NATO countries are spending more on their militaries but not as much as Biden wants them to
Speaking Security Newsletter | Advisory Note for Organizers and Candidates, n°72 | 16 March 2021
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Situation
NATO announced today that 11 member states’ military budgets have now met or exceeded 2 percent of country GDP, per the spending target established by the 2014 Wales Summit Declaration. The Trump administration took a hardline approach toward this arbitrary/non-binding threshold and the Biden administration has demanded the same sacrifice from NATO countries albeit with “a substantially different tone,” according to one administration official.
The two countries that met this spending target since last year—France and Norway—did so by virtue of shrinking GDPs and not by increasing military spending (although they did a bit of that, too). Had their GDPs remained flat, France would be at 1.86 percent and Norway at 1.97 based on 2020 figures.
On arbitrary measures of security
Biden’s pushing the idea that a certain level of military spending (a policy) can be equated with security (a policy outcome). The administration says that although Biden expects the same as Trump as far as NATO military expenditures are concerned, there will be “a lot more emphasis on different capabilities.” Capabilities can’t be causally linked with security as an outcome, either.
By encouraging a military buildup among its allies, the Biden administration not only situated an ongoing health crisis behind a prospective military crisis in a budgetary sense, but also went around Europe hawking an idea of security that makes the former worse and the latter more likely.
Opportunities for international solidarity/collaboration
I spoke with members from DiEM25’s Peace and International Policy collective last week to discuss transatlantic collaboration. Today’s NATO report is a reminder of why building those networks is so important—approaching it from just one side won’t be enough.
Thanks for your time,
Stephen (@stephensemler; stephen@securityreform.org)
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