NATO - the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation - is a political and military alliance made up of 30 countries. Member states consult and make decisions together in the interest of shared values, and as a group, NATO possesses the military power to undertake crisis management operations where diplomacy fails. NATO defence spending is seen as a key factor in budgeting for all members states - and the US is leading the way.
During his time as US president, Donald Trump was fiercely critical of NATO members in Europe for not spending enough to support the alliance. But at the G7 Summit, President Joe Biden reaffirmed US support for the group.
However, Mr Biden may want to look further at spending on defence, with the graph below showing the staggering disparity between how much the USA contributes in comparison to its Brussels bloc allies.
In terms of the proportion of its GDP (the total value of goods produced and services) allocated to defence expenditure, the United States spends more than any of the other 29 NATO countries.
In 2020, it's estimated that the US spent just over 3.7 percent of its GDP on defence, while the average for NATO's European members (and Canada) was 1.77 percent of GDP. In fact, the US is estimated to spend a total of $811,140 million on NATO defence in 2021 - some $362,798 million more than the spend of all other countries combined.
For the same period, the UK spent nearly 2.3 percent of its GDP on defence. But many EU nations seem to be lagging behind the current agreed target for European Nato members of two percent of GDP on defence by 2024.
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In fact, the following EU nations are estimated to have failed to reach the target so far by 2021:
- Germany - 1.53 percent
- Italy - 1.41 percent
- Spain 1.02 percent
- Netherlands - .45 percent
- Belgium - 1.12 percent
- Denmark 1.41 percent
- Czech Republic - 1.42 percent
- Portugal 1.54 percent
- Hungary - 1.60 percent
- Slovak Republic - 1.73 percent
- Bulgaria - 1.56 percent
- Slovenia 1.28 percent
- Luxembourg 0.57 percent
The country contributing the least in 2020 was Luxembourg, with 0.56 percent.
There are obvious reasons why spending would differ like this - the US accounted for more than half of the combined GDP of all NATO members in 2020, for example, and has military commitments around the world, so a high NATO spend makes sense.
Defence spending by European NATO members and Canada has been increasing in recent years.
Despite the impact of the pandemic, countries increased spending on defence in 2020 for the sixth year running.
The current agreed target for European NATO members is two percent of GDP on defence by 2024.
President Trump had urged the other countries in the alliance to increase that to four percent of GDP.
In 2020, 10 NATO countries (in addition to the US) reached or exceeded the two percent target - two more than in 2019 including for the first time, France and Norway.
The rest, including Germany, Italy and Spain, spent below that in 2020, even though they've all increased their spending as a percentage of GDP since 2014 when the two percent target was agreed.
Germany indicated in 2019 that it wouldn't reach the two percent target until 2031.
NATO members also pledged that by 2024 at least 20 percent of their defence expenditure should go on acquiring and developing equipment.
The US used to pay more than 22 percent of these running costs, but a new payment formula was agreed in 2019 to address complaints by the Trump administration about the burden to the US of supporting the alliance.
There are also thousands of American active-duty military personnel deployed around the world.
Germany currently hosts by far the largest number of US forces in Europe, followed by Italy and the UK.
And US forces have also worked with their NATO counterparts outside of Europe as well, for example in Afghanistan.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiamh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmV4cHJlc3MuY28udWsvbmV3cy93b3JsZC8xNDUwMTExL05BVE8tZGVmZW5jZS1idWRnZXQtaG93LW11Y2gtTkFUTy1tZW1iZXJzLXNwZW5kLWpvZS1iaWRlbi1ldmfSAW5odHRwczovL3d3dy5leHByZXNzLmNvLnVrL25ld3Mvd29ybGQvMTQ1MDExMS9OQVRPLWRlZmVuY2UtYnVkZ2V0LWhvdy1tdWNoLU5BVE8tbWVtYmVycy1zcGVuZC1qb2UtYmlkZW4tZXZnL2FtcA?oc=5
2021-06-15 12:14:00Z
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