2023-06-16 04:31:00
Almost ten years following NATO agreed on the two-percent target, the checkout is now to take place at the summit in Vilnius. NATO boss Stoltenberg has already made it clear that the alliance’s defense spending should be increased.
It won’t be a routine meeting today. The Secretary General of NATO made sure of that. Jens Stoltenberg wants to talk plainly with the defense ministers. At the Vilnius summit in four weeks, he expects the Allies to commit to higher defense spending.
The two percent target should play a decisive role in this – but in a different way than before. It should no longer be a loose guideline that you can either follow or not. “Two percent will no longer be the upper limit we are aiming for,” explained Stoltenberg before the talks with the ministers. “That should be the minimum for what we have to spend on defense in the future.”
Front runner Greece
Even now, only a small group of member countries manages to invest two percent of their gross domestic product in defense every year. Great Britain is one of them, Poland and the Baltic countries and of course the United States of America. But Greece is the leader – the Greeks spend a good 3.5 percent of their economic power on security. The reason: concerns regarding military attacks from neighboring Türkiye.
However, the majority of NATO member countries are more or less clearly below the two percent. Germany belongs to this group with around 1.5 percent. That is at least a place in midfield, but still quite far from the target.
Kassensturz almost ten years later
The two percent target was set in 2014 at the NATO summit in Wales. Putin had just invaded Crimea – the West took that as a warning to invest more in its own defense following years of detente. Almost ten years later, the cash register crash is to take place in Vilnius.
Federal Defense Minister Boris Pistorius was optimistic before the meeting. He is pleased that the two percent target has been set in the federal government’s new security strategy. “We want to achieve that as early as 2024,” which is an important signal to the Allies in NATO.
Germany must defense budget increase by a quarter
The Ifo Institute has calculated what the two percent target would mean for Germany in concrete terms. After that, the defense budget would have to be increased by a quarter, which corresponds to an additional 17 billion euros per year. Incidentally, at NATO the investment sums are only taken into account when they have actually been paid for. This also applies to the federal government’s 100 billion special fund.
The two percent target is not undisputed. If, for example, the economy is doing badly and economic output is falling, then the proportion of defense spending increases almost automatically – without a single cent more being spent on security. And just by buying expensive weapons, the defense capability is by no means increased.
debate regarding common defense finance
The Europeans know the problem. They spend more than 200 billion euros on armaments every year – but they mostly do it nationally alone. Having your own weapons park with your own tank is still a national prestige object. The consequences are double and triple structures, as well as problems with the interoperability of weapon systems in action.
Michael Hüther, the director of the Institute of German Economics, considers this to be nonsense from an economic point of view. He calls for Europe to plan and buy armaments too. Joint financing of European defense makes more sense. “You have larger quantities, you can scale, you can, above all, reduce the weapon systems and bring them to a tolerable level”. Hüther refers to the USA. The largest military power in the world gets by with far fewer different weapon systems than the Europeans.
Real European defense union?
From the point of view of the IW director, there is much to be said for a real European defense union, in which the most efficient and best offer is decided on in all branches of arms. This should then be financed jointly by a special purpose tax, instead of relying on costly national solo efforts, as has been the case up to now.
However, even then you will not be able to avoid higher spending on defense. “In Helmut Schmidt’s time, more than three percent of the gross domestic product was spent on defense in a difficult economic situation with mass unemployment.” Nevertheless, it was possible to finance defense spending. “That will also be possible now.”
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