• AGM@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    Puts in context all the fear mongering about China’s military buildup while they’re sitting at 1.7% of GDP.

  • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
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    3 days ago

    Its not “NATO” eying it. Its the US.

    U.S. President Donald Trump has said for months he wants to see NATO countries increase their defence spending to five per cent of GDP.

    I assume most other countries are against it.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I swear I’ve seen figures that most of the EU have gone from <2-5% between 2015 and 2026/7, so I’m sure that includes most of NATO.

      They better redirect those funds away from the US though, otherwise we really are screwed.

      • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
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        2 days ago

        The goal for the last decade was 2%, this has been reached now as you can see. So basically NATO was like “We really need 2% plz if we have 2% everything will be fine” and then as soon as all countries reach 2% they go “We really need 5% plz if we have 5% everything will be fine”

        What we need isnt really that much more money, its a better strategy for how we use that money. Nationalization of industry contractors and fixed price points for bulk produced items.
        At the moment the military complex is driven by the “We can ask for as much as we want because they keep giving us money” strategy. That needs to change and many other things with it like documentation and repairability of equipment.

        • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Yeah, well Russia and the MAGAzi’s have forced all to shoot past 2%. Restructuring takes time and money.

          The figures I saw were recent and projected commitments for the next couple of years.

  • grte@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    It’s not especially challenging if we simply refuse. 2% is fine.

    Of course the idea is that 5% of our budget goes to American weapons. Just another shakedown attempt from the wannabe gangster president.

    • elgordino@fedia.io
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      2 days ago

      The crazy thing is, it’s not 5% of the budget it’s 5% of GDP. Usually a government budget is somewhere around 20% of GDP. So spending 5% of GDP on NATO would mean about 25% of all government spending going on the military.

  • kbal@fedia.io
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    2 days ago

    1% is a little much. 2% is clearly excessive. 5% is … I don’t even know.

    • kbal@fedia.io
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      2 days ago

      If people are even taking it seriously I guess it means we won’t have long to wait for world war 3.

  • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    At least we will talk tough for a few months before increasing our subjugation level to USA to over 9000.

    The great prosperity of war and fascism to the rescue.