Donald Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte want NATO members military expenditure increased to “Cold War levels” and for member countries to adopt a “wartime mindset” in order to prepare for a perceived threat from Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.
Neil Kinnock has just stated that 3-4% would be a “realistic” level to reach.
Part of this mindset is a preparedness to sacrfice health, welfare and pensions to fuel the military machine required to fight a war with Russia in Europe that would be suicidal for all involved if it actually broke out.
The UK’s “Defence Review” is framed in a similar “pre war framework”, posing Russia, China, Iran and North Korea as “the deadly quartet”; a good name for a jazz band, but geopolitically infantile.
The threat is posed most sharply in relation to Russia, largely because NATO is now evidently losing its proxy war in Ukraine. This impending defeat is being posed as a lever to militarise European society on the presumption that a Russian win there means that they will then threaten to invade the rest of Europe.
This is simply insane.
If you look at the balance of military expenditure between NATO and Russia, even after a sharp increase in Russian spending forced by the war to 7-8% of GDP, the imbalance in NATOs favour is overwhelming, because the combined GDPs of the NATO countries are almost incomparably bigger than Russia’s (which is smaller not only than the USA among NATO countries, but also Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Canada and barely larger than Australia).
If the argument from all quarters on high in this country is that “the world is becoming a more dangerous place”, its quite clear from this which countries are making it so in Europe. If the Russian level of expenditure shown in the yellow column is posed as a terrible threat by NATO, how much more threatening is NATOs current expenditure for the Russians?
To underline this with stark figures, with overall NATO spending in 2024 at $1185 billion and Russia’s at $109 billion,
- for every dollar the Russians spend, NATO spends just under $11
- and the European NATO powers alone spend £755 billion between them, which is just under $7 for every dollar spent by the Russians.
So, the question posed by this is already, who exactly is under threat from whom?
Trump and Rutte, and now Kinnock, propose to raise NATO military spending to “Cold War levels”. That was around 5% of GDP between 1970 and 1987. That would double the imbalance above and set NATO up for an offensive war with a collosal military advantage of 14 to one, even if the US kept out of it, and 22 to 1 if they were involved.
This reality is revealed by the decision of the EU to break its own fiscal rules and raid its levelling up funds to finance war preparations which, among other things, involves strengthening bridges so that “tanks may pass safely”. Were they concerned that columns of Russian tanks would be steamrollering West they would be weakening bridges so they couldn’t pass at all.
This is leaving aside the political feasibility of a Russian offensive, even if it were militarily feasible – which it obviously isn’t.
It beggars belief that a war of this sort is being envisaged with a nuclear power. The same people who argue that the UK’s nuclear weapons “keep us safe” and shouted at Jeremy Corbyn “would you press that red button, Mr Corbyn?” seem to think that a land war in Europe which, given the balance of forces, would be aimed at regime change and the balkanisation of the Russian Federation and have nothing to do with “defence” would not lead to the trip wires for use of these weapons being crossed.
It is a suicidal course.
It would also impoverish us in the meantime.
- 5% of UK GDP is £126 billion (using 2023 figures).
- 2023 military spending was £54 billion.
- So, the additional cost of meeting this target in full would be around £70 billion. Even getting half the way to it would require a transfer of £35 billion, which would have to come from “other priorities”: and not just “a small amount” as Rutte puts it. Kinnock doesn’t say what he would cut. He should be asked.
Every item cut instead would improve people’s lives. The best that can be hoped for increased military spending is that it doesn’t give our lords and masters the tools to end them.
All this flows from the strategic self subordination of Europe to the United States. As this recent article argues, the new situation for Europe is that the US is leading them into war with the continent’s strongest military power, Russia, at the same time as it deliberately undermining European rivals’ economies. It amounts to a US policy of subordinating Europe through a combination of military and economic warfare.
This is a lethal combination for Europe, the most serious threat to the entire continent since at least the end of the Cold War and in a broader sense since the end of the Second World War.
So, the fight against war, and the fight against austerity, to defend our conditions of life will have to go hand in hand.
Urban ramblings 