r00tb33r wrote:
The_Walrus wrote:
r00tb33r wrote:
Yeah, I distinctly remember Trump pressing members to contribute the amount they're required to under the alliance.
He pressed. Did it work?
Well, he lobbied for the US to leave the alliance if other members don't make a fair contribution. Honestly, I don't remember what came of it.
Even if US had left, European powers would have likely still coordinated and cooperated with US.
The answer is that between 2014 and 2019, a few NATO members increased defence spending significantly. Bulgaria and Romania were the most significant, but also Lithuania, Latvia, and Slovakia. Estonia and Poland were already close to 2%, but did bump spending a little to get closer.
It’s important that those countries spend on defence. Four border Russia, two more border Ukraine, and Bulgaria borders the Black Sea. Romania does as well, and has a breakaway pro-Russian region.
But ultimately these countries spending 2% of GDP on defence isn’t going to make them defence superpowers because their GDPs are so low. Poland is the largest at nearly $500m.
After the US, the six largest NATO economies are Germany, France, UK, Italy, Canada, and Spain. All are at least double the size of Poland. The UK and France both have substantial militaries which are capable of exerting influence abroad. In 2014 the UK was slightly over 2% and France was slightly under. France has increased spending but not all the way to 2%.
Getting Germany, Italy, Canada and Spain to 2% will have a much bigger impact than a few Eastern European countries with small economies. Spain doesn’t even spend 1%, and the others were still below 1.5% as of 2019. Trump didn’t have an effect upon the other substantial economies.
Biden, though, has negotiated a sanctions package that has brought Russia to its knees, and convinced Germany to make a constitutional commitment to 2%. Germany is worth six Polands. Haven’t run the numbers, but I am pretty sure the Biden administration has seen greater spending commitments than the Trump administration.
Is this entirely down to Biden and his team? Probably not - Putin helped. But the SWIFT sanctions for example did require some very skilful diplomacy and the US team is being credited for convincing the more cautious partners (Germany, Italy and Belgium) to get on board.