President Donald Trump, in his first term, was a bit of a thorn in the sides of our NATO allies, mostly because of his insistence that the rest of NATO stop looking at the United States and seeing a big piggy bank; Trump insisted that NATO members should pony up the two percent of GDP that is required by treaty.
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But the world is an uncertain place of late, and Trump seems to be a bit concerned about that. Now he’s prompting the rest of NATO to bump their defense spending to five percent of GDP.
Donald Trump wants NATO countries to increase their defense spending to more than double the current target, the Financial Times and the Telegraph reported.
According to the reports, Trump’s team has told European officials that the U.S. president-elect expected NATO allies to increase their defense spending to 5 percent of national gross domestic product after his Jan. 20 inauguration — more than double the alliance’s current 2 percent target.
Trump’s team also reportedly said that the incoming U.S. administration would continue supporting Ukraine. Trump’s election had led to concern in Europe about the future of the U.S.’s support to Kyiv after Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance criticized the Biden administration for spending billions on military aid to Kyiv during the presidential campaign.
It’s not clear what the Trump team means by pledging to continue supporting Ukraine, although President-elect Trump has talked in the past about trying to reach some kind of a deal.
Back to NATO: While Trump’s call for increased spending probably won’t result in much movement from NATO, at least one member, Germany, is already having some issues; their Defense Minister, Boris Pistorius, is calling for more spending on Germany’s defense.
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German forces need to be ready for war, which means more spending is needed, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said in an interview with the Funke media group.
“We need a defense budget of at least 80 billion, rather 90 billion euros annually from 2028 onwards to meet the requirements we have due to the tightened security situation,” Pistorius said.
Pistorius specifically cited Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been waging a war of aggression against Ukraine for almost three years, and has threatened to attack allies who are supporting Kyiv in its effort to defend itself.
That last bit is interesting; in case anyone hasn’t read much (well, any) European history, Germany and Russia have a history of not being on the best of terms.
Look, the President of the United States has no authority over the NATO nations; President-elect and honestly, Acting President Trump had trouble in his first term getting the NATO nations to bump their spending up to what the treaty requires. Getting them to more than double that is a stretch.
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But Germany is worried. Their defense minister is worried.
Us old, Cold War guys remember how nervous Eastern Europe was when Germany reunified. The old saw about the divided Germany post-WW2 was that it was done to “Keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” Well, the role of NATO has changed, but Russia is again a concern, and the Germans, well, they may not be down, but they aren’t the martial nation they were in 1940, 1914, or even 1242. Even at their military peak, Germany didn’t fare too well against Russia. And now, with NATO in place, an attack on one is an attack on all.
Maybe NATO should be listening to our president-elect.