Fawning for Trump’s favor, European leaders are ramping up military spending at the expense of public benefits.

  • Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 day ago

    Defence or Welfare? Europe Can Afford Both, and Must

    This is a highly biased article with little content. The article links to a couple of other media reports, but the author admits that increased military spending will “likely” result in a further erosion of the decades-old European social compact. I very much doubt that the author has had a look into the budget plan of a single EU member. They mention not a single number in the whole article, no research, it’s just a rant with a bold headline that serves a particular narrative.

    What makes the whole thing worse is the sentence:

    Europe’s leaders have decided to embrace the sort of massive ramp-up in military spending that so often serves as the prelude to war.

    No, the current ‘ramp-up’ of military spending is certainly not ‘the prelude of war’ - simply because the war is already here. It has been happening for more than three years with military attacks on Ukraine and what is sometimes called a ‘hybrid war’ against European countries such as a recent arson attack on a restaurant in Estonia ordered by Russian intelligence .

    I don’t see what’s wrong if the European countries spend “3.5 percent of their respective GDPs on core military spending, and another 1.5 percent on security and miscellaneous other expenditures designed to harden economies and infrastructure against cyberattacks, people trafficking, and additional risks and perceived risks to NATO economies.”

    Estonia, for example, has been spending more than 5% of its GDP for defense already before the Nato summit, and I argue that this has not so much to do with ‘appeasing’ Trump than with its common border with Russia.

    • bungalowtill@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      21 hours ago

      Just glancing by. We’re both Germans, so we can just focus on that quickly. You know that the headlines in Germany besides military spending were about cuts to social welfare, so what the hell? And it’s no surprise, the percentage of GDP sounds so little, yet it translates to about ten times that in the German budget. So 5% of GDP for whatever translates to 50% of the whole German budget. And yeah, I know all the built-in numerology but something’s gotta give. And we’ve already been told. There’s social cuts in Britain, I am sure they will be elsewhere, don’t go round pretending that it’s mere speculation. Cause you know.

      About the prelude: We’re not militarily involved in this conflict yet. We’ll find out how all the new weapons will be used someday.