{"id":19136,"date":"2024-06-27T21:31:02","date_gmt":"2024-06-27T18:31:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=19136"},"modified":"2024-06-27T21:31:02","modified_gmt":"2024-06-27T18:31:02","slug":"defense-spending-explosion-in-nato","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=19136","title":{"rendered":"Defense spending explosion in NATO"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

According to the latest figures from NATO, a large increase in defense spending by almost all members of the alliance is now clearly visible, as a historical record is broken in 2024: With 23 states out of 31 reaching the target of 2% of GDP as annual defense spending (we are not counting here Iceland which has no army). In fact, in 2023 there were only 10 countries that had reached this threshold, while this year’s expenditure increase reaches 17.9% compared to last year (at constant 2015 prices).<\/p>\n\n\n

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Croatia, Portugal, Italy, Canada, Belgium, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Spain remain outside the target, but they are also on the rise. Greece is in the 5th spending position, with estimated spending for this year at 3.08% of GDP, while it was usually in the top three. Of course, the top belongs to Poland, where its brutal armaments program has reached to absorb 4.12% of the GDP, followed by small Estonia, the USA and Latvia, while in sixth place is Lithuania. It is no coincidence here that 4 of the first 6 countries, i.e. Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, are next to Russia and obviously feel the greatest threat, so they resort to armaments. Turkey is low, at 2.09%.<\/p>\n\n\n

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NATO countries in 2024, ranked by defense spending as a percentage of GDP. The green horizontal line shows the 2% target and how many are already above it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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A more specific indicator, however, shows what percentage of this defense spending goes to equipment in the year. As the total defense expenditure includes in all countries the large cost of salaries\/pension of the military personnel, as well as the operational cost, i.e. the maintenance\/operation of the defense system. Here NATO aims for the share of armaments to be at least 20% of total defense expenditure.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Ranking of NATO countries for 2024, based on the percentage of total defense spending, which goes to equipment. The green horizontal line is 20%, which is also the NATO target.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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In this index, Greece comes 10th in the ranking (and quite high here), with 36.1% of its total defense spending being arms purchases. Again Poland is first in this ranking, with a very large 51.1%. Turkey is on this list at 34.2% and 12th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In total now, NATO member states in 2024 will spend $1.185 trillion on defense spending (constant 2015 prices), but of that $755 billion will come from the US, which remains the perennial “biggest defense investor.” However, 10 years ago, in 2014, NATO member countries outside the USA spent 250 billion dollars, in 2023 they reached 365 billion, and this year they will rise to 430 billion!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greece in 2024, of all the money it will spend on defense, 55.9% will go to salaries\/pensions, 0.3% to infrastructure, 36.1% to the purchase of weapons and only 7.7 % in operating cost! A big imbalance, in other words, as most countries spend on operating costs over 25% of the total, while infrastructure absorbs from somewhere around 4% and up to 11%.<\/p>\n\n\n

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All NATO countries with an analysis of how they spend their defense spending. In dark blue the percentage for personnel, in medium shade of blue the percentage for operating expenses, in dark blue the percentage for infrastructure, and in light blue for equipment.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Simply put, Greece, as our example, “pays military salaries and pensions and buys weapons”, but does not give money to operate its defense every day, while paying almost nothing for infrastructure. This is the phenomenon we know very well here and we describe it as “weapons on the shelf”, i.e. without the necessary maintenance, spare parts, consumables and generally without the expenses that will ensure that the Armed Forces are at full performance, in everyday life . This Greek “method” is timeless, as in the last decade the percentage it gives for infrastructure is consistently below 1%, while the operating percentage is also low, usually around 11-12%, i.e. below the average of the alliance .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compared to the above, Turkey has a more balanced picture for 2024, with 43.6% of total expenditure on wages\/pension, 12.9% on operational, 9.4% on infrastructure (4th highest in NATO) and 34.2% for equipment. In the last decade, Turkey had a low rate for infrastructure, but this changes from 2021 onwards, where from about 2.5% it rises to 7.5% and then to 9.5%. While its own operating expense has been consistently at 15%+ for ten years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One last metric, defense spending per capita in 2024: Average of NATO countries outside the US (not included due to huge own spending that changes the average a lot), $669 a year. Greece is at 648, Turkey at 310. And here it seems that our country is doing everything it can, but Turkey is very low, so it has a lot of room for increase, if needed.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The general assessment from all of the above can be summarized in the following 3 conclusions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1.<\/strong> NATO has “awakened” and is now actively participating in the arms race with large investments that already far exceed Russia (despite its own greatly increased military expenditures), as well as the rest of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2.<\/strong> The picture we see now is initial, it will take 2-3 years to see the real development, as many orders of weapons systems are under discussion, now many new weapons factories are opening, efforts are being made to increase military personnel, etc. . While important political (electoral) developments are expected that may change a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3.<\/strong> Countries like Greece, which has since 2021 made a big jump in defense spending, but presents a problematic structure of the specific expenses, as well as the burdens that the country has been carrying since the memorial years, with the recession of defense investments, it has not been able to separate. Especially in the first one, i.e. “where and how it spends”, the lag in operating costs is obvious, which means reduced availability, increased wear and tear of material but also the disuse of many systems, with cumulative results. While the second, the long-term lack of spending that he has been trying to reverse in recent years, prescribes a “big conflict” with other public spending. Difficult for a society, which lives a difficult everyday life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to the latest figures from NATO, a large increase in defense spending by almost all members of the alliance is now clearly visible,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1808],"tags":[456,124],"class_list":["post-19136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-defense-space","tag-defense-spending","tag-nato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19143,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19136\/revisions\/19143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}