Poor Little Nato
It only outspends Russia 18-1.
Let’s Look at the Numbers
NATO countries spend $920 billion in military expenditures. By the time you include various clandestine and off-budget items, I will suggest the figure is significantly higher, but we will go with this figure. Take out the United States and Canada (the non-European countries) and the spending is $293 billion.
Other US allies (Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Israel, and Taiwan), all useful in hounding and surrounding Russia, spend about $210 billion.
Russia spends $52 billion. For kicks, China (the other
global island enemy) spends $145 billion.
So…NATO and other US allies spend $1.13 trillion dollars a year on military expenditures, Russia and China spend under $200 billion. European NATO countries spend over $290 billion and Russia spends about $50 billion.
Yet somehow the problem, as Spiegel offers, is that NATO does not spend enough; NATO needs to spend more. Unfortunately for NATO (do you see my tears), this spending increase isn’t going to happen. None of the alliance members meet the list of nine parameters held by NATO to measure capabilities and readiness – not even the United States.
bionic mosquito: Poor NATO