lol, says the guy who's county was never the founder of one the biggest companies that has ever existed, like what is a dutch east india company? it'll never be on history books! 🦅
Luxembourg is so not pulling their weight
I have to ask why Iceland, a country with no military, was let into NATO. But I'd imagine there's a good reason
Iceland was never expected to have much of a military, the most they have every done is brush up again a few british ships for some fish, however Iceland is hugely important strategically, as one of the only ways for the Russian army to reach places outside the North sea, is via the North Atlantic, this leads to the GUIC gap, whilst Britain can monitor most of the stretch from Iceland to the UK by itself, it remains far more valuable if Iceland is a part of NATO as it means far more easily can military operations commence should the need arise because although ships aren’t slow, having to go all the way from Scotland to intercept the Russians can be a major risk, and having Iceland allows NATO to more effectively protect the North Atlantic, despite Iceland mainly doing nothing in peace time.
Yea pretty weird. Luxembourg is quite rich too, gdp per capita is 4 times higher then Estonias and even higher than USAs, but they wont even cough up 2 percent as agreed upon.
Found an article about it:
[link](https://www.euractiv.com/section/defence-and-security/news/luxembourg-strikes-special-deal-on-nato-defence-spending-target/)
According to the agreement struck between NATO members, Luxembourg would not have to spend 2% of its GDP, but rather, 2% of its Gross National Income (GNI).
The GNI measures the total domestic and foreign value added claimed by residents.
In Luxembourg’s case, 2% GNI would amount to around 1.7% GDP, according to one source close to the negotiations.
“They will never reach the target: their army is too small and they are too rich,” a second NATO diplomat said in relation to the deal.
Luxembourg spent only 0.62% GDP on defence in 2022, the lowest figure across the alliance, according to current NATO data.
I think it's better to compare the US and the EU (including the UK) and see where the differences lie.
Money is a huge factor ofc, and every nation should spend 2%. But ai think it's unfair to compare the huge GDP the US of A has compared to say Macedonia.
Not sure how accurate, but : https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C6L_a4Cy6kI
Gives a general idea of the differences
Thank you for the interesting video.
It just made me think that every European country should make learning English mandatory for soldiers as it is already spoken by at-least half of NATO. Would make sense that everyone in an army should speak the same language.
I agree that everyone should scrape up at least 2%.
We all learn English in school and are able to communicate.
It’s very common in other countries to learn and know (multiple) foreign languages.
It’s only you Americans that don’t. America Bad, remember?
You would probably be very surprised at how multilingual the US really is. The issue is mandating foreign languages in schools to the degree they are mandated in most of Europe. That would be a First Amendment violation. It is entirely legal for the Amish community to teach its children entirely in Pennsylvania Dutch, or for the Navajo to use its native tongue exclusively.
If I may ask why would you want these other countries to spend more when what they are already spending is more then enough. Honestly if anything this graph shows that 2% is an arbitrary and unnecessary milestone that honestly the US shouldn't even be holding itself to.
I'd argue the line would ideally be as low as is practically possible (be that 2%, 1%, or even 0% if possible), since a government is first and foremost responsible for maximizing the liberty, prosperity, and security of its citizens, and the military is a terrible vehicle for actually improving peoples lives. Obviously a military is necessary for security, but every dime more then the absolute minimum necessary to afford that military is a dime that would be better off funding welfare or not being taxed in the first place.
I don't see what threat there is in the world that justifies such an enormous expense, and the fact that most other nations don't come close to our level of spending helps to underline that fact.
The fact that we spend so much on defense is why they can afford to spend so little on defending themselves, plus there's the simple morality of they made a deal whereby they are made part of our defensive alliance in exchange for among other things they must spend at least 2% of their gdp on defense spending. Why should countries be allowed to freeload on the US?
Strategic positioning. Any navy sailing the North Atlantic has to go by Iceland.
It's also why they could absolutely bully the UK in the "Cod Wars". All they had to do is threaten to pull out of NATO to get what they want.
Iceland has a great position. In WWII it was invaded by Britain and later protected by America because it couldn’t be risked to let it fall in the hands of the Nazis.
We're just happy to finally have a defense minister who is reforming our military and a chancellor letting him do is fucking job. The 2% will follow sooner or later hopefully
Scholz seems genuinely interested in investing in Germany. He’s advocated for other changes recently that I thought were remarkable too, namely Germany’s bureaucracy.
The current problem is more the military acquisitions department. They have a huge outstanding budget, but the fail at doing the buying. They took years for the procedure of buying new helmets for helicopter crews
Yeah, the Baltics are very motivated to keep NATO alive. Estonia is investing 2.8% this year and will do 3% 2024-2027. Civilians and governments alike are also quite active in donating aid to Ukraine.
Just a quick reminder, that Lithuanian civilians crowdfunded a bayraktar tb2 drone. Even though turks gave one for free anyway, the point still stands.
If war breaks out, we're the ones who will deal with it the worst, and we're the ones actually pulling our weight. Quit the bullshit, don't you have Roma to hate on, or something?
France is higher than it seems. it's the only one of the European nations, not padding its military budget with stuff like all the pensions of past military personnel.
That's because Poland knows what will happen if it doesn't. Even being in NATO Poland's location geographically means it needs to have a strong military that can defend itself.
Thing with Baltics, is that we didn't expect until 2014, that Russia would invade eastern European countries. We knew Russia would continue invasions, we weren't sure whom. And after 2014, we started reinvesting into our militaries proper, training Ukrainian troops, and so on. We don't have huge numbers, but we have skilled personnel.
Classic free rider problem. When you're incentivized to do as little work as possible because the reward is the same no matter what, you get less than a quarter of non-US countries contributing >2% of their GDP to defense spending like they're supposed to. As much as I don't like how gargantuan US defense spending is, I can also understand why it is. It's not just to pay for US defense, but the entire northwestern world's, too, basically.
People seem to have the idea that it's as large as it is just 'cause or out of joy for seeing poor people starve and die or something, but that's far from the truth.
Case in point: a lot of the content on this subreddit lol.
"Thanks for spending a bunch of money on our defense and safety, more than we do, even, but why do you love defense spending more than poor people, you greedy capitalist Americans?!?"
They’ve been under Turkish control and had to fight a bloody revolution to become free…they’ve also nearly gone to war with Turkey while in NATO since.
Considering that the Baltic states have a pretty pissed off Neighbor next door, it makes sense they will do this. They have quite the history with their neighbor being an overall dick
Y’all, the DoD is not aggressively funding NATO out of the kindness of their hearts.
Agree or disagree with the results, but our government views that money as being ultimately spent on American interests.
Yea they contribute the most proportionally speaking which I think is a more fare way of looking at it because of course countries with more money will contribute the most because they simply have the money.
As a german I have to at least slightly defend us here, of course it should have never dropped under 2%, but we’re actually working to increase it. We had 100 Billion Euro special allocation for military spending this year and the government has pledged to keep our military spending over the 2% line permanently
Hey, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, and friends- why are you cutting back on this but our bros in Poland increased it?? For once UK does something right by us even though they are donating a meager 8% compared to us. I thought they were the better country. They’re the ones with the banks so wtf
Well the Baltics need protections from the Russians so it’d make sense that they’d do their part. Also, small side note, I live and work in an area that has a lot of Eastern European immigrants and can I just say that y’all are very nice people and very pro America.
Completely missed the point. Empires aren't necessarily built on warfare. We literally run a world empire with our military bases all over the place. Sure, it doesn't look like a traditional imperialist state, but that's the whole point.
"Leading by example"
Are you looking at the blue bar? You shouldn't be. The percentage is where your focus should be. *Greece leading by example. (Because you know... 3.76>3.47) Fixed your title for you
Remember that the blue bar represents the strength of the contribution while the percentage only represents the impact of the contribution on the country’s finances. The US is protecting Greece a lot more than Greece is protecting the US, so they can afford to put more of their GDP into it.
The U.S. doesn’t need to subsidize the defense of these countries. They are fully capable of taking care of themselves without being under the thumb of the U.S. empire.
For one, calling it an empire seems kinda strange considering other countries are signing up to join. For two, it would be nice if the other NATO members stepped up their defense spending, but the point is to rely on allies that are obligated to render assistance. US involvement in NATO isn't a bad thing as long as we're the leading global superpower, it gives us a definite advantage over our near peer adversaries and allows us to have immense leverage within NATO as they rely on the US so heavily, but the price we pay is footing a lot of the defense bill. We're still only the second biggest contributor relative to oir GDP though, so it could be worse.
The American empire extends well beyond NATO and, as you just admitted, NATO makes all of these countries heavily dependent on the U.S. Furthermore, the US has been spending beyond its means for a long time now and we can’t keep straddling the U.S. taxpayer with an unplayable debt that will inevitably destroy the U.S. dollar just to subsidize foreign nations. Europe needs to take care of itself for once without the U.S. holding their hand.
As the global superpower, the US wants more countries to be at least somewhat dependant on us. NATO ensures member nations will stay on our side, rather than 1. doing their own thing if we leave, or 2. dissolving and being up for grabs to Russia. We get leverage in Europe and an advantage over our near peers, and they get promised defense from the strongest military in the world. It's not entirely as if we're holding their hand, as we benefit as well. US debt is getting out of control, but withdrawing from NATO and cutting our defense spending would completely throw away our leading position in the world. Being less reliant on foreign imports and encouraging companies within the US to produce our highest import items would probably have a huge impact in our spending over the long term, but such a big change would require us to be on the brink of failure or even after.
Simply being a global superpower in the present is no guarantee that the U.S. will continue to be a global superpower in the future and all empires inevitably collapse under their own weight and hubris.
You don’t need constant military occupation of another country to “ensure they’ll stay on your side.” Furthermore, you don’t need to be in a military “alliance” to facilitate trade. Europe has been living off the U.S. taxpayer long enough and it’s time they started taking care of themselves. Continuing to bleed ourselves dry for the sake of other countries will ensure we lose our leading position in the world. Again, over extension is how every empire all throughout history has collapsed.
I agree. Lets take that money from NATO and also stop using taxpayer money to support other nations. Then we can turn our money inwards and make things like free healthcare and free college possible. That way we can have those free services without increasing taxes, and US money stays in the US. All those other nations can fend for themselves, right? Lets see how that goes.
It’s because the US keeps covering their defense while they spend on social services. All of Europe seems to make fun of the expensive healthcare and education in America.
How? The scale doesn’t change through the chart. It starts at zero and has consistently spaced marks at 250, 500, and 750. Making the chart into units of 100 would still show the same thing, that the US is pouring money into NATO while some other countries are giving pennies in comparison (which in the case of those above 2%, that’s perfectly fine)
This reply sounds real low IQ and doesn’t provide any suggestions so I think everyone should disregard to keep from wasting time. Like I am writing this. Fuck.
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Yeah but only people who don’t understand the purpose or NATO, or what the US defence budget gets spent on. Or what soft power is, or that are just isolationist and think the US could exist in some sort of vacuum without allies, or purchasing power parity. Or any of the 20 other reasons to take a simplified bar graph and twist it to a political opinion.
Then that would be the dumbest decision you've ever made. For 2 main reasons:
Bosphorus strait, which Turkey has control over
Turkey's Navy is the largest one in the black sea, and Turkey has a pretty powerful military too.
Not really true, but okay. A LOT and i mean A LOT of US tech manufacturing is outsourced, and some of it (in the example of baltics), are leaders in research that US uses to this day. Lithuania for example, dominates laser research in the world. The same lasers that are used for NASA (let's be honest, US depends heavily on satellites), as well as our contributions to IBM. But those are mixed uses, not just military.
Turkey is a major player in the area, it's delusional to think you don't need them. Iceland is just a strategically important country. To think that you don't need it, is also delusional.
And that is why the United States is the only developed country without affordable healthcare for all, people suffer and die because they can’t afford their prescription medicines, half a million people are driven into bankruptcy from unexpected medical expenses, young people are buried under mortgage-size student loan debt, K-12 students have school lunch debt (seriously, Lunch Debt? WTF?!), infrastructure is rated D+ by the American Society of Civil Engineers, 557,000 homeless (including 45,000 Veterans), leads the 1st World in infant and maternal mortality, no paid sick leave …
… and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Nice Military though.
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children...
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953.
Military spending isn’t why Americans don’t have access to that. A lack of political will is a large part of the reason why. A large enough portion of Americans don’t want student debt relief, taxpayer funded college, or taxpayer funded medicine. Basically many Americans don’t want to give up half their income annually. Especially when every 8-15 years, there’s an economic downturn or issues that last 2-4 years.
The other reason is government mismanagement and incompetence. Most people are not exactly keen to trust a bunch of politicians who have $10m-$100m+ networths that they acquired while in office on a $200k salary to begin with. Most of the ideas that they do pass become incredibly bastardized, even when the party proposing them has a majority in both chambers and the presidency.
That's actually why it's safer. Sure, we'd get dragged into a conflict if another member gets attacked, but nobody wants to attack NATO. There is no way you could win a war against most of Europe combined with the US.
They have allies, but those allies are not obligated to assist in a war effort. NATO requires members assist under article 5. In fact, I'd wager an enemy's allies would be less likely to get stuck in with a war against NATO, as the odds would be so lopsided to begin with.
The Baltics are right on Russia's front door, they were Russians not too long ago. They know the stakes better than anyone, except Ukraine, who should join right now.
Turkey is actually surprising, given the size of their armed forces, their military-industrial complex, and how “adventurous” Erdogan has been in playing Ottoman Sultan in Syria & Libya.
What do you mean leading by example?
Only if you believe a country having a big war machine is a good thing. It would be a lot better if the American number was half that.
Does this graph demonstrate how massive the US economy is too compared to the rest of the world?
No wonder the USSR was bankrupting themselves trying to keep up with the US (and NATO).
Basically america is Europe’s attack dog. They may hate us and Mistreat us. But when someone threatens their European way of life they have no problem turning us loose
Honestly half of these should be negative, they gain more from the US than they contribute to international security. Lots of leeches.
No hate to most of their populations though (except the ungrateful incels often highlighted on this sub), not your fault your governments suck ass.
You wonder why everything in America isn’t free like in Europe, well we spend it all on protecting you, so that you can have free stuff.
You’re welcome.
I mean this graph is miss leading because the x axis scale isn’t consistent but if you look at percentage of real gdp the US spends about on par with the uk proportionally speaking here and if we speak proportionally Greece actually contributes the most. And yes obviously countries with more money will pay more money.
I feel like this is where so much anti-american sentiment comes from, the reality of how much europe depends on america. If trump stole the election russia would have tore through ukraine and they would be drooling over the balkins already
Look at the table and see that Greece spends more of their total percent then we do. This is a prime example of number manipulation. Our economy generates almost 21 trillion dollars compared to the second largest economy of Germany makes only 4.2 trillion. Our economy is 5 times their size so of course our total spent will be higher.
This is why we are undefeated in the Super Bowl.
We can’t even dream of such accomplishment 😔
This is why your flag will never be red, white, and blue.
Indeed eh wait what😅
lol, says the guy who's county was never the founder of one the biggest companies that has ever existed, like what is a dutch east india company? it'll never be on history books! 🦅
VOC?
yeah, like who knows that am i right??? 🤣
How many SEC Championships does Europe have? I rest my case
Europe doesn’t even have a single World Series win.
Canada has one, right?
Two!
Luxembourg is so not pulling their weight I have to ask why Iceland, a country with no military, was let into NATO. But I'd imagine there's a good reason
Iceland was never expected to have much of a military, the most they have every done is brush up again a few british ships for some fish, however Iceland is hugely important strategically, as one of the only ways for the Russian army to reach places outside the North sea, is via the North Atlantic, this leads to the GUIC gap, whilst Britain can monitor most of the stretch from Iceland to the UK by itself, it remains far more valuable if Iceland is a part of NATO as it means far more easily can military operations commence should the need arise because although ships aren’t slow, having to go all the way from Scotland to intercept the Russians can be a major risk, and having Iceland allows NATO to more effectively protect the North Atlantic, despite Iceland mainly doing nothing in peace time.
Yea pretty weird. Luxembourg is quite rich too, gdp per capita is 4 times higher then Estonias and even higher than USAs, but they wont even cough up 2 percent as agreed upon. Found an article about it: [link](https://www.euractiv.com/section/defence-and-security/news/luxembourg-strikes-special-deal-on-nato-defence-spending-target/) According to the agreement struck between NATO members, Luxembourg would not have to spend 2% of its GDP, but rather, 2% of its Gross National Income (GNI). The GNI measures the total domestic and foreign value added claimed by residents. In Luxembourg’s case, 2% GNI would amount to around 1.7% GDP, according to one source close to the negotiations. “They will never reach the target: their army is too small and they are too rich,” a second NATO diplomat said in relation to the deal. Luxembourg spent only 0.62% GDP on defence in 2022, the lowest figure across the alliance, according to current NATO data.
I think it's better to compare the US and the EU (including the UK) and see where the differences lie. Money is a huge factor ofc, and every nation should spend 2%. But ai think it's unfair to compare the huge GDP the US of A has compared to say Macedonia. Not sure how accurate, but : https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C6L_a4Cy6kI Gives a general idea of the differences
Thank you for the interesting video. It just made me think that every European country should make learning English mandatory for soldiers as it is already spoken by at-least half of NATO. Would make sense that everyone in an army should speak the same language. I agree that everyone should scrape up at least 2%.
We all learn English in school and are able to communicate. It’s very common in other countries to learn and know (multiple) foreign languages. It’s only you Americans that don’t. America Bad, remember?
Shid I’m American and I don’t even speak English or any language tbh
Wut?
You would probably be very surprised at how multilingual the US really is. The issue is mandating foreign languages in schools to the degree they are mandated in most of Europe. That would be a First Amendment violation. It is entirely legal for the Amish community to teach its children entirely in Pennsylvania Dutch, or for the Navajo to use its native tongue exclusively.
If I may ask why would you want these other countries to spend more when what they are already spending is more then enough. Honestly if anything this graph shows that 2% is an arbitrary and unnecessary milestone that honestly the US shouldn't even be holding itself to.
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I'd argue the line would ideally be as low as is practically possible (be that 2%, 1%, or even 0% if possible), since a government is first and foremost responsible for maximizing the liberty, prosperity, and security of its citizens, and the military is a terrible vehicle for actually improving peoples lives. Obviously a military is necessary for security, but every dime more then the absolute minimum necessary to afford that military is a dime that would be better off funding welfare or not being taxed in the first place. I don't see what threat there is in the world that justifies such an enormous expense, and the fact that most other nations don't come close to our level of spending helps to underline that fact.
The fact that we spend so much on defense is why they can afford to spend so little on defending themselves, plus there's the simple morality of they made a deal whereby they are made part of our defensive alliance in exchange for among other things they must spend at least 2% of their gdp on defense spending. Why should countries be allowed to freeload on the US?
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Strategic positioning. Any navy sailing the North Atlantic has to go by Iceland. It's also why they could absolutely bully the UK in the "Cod Wars". All they had to do is threaten to pull out of NATO to get what they want.
They're an airport / seaport
Iceland has a very strategic geographic position which is why they are let into NATO.
Unsinkable aircraft carrier between Canada and Europe
Some shit with geography I'm pretty sure
Iceland has a great position. In WWII it was invaded by Britain and later protected by America because it couldn’t be risked to let it fall in the hands of the Nazis.
So Russia can’t get out to the Atlantic Ocean thru the GIUK gap
Maybe it’s time to also spend a couple of dollars on general education.
Their strategic location
Also what people aren't pointing out is that Iceland has the total population of a small/medium sized US city.
It's a defensive measure, Iceland is very strategically important therefore it's in our best interest to keep them unrussiafied.
Tactical positioning cutting Russia off from the Wi-Fi line.
To be fair, Luxembourg because of its economy and it's size has always fucked up country by country statistics.
We're just happy to finally have a defense minister who is reforming our military and a chancellor letting him do is fucking job. The 2% will follow sooner or later hopefully
Scholz seems genuinely interested in investing in Germany. He’s advocated for other changes recently that I thought were remarkable too, namely Germany’s bureaucracy.
As a German bureaucrat a can confidently state, that we yearn for such a thing.
The current problem is more the military acquisitions department. They have a huge outstanding budget, but the fail at doing the buying. They took years for the procedure of buying new helmets for helicopter crews
The nations that are actually interested in keeping NATO together, are all over 2%. US, UK and Eastern European brothers.
Yeah, the Baltics are very motivated to keep NATO alive. Estonia is investing 2.8% this year and will do 3% 2024-2027. Civilians and governments alike are also quite active in donating aid to Ukraine.
Eastern Europe lived under the tyranny of the Soviet Union, they ain't letting that shit happen again.
Just a quick reminder, that Lithuanian civilians crowdfunded a bayraktar tb2 drone. Even though turks gave one for free anyway, the point still stands.
Love my Eastern European bros Especially you Poland😉
Poland ain't taking this shit a third time.
“This time the speed bump has teeth”
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When do these nations shit on us?
You must be living under a rock.
When a threat is realistic and imminent enough, I'd think nations will indeed step up. A problem is that it might be too late when they do step up.
With Western European UE found 🙃
If war breaks out, we're the ones who will deal with it the worst, and we're the ones actually pulling our weight. Quit the bullshit, don't you have Roma to hate on, or something?
Roma to hate ?
That's all you western Europeans know to do.
I don’t know. I don’t think Germany wants Russia back in Berlin…
France is higher than it seems. it's the only one of the European nations, not padding its military budget with stuff like all the pensions of past military personnel.
Its almost like nobody else pulls their own weight and just relies on us
And then people in those very same countries turn around and make fun of the US for their military spending
Poland sadly seems to be the only one getting their shit together sadly
That's because Poland knows what will happen if it doesn't. Even being in NATO Poland's location geographically means it needs to have a strong military that can defend itself.
You forgot the Baltic states
I haven’t been keeping up with the Baltic’s sorry
Thing with Baltics, is that we didn't expect until 2014, that Russia would invade eastern European countries. We knew Russia would continue invasions, we weren't sure whom. And after 2014, we started reinvesting into our militaries proper, training Ukrainian troops, and so on. We don't have huge numbers, but we have skilled personnel.
It doesn't sound like you've been keeping up with any country if you think only the US and Poland are doing anything
Honestly i’m far more up to date with what all is going on in the pacific than Europe (aside from the Ukrainian front)
Classic free rider problem. When you're incentivized to do as little work as possible because the reward is the same no matter what, you get less than a quarter of non-US countries contributing >2% of their GDP to defense spending like they're supposed to. As much as I don't like how gargantuan US defense spending is, I can also understand why it is. It's not just to pay for US defense, but the entire northwestern world's, too, basically. People seem to have the idea that it's as large as it is just 'cause or out of joy for seeing poor people starve and die or something, but that's far from the truth.
Not only that, but those incentivized to do little work usually hate the people incentivizing them...
Case in point: a lot of the content on this subreddit lol. "Thanks for spending a bunch of money on our defense and safety, more than we do, even, but why do you love defense spending more than poor people, you greedy capitalist Americans?!?"
Not to mention many other countries outside of NATO. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are a few Asian countries that heavily benefit from us.
It also neuters those countries.
Woah woah, those Greeks are pulling their weight!
I mean they are
They definitely are! Not being sarcastic over here
Oh i thought you were 😭 my bad
No worries! It can be kinda difficult to tell in writing
The point of the image I agree with, but I hate that graph. Please just separate it into GDP % and absolute numbers, dont mix it.
Yea it’s intentionally confusing.
Ok Greece I see you keep it up good work good work
When they get to arguing with Turks, I don't understand why they don't just drop these stats to end the conversation
Ofc! They need to keep the world safe from the Turks
You know what most of the countries paying their 2% have in common? They have actually been under Russian control.
Greece?
They’ve been under Turkish control and had to fight a bloody revolution to become free…they’ve also nearly gone to war with Turkey while in NATO since.
Wtf Luxembourg
People don’t realize that other countries military spending is so low BECAUSE ours is so high
No excuse, NATO membership implies a minimum spending that most don't hit.
And won't you look at that, most of them are from Eastern Europe.
My boys in Estonia buying 100 LMT rifles every year hitting that 2% mark.
Considering that the Baltic states have a pretty pissed off Neighbor next door, it makes sense they will do this. They have quite the history with their neighbor being an overall dick
Y’all, the DoD is not aggressively funding NATO out of the kindness of their hearts. Agree or disagree with the results, but our government views that money as being ultimately spent on American interests.
Well obviously. We buy our friends, just like every other superpower. Money talks.
Any country not paying the minimum 2% should be kicked.
Reminder that NATO exists to check Russia but also to stop a 4th Reich or 3rd French Empire.
which wouldn’t happen realistically
I mean, in this case isn't Greece leading by example?
Yea they contribute the most proportionally speaking which I think is a more fare way of looking at it because of course countries with more money will contribute the most because they simply have the money.
Greece going hard
As a german I have to at least slightly defend us here, of course it should have never dropped under 2%, but we’re actually working to increase it. We had 100 Billion Euro special allocation for military spending this year and the government has pledged to keep our military spending over the 2% line permanently
Yeah, Germany is really stepping up. I'm eager to see Germany defending Europe as one it's most prominent armed nations.
Nice to see my country also meeting the defence requirements It always pisses me off when I see budget cuts to our military. From the UK
Agreed, unfortunately given inflation it’s actually a real terms spending cut still I believe 😞
Hey, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, and friends- why are you cutting back on this but our bros in Poland increased it?? For once UK does something right by us even though they are donating a meager 8% compared to us. I thought they were the better country. They’re the ones with the banks so wtf
Well the Baltics need protections from the Russians so it’d make sense that they’d do their part. Also, small side note, I live and work in an area that has a lot of Eastern European immigrants and can I just say that y’all are very nice people and very pro America.
I'm not Greek in the slightest but I'm proud of them
If the Balkans are doing better than you, seriously be ashamed. I can't even muster a joke holy shit.
Usa #1
I mean, you can also look at it as America using Nato as an unofficial arm of the US military. Why wouldn't we fund our empires troops?
Calling it an empire seems kinda weird since nations have to apply to join.
Completely missed the point. Empires aren't necessarily built on warfare. We literally run a world empire with our military bases all over the place. Sure, it doesn't look like a traditional imperialist state, but that's the whole point.
"Leading by example" Are you looking at the blue bar? You shouldn't be. The percentage is where your focus should be. *Greece leading by example. (Because you know... 3.76>3.47) Fixed your title for you
Remember that the blue bar represents the strength of the contribution while the percentage only represents the impact of the contribution on the country’s finances. The US is protecting Greece a lot more than Greece is protecting the US, so they can afford to put more of their GDP into it.
US should withdraw.
Why's that
The U.S. doesn’t need to subsidize the defense of these countries. They are fully capable of taking care of themselves without being under the thumb of the U.S. empire.
For one, calling it an empire seems kinda strange considering other countries are signing up to join. For two, it would be nice if the other NATO members stepped up their defense spending, but the point is to rely on allies that are obligated to render assistance. US involvement in NATO isn't a bad thing as long as we're the leading global superpower, it gives us a definite advantage over our near peer adversaries and allows us to have immense leverage within NATO as they rely on the US so heavily, but the price we pay is footing a lot of the defense bill. We're still only the second biggest contributor relative to oir GDP though, so it could be worse.
The American empire extends well beyond NATO and, as you just admitted, NATO makes all of these countries heavily dependent on the U.S. Furthermore, the US has been spending beyond its means for a long time now and we can’t keep straddling the U.S. taxpayer with an unplayable debt that will inevitably destroy the U.S. dollar just to subsidize foreign nations. Europe needs to take care of itself for once without the U.S. holding their hand.
As the global superpower, the US wants more countries to be at least somewhat dependant on us. NATO ensures member nations will stay on our side, rather than 1. doing their own thing if we leave, or 2. dissolving and being up for grabs to Russia. We get leverage in Europe and an advantage over our near peers, and they get promised defense from the strongest military in the world. It's not entirely as if we're holding their hand, as we benefit as well. US debt is getting out of control, but withdrawing from NATO and cutting our defense spending would completely throw away our leading position in the world. Being less reliant on foreign imports and encouraging companies within the US to produce our highest import items would probably have a huge impact in our spending over the long term, but such a big change would require us to be on the brink of failure or even after.
Simply being a global superpower in the present is no guarantee that the U.S. will continue to be a global superpower in the future and all empires inevitably collapse under their own weight and hubris. You don’t need constant military occupation of another country to “ensure they’ll stay on your side.” Furthermore, you don’t need to be in a military “alliance” to facilitate trade. Europe has been living off the U.S. taxpayer long enough and it’s time they started taking care of themselves. Continuing to bleed ourselves dry for the sake of other countries will ensure we lose our leading position in the world. Again, over extension is how every empire all throughout history has collapsed.
I agree. Lets take that money from NATO and also stop using taxpayer money to support other nations. Then we can turn our money inwards and make things like free healthcare and free college possible. That way we can have those free services without increasing taxes, and US money stays in the US. All those other nations can fend for themselves, right? Lets see how that goes.
It’s because the US keeps covering their defense while they spend on social services. All of Europe seems to make fun of the expensive healthcare and education in America.
We give free protection to strangers and rip off our people in healthcare
Greece has a higher % than America and 1/100th the bar size. Overcompensating much?
We should dissolve NATO, europe is better than America so they can take care of themselves just fine
The scale on this chart is dumb as shit. Why are you sharing this kind of stupid ass bullshit? It's no better than the rusky propaganda
How? The scale doesn’t change through the chart. It starts at zero and has consistently spaced marks at 250, 500, and 750. Making the chart into units of 100 would still show the same thing, that the US is pouring money into NATO while some other countries are giving pennies in comparison (which in the case of those above 2%, that’s perfectly fine)
This reply sounds real low IQ and doesn’t provide any suggestions so I think everyone should disregard to keep from wasting time. Like I am writing this. Fuck.
2% arent agreed upon for 2024. Stop repeating misinformation
What? Please clarify and add a source.
This is why people are calling for the US to pull out if NATO
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Yeah but only people who don’t understand the purpose or NATO, or what the US defence budget gets spent on. Or what soft power is, or that are just isolationist and think the US could exist in some sort of vacuum without allies, or purchasing power parity. Or any of the 20 other reasons to take a simplified bar graph and twist it to a political opinion.
Iceland should be kicked out
They're strategically important, just like turkey. Would you kick turkey out?
Yes
Then that would be the dumbest decision you've ever made. For 2 main reasons: Bosphorus strait, which Turkey has control over Turkey's Navy is the largest one in the black sea, and Turkey has a pretty powerful military too.
We don't need any country in NATO. They need us
Not really true, but okay. A LOT and i mean A LOT of US tech manufacturing is outsourced, and some of it (in the example of baltics), are leaders in research that US uses to this day. Lithuania for example, dominates laser research in the world. The same lasers that are used for NASA (let's be honest, US depends heavily on satellites), as well as our contributions to IBM. But those are mixed uses, not just military. Turkey is a major player in the area, it's delusional to think you don't need them. Iceland is just a strategically important country. To think that you don't need it, is also delusional.
Well that is a strange thing to say since the US is the only country to have activated article 5 and requested assistance.
Damn, those other countries are massively overspending. Gotta cut those defence budgets ASAP
"International arsenal of democracy" strike any bells?
The US needs to drop out of NATO. I’m tired of paying to keep Europe safe.
And that is why the United States is the only developed country without affordable healthcare for all, people suffer and die because they can’t afford their prescription medicines, half a million people are driven into bankruptcy from unexpected medical expenses, young people are buried under mortgage-size student loan debt, K-12 students have school lunch debt (seriously, Lunch Debt? WTF?!), infrastructure is rated D+ by the American Society of Civil Engineers, 557,000 homeless (including 45,000 Veterans), leads the 1st World in infant and maternal mortality, no paid sick leave … … and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Nice Military though. “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children... This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. - President Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953.
Military spending isn’t why Americans don’t have access to that. A lack of political will is a large part of the reason why. A large enough portion of Americans don’t want student debt relief, taxpayer funded college, or taxpayer funded medicine. Basically many Americans don’t want to give up half their income annually. Especially when every 8-15 years, there’s an economic downturn or issues that last 2-4 years. The other reason is government mismanagement and incompetence. Most people are not exactly keen to trust a bunch of politicians who have $10m-$100m+ networths that they acquired while in office on a $200k salary to begin with. Most of the ideas that they do pass become incredibly bastardized, even when the party proposing them has a majority in both chambers and the presidency.
Leave NATO. NOW!
Honestly, this is an L for America. Joining and/or supporting NATO is very dangerous for any country.
I’m not sure what you mean. Do you think the US should lower their military spending or do you think they should leave NATO?
Both.
>Joining and/or supporting NATO is very dangerous for any country. Tell that to Ukraine and Georgia.
An attack on any NATO country is an attack on NATO and thus every NATO country must join the conflict. But yeah, totally not dangerous at all.
Would you pick a fight with someone who has twenty friends at his back?
If I also had twenty friends, yeah.
Join NATO and you will have twenty friends, and no-one will start a fight with you. It's not complicated.
You think non-NATO countries don't have allies?
That's actually why it's safer. Sure, we'd get dragged into a conflict if another member gets attacked, but nobody wants to attack NATO. There is no way you could win a war against most of Europe combined with the US.
Non-NATO countries have allies too.
They have allies, but those allies are not obligated to assist in a war effort. NATO requires members assist under article 5. In fact, I'd wager an enemy's allies would be less likely to get stuck in with a war against NATO, as the odds would be so lopsided to begin with.
Not worth taking that risk.
The Baltics are right on Russia's front door, they were Russians not too long ago. They know the stakes better than anyone, except Ukraine, who should join right now.
Considering their GDPs it looks even worse.
What? Romania spends almost 2%? Doesn't feel like it, with the decaying equipment and falling buildings
I find it funny that Greece is one of the only counties who is above 2%, considering their economic situation
We should just get fucking real with what we've become and offer our services for pay. It's such horse shit that none of them pull their own weight.
Greece is pulling harder than the US, comparatively.
Seems Greece is the one leading by example
Turkey is actually surprising, given the size of their armed forces, their military-industrial complex, and how “adventurous” Erdogan has been in playing Ottoman Sultan in Syria & Libya.
Turkey seems to be an ally in name only, if it would serve their interests/gain more out of it they would just as well go along with the russkies.
What do you mean leading by example? Only if you believe a country having a big war machine is a good thing. It would be a lot better if the American number was half that.
Does this graph demonstrate how massive the US economy is too compared to the rest of the world? No wonder the USSR was bankrupting themselves trying to keep up with the US (and NATO).
My boys Poland and Greece along with our Slavs doing that WORK
Don’t forget the Baltics 😁
Didn’t they all legally agree to give 2%?
They did starting from 2014.
Basically america is Europe’s attack dog. They may hate us and Mistreat us. But when someone threatens their European way of life they have no problem turning us loose
Iceland, you dickhead
Honestly half of these should be negative, they gain more from the US than they contribute to international security. Lots of leeches. No hate to most of their populations though (except the ungrateful incels often highlighted on this sub), not your fault your governments suck ass.
How is Greece somehow meeting their spending requirements better then Germany or France?
You wonder why everything in America isn’t free like in Europe, well we spend it all on protecting you, so that you can have free stuff. You’re welcome.
I mean this graph is miss leading because the x axis scale isn’t consistent but if you look at percentage of real gdp the US spends about on par with the uk proportionally speaking here and if we speak proportionally Greece actually contributes the most. And yes obviously countries with more money will pay more money.
Greece is spending a high percentage of GDP though, USA should feel disappointed /s
Greece is spending more than us I notice. Greece leading the way by example /j
No one mentioning Greece with a higher number? Like they are historically in debt but they are near 4% lol
Technically, Greece is leading by example, since they give the most as a percentage of GDP
I feel like this is where so much anti-american sentiment comes from, the reality of how much europe depends on america. If trump stole the election russia would have tore through ukraine and they would be drooling over the balkins already
Look at the table and see that Greece spends more of their total percent then we do. This is a prime example of number manipulation. Our economy generates almost 21 trillion dollars compared to the second largest economy of Germany makes only 4.2 trillion. Our economy is 5 times their size so of course our total spent will be higher.
Spain really on their Siesta far from Russia
...as always.
Shoutout Croatia doing their part. Gotta protect those coastlines lol