]

The share of a NATO member country's GDP it agreed to spend on defense is just
only 2% percent – a quarter of what you may have imagined. In addition to new
weapons and soldiers' salaries, that defense spending includes pensions, exercises
and maintenance.

The laggards include several of NATO’s, and the world’s, wealthiest nations — Canada, Italy and Spain, to name three. The economic output of those three countries alone is nearly triple that of Russia. Yet each remains far from meeting NATO’s target of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product annually on defense — a goal all member countries agreed nearly a decade ago to reach by next year. What’s more, the alliance now regards that spending level as a minimum to address the mounting perils it faces.

The consequences of shouldering, or failing to shoulder, NATO’s spending burden are important both as geopolitical signaling and on-the-ground preparedness. As Vladimir Putin shifts the Russian economy to a war footing to sustain a campaign that could go on for years, the West needs to show it is marshaling its own much more significant resources for a long-term struggle. Falling short would only encourage the Kremlin’s bet that time is its ally.

The on-the-ground results of missing NATO’s spending target are just as grave. Canada, which has the world’s ninth-biggest economy, is an object lesson.

According to a secret Pentagon document obtained by The Post this spring, the Canadian Armed Forces themselves this year concluded that because of “enduring” defense spending shortfalls, Canada “could not conduct a major [military] operation” while simultaneously maintaining its aid to Ukraine and leading a battle group of a couple thousand troops in Latvia, a tiny NATO nation that borders Russia.

That flat-footed posture, and other problems with military readiness, recruitment and retention that Canadian officials have acknowledged, should be triggering alarms in Ottawa. In April, former senior Canadian military, security and intelligence officials and experts issued a dire warning to the government: “Years of restraint, cost cutting, downsizing and deferred investment have meant that Canada’s defense capabilities have atrophied,” they said in an open letter.

Canada’s miserly military outlays also leave it ill-equipped to help its U.S. partners defend the continent in the North American Aerospace Defense Command, known as NORAD. Ottawa also lacks muscle in the Arctic, where Russia and China are intensifying their activities.

Despite that, and despite strains with NATO arising from Canada’s shortfalls, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has told allies that Ottawa will never meet the alliance’s 2 percent defense spending target, according to the classified document, which The Post obtained after it was leaked to the Discord messaging app. It devotes just under 1.4 percent of its gross domestic product to military expenditures. The United States spends roughly 3.5 percent of GDP on defense.

Canada is not NATO’s only laggard; this year just 11 of the alliance’s 31 members will hit or surpass the 2 percent mark. Italy, with an economy slightly bigger than Canada’s, devotes only slightly more of its output to defense.

Ottawa has made substantial contributions to Ukraine’s defense and financial stability, and resettled tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees. But despite some major recent defense investments — Canada paid $19 billion for 88 U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets this year and is spending twice that much to modernize its NORAD capabilities, according to the defense ministry — other major NATO states are moving faster.

France, a nuclear power with formidable armed forces, has embarked on its biggest defense spending in a half-century, and is expected to hit the 2 percent mark in the next few years. Germany, for years a relative free-rider in NATO, last year announced a special $100 billion fund for additional defense spending over five years; it also boosted regular military outlays in the budget even as expenses were slashed in nearly every other category. Berlin is on target to meet the 2 percent threshold next year, although it will slip back once the $100 billion fund is exhausted.

Left to their own devices, most countries would opt to spend more on butter and less on guns. Russia’s aggression, as well as the growing challenge posed by China, has deprived the West of that luxury. Mr. Putin’s decision to start the biggest war in Europe in nearly 80 years, and the peril the Kremlin will represent for the foreseeable future, means Western nations have little choice but to rise to a daunting new challenge. The sooner all of them get that message, the better.

The Post’s View | About the Editorial Board:

Editorials represent the views of The Post as an institution, as determined through debate among members of the Editorial Board, based in the Opinions section and separate from the newsroom.

Members of the Editorial Board and areas of focus: Opinion Editor David Shipley; Deputy Opinion Editor Karen Tumulty; Associate Opinion Editor Stephen Stromberg (national politics and policy); Lee Hockstader (European affairs, based in Paris); David E. Hoffman (global public health); James Hohmann (domestic policy and electoral politics, including the White House, Congress and governors); Charles Lane (foreign affairs, national security, international economics); Heather Long (economics); Associate Editor Ruth Marcus; Mili Mitra (public policy solutions and audience development); Keith B. Richburg (foreign affairs); and Molly Roberts (technology and society).
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Personal note: 2% of GPD is a disgrace - the US has done a hell of a lot more "number
not shown" - but's it's a bundle. Why is we get sucked into the high end of all overseas
assistance - with others @ ~ 1.4% - little if any returns.
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How many NATO Nation's wasn't posted but it's a damn shame NATO support is so
tight with their funds - to match - or to even come close to our 3.5% GDP support
on defense.
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Next Post: Opinions on the war in Ukraine:
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Ottawa has made substantial contributions to Ukraine’s defense and financial stability, and resettled tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees. But despite some major recent defense investments — Canada paid $19 billion for 88 U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets this year and is spending twice that much to modernize its NORAD capabilities, according to the defense ministry — other major NATO states are moving faster.

France, a nuclear power with formidable armed forces, has embarked on its biggest defense spending in a half-century, and is expected to hit the 2 percent mark in the next few years. Germany, for years a relative free-rider in NATO, last year announced a special $100 billion fund for additional defense spending over five years; it also boosted regular military outlays in the budget even as expenses were slashed in nearly every other category. Berlin is on target to meet the 2 percent threshold next year, although it will slip back once the $100 billion fund is exhausted.

Left to their own devices, most countries would opt to spend more on butter and less on guns. Russia’s aggression, as well as the growing challenge posed by China, has deprived the West of that luxury. Mr. Putin’s decision to start the biggest war in Europe in nearly 80 years, and the peril the Kremlin will represent for the foreseeable future, means Western nations have little choice but to rise to a daunting new challenge. The sooner all of them get that message, the better.

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By: The Post’s View | About the Editorial Board

Editorials represent the views of The Post as an institution, as determined through debate among members of the Editorial Board, based in the Opinions section and separate from the newsroom.

Members of the Editorial Board and areas of focus: Opinion Editor David Shipley; Deputy Opinion Editor Karen Tumulty; Associate Opinion Editor Stephen Stromberg (national politics and policy); Lee Hockstader (European affairs, based in Paris); David E. Hoffman (global public health); James Hohmann (domestic policy and electoral politics, including the White House, Congress and governors); Charles Lane (foreign affairs, national security, international economics); Heather Long (economics); Associate Editor Ruth Marcus; Mili Mitra (public policy solutions and audience development); Keith B. Richburg (foreign affairs); and Molly Roberts (technology and society).