German media outlets Süddeutsche Zeitung, WDR, and NDR also cite the report, noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin appears intent on testing NATO’s Article 5 guarantees. The alliance’s mutual defence clause obliges member states to come to one another’s aid if attacked. The assessment suggests Putin may seek to challenge how seriously that commitment would be honoured.
To me this sound like propaganda to justify military spending. Stockpiling weapons benefits authoritarian governments and rich people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
The numbers speak for themself.
Some military spending is good since you might actually have to, you know, defend your country.
Germany alone is already spending 66 billions a year in “defense”. If they were spending 120 billions and the government would said “we need more” you would drink it arguing that some military spending is good.
We are already all armed to the teeth and waging wars against each others. The same governments increasing the “defense” budget to defend us from evil russia are backing israel in a genocide, no government here has really good intentions.
Germany has been seriously underspending for decades. It’s gonna take a lot of money to get them to any sort of level where they’d have a credible defence.
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You should measure expenses in bullets, shells and bombs. Not in who managed to pay the most money for them.
Quite far down the list. Of the 40 countries, per GDP they’re what, 32nd? And that’s after decades of chronic underspending, where their capability has crumbled.
War propaganda is when you have a credible defence. Right-o.
Having an higher GDP doesn’t mean you have to spend more
Well sure, but it’s a good start for a comparison. Best would be to add in the existing capability, the level of threat, size of the country, that sort of stuff.
It’s just that even Germans have now realized that their chronic underspending has really hurt them and now to have any sort of respectable defence they’ll need to spend more. A more moderate amount for a longer time would’ve been better but it is what it is.
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