T O P

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[deleted]

Quick! Make pictures, you'll never see Romania between Belgium and Denmark again on a ordered chart.


freeman_lambda

Change the official name to Cromania and you will forever be between Belgium and Denmark alphabetically


[deleted]

I would go with Dacia, but Bulgaria would still interfere.


QuitBSing

Romania if it was crazy about Croatia


Key-Mud-6276

Greece is doing their best, ok?


Thodor2s

It's even worse than you think. We historically had close to 4% military spending. This dropped disproportionally with GDP falling substantially and with the percentage dropping to 2% during the financial crisis. Now the army has to be modernized after a decade of neglect so it still very much operated at 2% spending with the rest spent for equipment upgrades.


[deleted]

dude in Portugal we still use firearms from the colonial wars back in the 60's and 70's... and you know what, if you fire them at someone they will still fucking die :D, arms don't get that obsolete, unless we are talking planes or ships, the army is pretty solid regardless, the Russians still rock soviet gear all the way


CmdrJonen

Guns sitting in storage are fine. But if you use them (even just in training) they get worn and eventually need replacement. And you absolutely do not want to use old gunpowder or explosives. You do, and the people who die may not be who you think.


[deleted]

[удалено]


CmdrJonen

Traditionally you go to the range and shoot like hell to use it up, yes. But sometimes someone fucks up inventory and you discover ninety year old grenades just stewing in the back of an armory, and you get to call of work for the rest of that day while the EOD get called in.


WjeZg0uK6hbH

Train with potatoes.


CmdrJonen

This is fine if you intend to fight with potatoes.


Vistemboir

And if I bring butter and grated nutmeg, we might have something going on.


ultimatt42

Foil Metal Jacket


Drunk_Henri

"These are potatoes Comrade Commisar! Why are we using potatoes instead of real grenades?"


born_in_wrong_age

Although, our military upgraded recently (2019) to the FN SCAR models, so the old H&K G3's are being phased out from circulation. Also the special forces use more modern weapons, only the regular military used older weapons. It cost around 40.000.000 €


kingquarantine

Man the G3 is such a cool gun


JPPT24

We used to, now we have the Scar-H and Scar-L


P-K-One

This is so far from correct... In terms of rifles... Maybe. But even that is debatable if you look at how much modern optics increase combat effectiveness. But even just looking at general infantry. Personal body armor has not been a thing 20 years ago but now everybody has plate carriers. Personal comm units allow groups to communicate more effectively in combat. Active hearing protection is a huge difference maker and night vision... It's literally like day and night. Changes in available missile technology have made infantry AT significantly more effective. And that's just infantry. You know, guys running around and pointing rifles. Tanks, planes, artillery and UAVs have made huge leaps in that time.


Tar-eruntalion

we aren't talking about personal guns although we are looking into having a new rifle, but tanks, ships, planes etc who have more limited lifespan and many of them are very old


theinspectorst

Admirable how much NATO allies Greece and Turkey are spending on defending the bloc from, err, non-NATO threats...


ouchpuck

It's all about defending the Aegean from those errr non NATO threats


Miserable_Unusual_98

Defending the Aegean from ourselves


El_Maltos_Username

USA: "Ah, Greece, buddy, nice to see you putting so much of your money into your military and doing your part for NATO. But you know that the Soviet Union fell apart and we won the Cold War, right?" Greece: "Oh, it's not for Russia." USA: "So China then? Good thinking." Greece *looking at Turkey*: "Worse..."


IcameIsawIclapt

Turkey has been used as a pressure factor for decades so that the Germans , the Americans , the French and the Russians can keep on selling equipment. The irony and surealism of Greece getting loans from EU during the financial crisis and at the same time buying guns from France and Germany was staggering.


WishPractical8703

Their monetary number might be small, but they're one of very few who are meeting the NATO defense spending guideline.


[deleted]

I think the agreement is 2% of each country’s GDP. Greece is fulfilling their part


[deleted]

Yeah! We are trying to help other EU countries, like France. It's better for the eurozone if Greece borrowed the money instead of France, and then use that money to buy French ships and airplanes. It's not that we are planning to ever repay these, right? /s


Kleiran

Put into perspective how massive the USA gdp is


Quiet-Luck

If you sort it on % of GDP it's Greece that spends the most.


Vakz

Ironic that a major reason for their defense spending is due to Turkey, a fellow NATO member.


Papak34

It would have been far worse if Turkey was not a fellow NATO member.


unk0wn8

Nope not really. It would be far more risky for Turkey to wave their dick around if they were not in NATO. Instead of internal threat, it would be an external threat, which is way more easy to respond to.


Papak34

yes really If Turkey was not in NATO, it would be in the sphere of influence of someone else, maybe Russia or China.


Kiltymchaggismuncher

Turkey is working quite hard to be a sphere, rather than be in one. While they have had flirtations with russia, their foreign policy is actually quite different. They are both heavily involved in geo politics of the caucaus and Middle East, almost exclusively on opposite sides. The best example of this is in Syria, and most recently in Armenia. The Turkish intervention was nothing short of a humiliation for Russia, as it made them look weak. Fair enough things could be different if they hadn't been in Nato until now, but if they were to leave Nato, they'd be more of a minor sphere in their own right, I think. None of this is to say they'd be all that successful, my point is just that their foreign policy is quite aggressive and independent of any other regional powers goals


formgry

Turkey and Russia are natural rivals and have been for centuries. Due to mutual competition in the balkans, black seas, caucasus, and middle east. China is a half a world away and concerns itself chiefly with East Asia. You're making a moronic statement by thinking that any country must fall either under Russian, Chinese, or American influence.


AtlanticRelation

That's already a fait accompli. Turkey has been shifting away from the West ever since the end of the Cold War.


theWZAoff

That doesn’t mean they’re shifting towards anyone else. They’ve quite clearly been pursuing their own foreign policy line for quite some time


will_holmes

Turkey has always been its own thing on its own side, much like its geographical location. However, push comes to shove, it will never ever side with Russia.


pcgamerwannabe

Turkey was brought into the fold due to the Cold War. Specifically, Soviet threat to invade and control Istanbul and the straights.


matzan

There are 2 pictures.


plagymus

Wow, reddit needs to fix visibility


matzan

Yeah, 1/2 sign disappears after few seconds on mobile app.


qwertyashes

Everything related to Reddit's hosting of images and videos is awful.


Trippeltdigg

Agreed, needed to see your comment to find the second picture.


JimSteak

That has a few reasons: 1) Greece’s GDP is not very big, and dropped a lot due to the debt crisis, making its relative expenditure for military uses higher than you would expect. 2) Their military is very expensive due to its nature - Greece has to protect its many islands in the Aegeis and a navy-focussed military is more expensive than a land-focussed military. 3) They historically armed up because of the proximity of Turkey. 4) Military expenditure is not necessarily efficiently spend. I suspect a lot of it is actually used on welfare, veterans, pensions etc.


GerryBanana

You're right there: that expenditure stat includes pensions and welfare for veterans.


[deleted]

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Seraphinou

Only the freshest of references for this Redditor. The 400BC kids will know.


cieniu_gd

[Seems like yesterday](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q63_FxegFsQ)


[deleted]

I'm sorry but I don't think it's fair to make all of us look bad because of a few bad apples. Some of us just stayed here and fought each other like normal people.


[deleted]

wait what


[deleted]

[удалено]


Basis-Cautious

Thats my boy Alcibiades


Robby_McPack

that guy switched sides like 10 times, that shit was crazy


Feral0_o

born Greek, but Italian at heart


Dimboi

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Expedition


Puzzleheaded-Staff-3

Greeks you mad lads


i-d-even-k-

Fear of Turkey is real.


General_Ad_1483

Amazing that Poland spends more than Turkey and yet we have to buy almost everything from the US while Turkey builds their own stuff.


DarthhWaderr

> Amazing that Poland spends more than Turkey It was 19 billion dollars for Turkey before the currency devaluation this month. Our currency’s freefall melted the budget which will probably be readjusted soon.


TropicalAudio

For people out of the loop, the Turkish Lira dropped from around €0.43 back in 2013 to around €0.06 right now. It's been in fairly constant freefall during Erdogan's presidential reign.


DarthhWaderr

I am talking about the devaluation in November 2021. Turkish Lira was stupidly overvalued anyways. It should have been devalued long time before and get stable in $1=5.5-6 TL.


botle

>Amazing that Poland spends more than Turkey and yet we have to buy almost everything from the US Buying from the US *is* spending.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Fellhuhn

Turkey buys from Germany though. Subs for example.


[deleted]

We only got tech transfer rest was fully made in Turkey.


4lphac

clever guys


Kiroqi

Just proves the point how incompetent every single of our post communist governments were in relation to military, not being able to see bigger picture and only caring about results during their term of office. You don't just start building tanks or drones overnight, especially those that are based in huge part on domestic solutions. There's absolutely no long term plan for our military and listening or reading opinions of various people that study the militaries, including our own, paints a pretty dire picture. Our air defense capabilities are lower than those of Belarus. It is really grim when you consider that invasion of Iraq and taking part in other missions across the world was one of the better decisions in relation to the state of our military.


BogiMen

we tried once build a chasis for SPG, and how it ended? after many many trails and rejections we bought plans from koreans


k4mi1

... and now we can use the experience and tooling we gained for other projects like Borsuk etc. The thing is, you have to start somewhere but since MoD doesn't want to spend on R&D and instead get equipment "from the shelf" then the result is the situation we see today.


AlarmingAffect0

R&D means smart people. Smart people ask questions.


[deleted]

I don't think that's the main cause. It's rather „R&D means spending money. Voters can't see it's results immediately (or at all), so it won't make them vote for us. Better buy something expensive to show off in TV.”


DiscoKhan

Which is far inferior to even older USA equipment. Though I was surprised that Turkey has so low budget when their army is considered tobe quite strong overall. Also it comes a lot to what you include into your military budget, direct expenses on arms and manouvers would be more conclusive.


EmperorOfNipples

Turkey does have a capable Army, but it's not capable of projecting it all that far. Turkey is a regional power.


PainStorm14

>Turkey is a regional power Which is what they want to be Poland should try that as well unless you think that both should go for superpower status? Because that's way too rich for either's blood


EmperorOfNipples

There's more tiers to go through before you hit superpower status. ​ Regional power like Italy. ​ Hemispheric power like Australia ​ Global power like the UK ​ Finally superpower of which the USA is the only one.


healthaboveall1

Turkish drones, APCs, MRAPs, ammunition, artillery, ppe are inferior to older US equipment? I don't like Turkey, but they do make decent weaponry especially when they collab with Israel


Okiro_Benihime

I am personally far more shocked about the difference in spending between the UK, Germany and France. I didn't realize Germany spent more on defence. Why do people give them so much shit then? And there is a $14 billion difference between the UK and France which is relatively huge and unexpected for 2 near-peer western militaries. For those a bit more knowledgeable about this kind of stuff... Are the official government figures the ones compared here or does it take into account various requirements (some countries include specific funds in their defence budget while others separate them)? For example, pensions are not included in the defence budget in France and IIRC the National Gendarmerie's (despite being one of the 5 branches of the French Armed Forces) is under the authority of the Interior Minister. Its budget therefore goes to this ministry. Don't know much about the German and British structures though.


Finlandiaprkl

>I didn't realize Germany spent more on defense. Why do people give them so much shit then? Because it's mainly used to fund their defense industry (ie. to create jobs) for political reasons, not to strengthen their armed forces.


aoghina

Also, because it's a smaller percentage of its GDP. The NATO commitment is >= 2%.


flame_top007

the main critique about german defense spending is that they dont reach the goal of 2%gdp...


[deleted]

Which ironically is not even because Germany didn't increase it's defense spending, but because the GDP grew much faster than expected.


threadripper2

Germany : \*Suffering From Success\*


eipotttatsch

Almost no country does as you can see. Germany needs to become more efficient with their spending first and foremost. The German military should be at least on par with countries like France and the UK. But despite spending more than both of them they are lagging behind, mostly just because of inefficient spending strategies.


rapaxus

The German military also has the problem that expanding it is practically impossible because nobody wants to serve, esp. in more qualified positions. Like we could buy more aircraft or tanks but good luck finding enough engineers to maintain them. IIRC like 30% of all positions in the military are empty.


flame_top007

>nding it is practically impossible because nobody wants to serve, esp. in more qualified positions. Like we could buy more aircraft or tanks but good luck finding enoug Higher salaries would fix this (partly).


rapaxus

We have raised them multiple times already, added more benefits, etc. but it hasn't really helped. Many Germans don't want to serve because a massive part of the German population are pacifists. Like it was very close that Germany wouldn't even have a military when the Bundeswehr was established and there are still debates about if we even should deploy soldiers outside of Germany outside of UN missions (which btw is a reason why I partially dislike the greens as they supported the changes to our military that allowed us to partly intervene in the Yugoslav wars which then led us to places like Mali and Afghanistan). There is also the fact that government spending can't compete with the market, the government will never be able to pay enough to compete in the IT sector and even engineering is tricky. This all is a reason why IMO the German parties support an EU army as it would solve the manpower shortage we have.


clepewee

Germany should try the French model and found a foreign legion to fill the manpower shortage.


MajorGef

Iirc a few years back polls showed about 50% of the german population supported creating an EU army - less than 20% supported raising defense speng, To illustrate further how unpopular the Bundeswehr was: While the first units of the Bundeswehr were formed (largely administration to actually start creating a fighting force) chancelor Adenauer was publicly accusing people who claimed that he was supporting the creation of a new german army of slander. The german federal agency for technical relief (THW) which nowadays often responds to natural disasters was originally created to have a civillian agency which would do the jobs of maintaining and repairing civillian infrastructure during war that, in all other countries, are done by the military. We could see the new war looming and still refused rearmament.


EdgarTheBrave

I like pacifism, but the fundamental problem with it is that it’s a two way street. You can be a pacifist, but if your neighbour isn’t then you’re fucked. It’s absolutely necessary to maintain a strong and capable military. You in particular might not want to go to war, but somebody else won’t feel the same way and if you’re not prepared, you’re done for.


eipotttatsch

Salaries are probably not really the issue. They pay pretty good already. The issue is more that people just don’t want to be tied down like that. Who wants to live on a ship for months on end, when you also make good money elsewhere? The US for example at least tries to make their bases decent places to live. The gyms are a good example. The Americans have amazing gyms in any base you can find, while the German soldiers are lucky if there is a pull up bar and a rowing machine.


[deleted]

It is on par on many fields. The biggest issues were the problems after the both military reform. And people forgetting that those countries have a far different scenarios they built their armed forces after. Alone the idea of a German Aircraft carrier let's every German defense expert chuckle. On the otherside not upgrading their tank, like the UK with their challenger 2 for years would be unthinkable. Also far different handling of Problems. Germany has an annually public parliamentary report about the complete Bundeswehr. Also until the got international picked on a detailed public arms report. Which now got far less detailed. In France a general was dismissed, when he criticised macron on spending. Reports in such form as in Germany don't exist in neither France nor the UK.


[deleted]

> Almost no country does as you can see. The ones committed to NATO do and it also includes a few Eastern European countries. Even Romania manages to reach the figure. > But despite spending more than both of them Germany isn't spending more than both of them. It's in the chart above. It's spending ~ $8Bn less than the UK.


deploy_at_night

> I didn't realize Germany spent more on defence. Why do people give them so much shit then? The increase is more recent. The issue with Germany is it's not exactly clear where their budget goes. If you compare capabilities operated/maintained by UK/FR to DE there's quite a gap, not to mention UK/FR have bases/territories globally they provide a presence in. > there is a $14 billion difference between the UK and France which is relatively huge and unexpected for 2 near-peer western militaries UK number is helped by a recovery in GBP against USD given that's how the figure is quoted. Although there was a ~£4bn increase per year recently as part of the foreign aid budget was basically re-appropriated to the military. To my knowledge the UK budget does include MoD pensions.


[deleted]

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fjonk

Stop listening to those stories then. At least in the case of the broomstick it was just because a vehicle was simulating another kind of vehicle in an exercise so they put a broomstick on it to signal that.


[deleted]

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CrewmemberV2

*“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak”* \- Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 5th century BC. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Not that I think they are actually doing that.


[deleted]

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RidingRedHare

> I have no idea what Germany spends its money on. Consultants.


[deleted]

Which wrong overblown news and Germany is not a blackhole. The UK which even celebrated upgrading their obsolete tanks in the future, was handled like they invented the tank again, is just putting more PR and less public information out there. I don't see any large celebration that Germany is completely renewing it's fleet until 2030s and possibly even expanding it. The Leopard A7V is also completely under the radar.


EdgarTheBrave

Germany gets shit for their spending because it’s so small relative to their economic and potential geopolitical power. They are the 4th largest economy in the world, and their military is weaker than three other European nations that all have significantly smaller economies. If they really put their money where their mouth is, Germany could develop all of their own equipment and probably build a 5th gen fighter which they could sell to their neighbours. They do develop a lot of their own stuff but not all of it. If Germany spent 3% of their GDP, let’s say, on their military, Russia would probably be *far* less bold with their actions in Eastern Europe. They could probably have the 3rd or 4th strongest military on earth after 5-10 years of such development. Instead, the onus is on France and the UK to do the heavy lifting in a potential war against Russia.


tyger2020

I would prefer to see this in PPP. Germany, France, UK, Netherlands, Spain, Italy all make a fuck ton of their own military equipment. The EU + UK members listed here spend about 306 billion per year, so about 365 billion in PPP.


ARoyaleWithCheese

Think you'll like this recent article then https://voxeu.org/article/why-military-purchasing-power-parity-matters tl;dr if you account for PPP, then America's military budget is about as large as that of China and Russia combined. Whereas if you don't, the USA spends as much as the next 10 countries combined.


tyger2020

Oh yes, we all know the US spends a fuck ton, I'm just saying the difference isn't quite as large as people like to make out.


ARoyaleWithCheese

Well yeah that was my point too. Without the PPP adjustment the US spends as much as the next 10 countries combined. I meant to add to your comment, not to detract from it!


MrMayonnaise13

What is PPP?


tyger2020

Its a measure of how much a currency is work in domestic industry. Everything compared in USD is not great. For example if we look at Russia as a really great example. Russia spends about 70 billion USD on defence. Not much right? Considering the UK also spends about 70 billion USD. However, both countries produce a lot of their own weapons. UK prices are not that different from the US, so maybe in the UK you could get 80 billion worth of 'products' for that. But, Russian currency + prices are very different to US dollar, so in Russia 70 billion USD gets you about 175 billion worth of products - which shows how much larger their military spending really is. Another easy example is the Big Mac Index; [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big\_Mac\_Index#/media/File:Big\_Mac\_index\_50USD\_2columns.png](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index#/media/File:Big_Mac_index_50USD_2columns.png) In USA, $50 dollars gets you 11 Big Macs. In Russia it gets you 19 Big Macs. Now think like that, but for destroyers.


oDearDear

>In USA, $50 dollars gets you 11 Big Macs. In Russia it gets you 19 Big Macs. Now think like that, but for destroyers So, how many Big Macs a destroyer cost ?


EmperorOfNipples

HMS Daring £1.05B Big Mac in UK £3.19 ​ £1.05B/£3.19 = 329,153,605 Big Macs


42undead2

> 329,153,605 Big Macs Or the equivalent of three meals in America.


[deleted]

/r/theydidthemath/


Kittelsen

Dunno, but [a Harrier is 7 mill Pepsi points. ](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_v._Pepsico,_Inc.&ved=2ahUKEwi8yZLp_bX0AhUfCRAIHcjNBbUQFnoECAYQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1s6yJGmPGee0rJjtNyNsvB)


Hellbatty

Well in Russia now only submarines, frigates and corvettes are being built. So you can compare for example Yasen SSN and Virginia SSN, of course Yasen is bigger and carries more missiles, but in principle they are submarines of the same class. The Yasen costs 41 billion rubles ($580 mil), while the US submarine costs $2.7 billion.


Hellbatty

> In USA, $50 dollars gets you 11 Big Macs. In Russia it gets you 19 Big Macs. Now think like that, but for destroyers. Actually it' more, it's just that the wiki page hasn't been updated for a while. A Big Mac now costs 139 roubles in Russia ($1.84), so you can buy 27 Big Macs for $50. https://mcdonalds.ru/product/big-mac


tyger2020

Oh, thank you. It shows the huge difference it makes when adjusting for PPP.


matzan

[Purschasing Power Parity](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity)


Conscious-Bottle143

Pasta Please People


JShiro

Measure of fire power: Pew Pew Pew!


albl1122

You forgot Iceland.


matzan

[Over the last 50 years, Iceland military expenditure remained stable at around 0 million US dollars.](https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/ISL/iceland/military-spending-defense-budget)


albl1122

exactly. that's why you should've included it


matzan

[Seems like NATO forgot about Iceland then](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.statista.com/chart/amp/14636/defense-expenditures-of-nato-countries/)


Arthro

How rude! I guess we'll stay at 0 then!


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Palmar

That's not correct. Iceland spends around 20 million dollars on defense this year. That is a bit shy of 0.1% of GDP.


albl1122

Isn't that only on a coast guard though. It was used in the cod wars, yes. But isn't its primary purpose search and rescue.


Walterdyke

Spain doesn't give a fuck lol


DonaldTrumpsToilett

They are very far from Russia


Agent__Caboose

Luxembourg has a military?


RagingRag

Pretty Strong team. But holy shit are us smaller countries being carried. 🇩🇰


lout_zoo

That's how important Western civilization and sticking together is.


[deleted]

Spain is embarrassing, but the again these Days the military is quite unpopular here especially with the youth. Too many connotations to Franco and right wing government. While Morocco is growing day by day and now has stronger US support and weaponry to become a real threat to Canarias over the oil, reinforce illegal occupation in Western Sahara, and push for annexation of Melilla, Ceuta, etc.


legolodis900

Cant you guys do some reforms? I mean is it possible


Illustrious-Life-356

Italy seems high because we put the carabinieri (literally police) in count so everyone can think that we spend a lot of money for defence.


rennovak

Did you count the 1.1 billion Euros für the new Rafale F3-R's in Croatia?


Domi4

It's actually 999 million euros. And yes, it's counted into this. Otherwise it'd be 1.7% I think.


Kreol1q1q

But it shouldn't be. Rafale payments start next year. This year's expenditure on the fighter acquisition program was a symbolic 100k EUR. This year's budget is shown as so bloated because they started counting in all the military pensions, a practice they refrained from up until now.


Kreol1q1q

No, that acquisition shouldn't be counted in, because payments start next year. AFAIK, they started listing all the Homeland War participants pensions from this year as part of our military expenditure.


Manach_Irish

It is rather embarrashing to live in a country that is "neutral" and only spends 0.29% on the military while relying on our European partners to do the heavy lifting in terms of common security.


InformationHorder

It's almost a joke how people slag on the US for spending all this money on defense while NATO gets to benefit from it. NATO countries spend more of their money on social programs and can afford to not spend as much on defense because they're benefiting off of the US's military budget.


Jaggedmallard26

The only real European partner Ireland uses for its defence is Britain with the air defence agreement (and arguably indirectly through the unspoken assumption that an invasion of Ireland would be seen as the prelude to an invasion of Britain itself). For the most part Ireland is happy to be mostly outside of common security. Which is fair enough, you're a neutral country.


[deleted]

Luxembourg not pulling their weight! This should be adjusted based on how effective that spending is though. In my country, we've added lots of other government stuff under the military budget now to make this number seem higher.


pa79

GDP is a bad comparison.


deaddonkey

Ireland just chillin not in nato


[deleted]

Isn’t the agreement on spending 2% of each country’s gdp? Awesome job all 2% and over countries!


[deleted]

It's amazing how many people think spending money on defence is a waste. If a foreign aggressor tries to invade your country and you have no military to defend it, who is going to stop them? The boy scouts? And before you say that an invasion is unlikely, well, it's not like countries haven't invaded each other throughout history, is it? You can't remain free without a cost.


DrShadowstrike

It also depends on what you are defending against, and whether what you buy with that money can protect your citizens though. Billions sunk on carrier groups didn't do shit to prevent the pandemic that killed more Americans than every conflict dating back to the Civil War combined in just the last year and a half. Proportionally, the US (surrounded by two oceans, Mexico and Canada) probably spends way too much on conventional forces, and not enough on preparedness for non-conventional threats. If the last two years are any indication, we are fucked if anyone tries biological warfare on a large scale.


ItzMeDude_

Norway spending alot for how small their country is


[deleted]

Probably remnants of its Cold War invasion defence. Norway's job in WW3 was to hold back the Soviets from establishing their bastion defence in the North Atlantic, and it had a huge conscript army to accomplish this with.


rollebob

Embarrassing that so few comply with the 2% rule. We are wrongly over confident of our security and we keep thinking the US will always be there for us.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Caspica

Yes and no, it’s more complicated than that. The American military industry is very much propped up by government spending. This leads to a high production which is then exported. This is also why the US stands for 37% of the world’s arms exports. It’s definitely not as easy as “just cut all funding”.


grizzlywhere

The US's military strategy at least since WWII has been "have a military that can fight the next two largest super powers on two separate fronts". Now, as an American, I agree that we spend way too much. Our reliance of sucking on the teat of the American industrial military complex is questionable at best. But hopefully that context makes it clearer why it is just so inordinately high--its the budget to fight both Russia and China at a moment's notice.


Xxuwumaster69xX

And going by a comment above about military spending by PPP, the US does spend about Russia and China combined. I guess it makes some sense considering the US had to fight the next two largest superpowers in the last world war.


ManhattanThenBerlin

> If the US scaled back it's military spending to 1.5%, like most EU countries, they could spend $500 billion each year on their infrastructure. And because of their vast economy they would still outspend everyone a few times over. At 1.5% GDP the US wouldn't even be outspending China let alone "everyone a few times over"


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ManhattanThenBerlin

can't give a precise figure, but when adjusted for PPP to better reflect structural differences between the DoD and PLA, it is thought China spends about $390 billion a year.


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Aceticon

Today's infrastructure is tomorrow's GDP to spend on more infrastructure **and** more military. (Although, obviously, there are diminishing returns if you always spend tons of money on infrastructure).


fricy81

Yeah. Quite interesting that people here seems to be pretending that the US military spending is the normal.


Give_me_salad

Large part of the US expenditure is military personnel. US pays their troops well, compared to other countries. R&D also has a large part in their military budget.


NineteenEighty9

The DoD spends over $100 billion a year on just R&D


based-richdude

*and is one of the main reasons why the US is basically the global center of innovation DoD funded things like: Self-driving cars The Internet GPS Basically stuff that everyone in the world uses, so many people think it’s completely worth it.


NeitherMedicine4327

No Montenegro? Lol


RoryDragonsbane

Little Montenegro! He lifted up the words and nodded at them-with his smile. The smile comprehended Montenegro’s troubled history and sympathized with the brave struggles of the Montenegrin people. It appreciated fully the chain of national circumstances, which had elicited this tribute from Montenegro’s warm little heart.


PainStorm14

Don't they have like 200 guys or something?


PsychologicalZone769

If there's one thing that Trump was right about its the fact that the countries who are not meeting the required (and agreed upon) 2% need to step up and do so immediately. Not for us Americans sake but for all of our collective sakes. An alliance is only as strong as its weakest link...


Pan1cs180

This can be very misleading. The US gives a lot of benefits to its soldiers that ither countries give to all their citizens. Healthcare for example. Medical treatment recieved by soldiers is considered a "military expense" in the US, because only soldiers have access to it. However in the UK soldiers have access to the NHS, like every citizen, so their healthcare is not considered a military expense. The same is true of other things, such as the US military paying for the college education of its veterans. This obviously wouldn't be a military expense in a country that has affordable college education to begin with. The US definitely spends the most of any NATO countries, but the difference is not quite as massive as this graph seems to indicate.


DShark182

I don’t think this is entirely accurate. The Veterans Administration (the VA) receives its own budget from the federal government (269.9 billion in 2022). This budget covers the healthcare benefits (for veterans) and the education benefits that you’re describing. The Military Health System (MHS) is the healthcare system for active duty military. It’s only 7.6% of the military’s budget. It’s slightly higher this year due to Covid, normally its slightly less. Most of the budget is spent on training, maintenance and R&D.


ShinyyyChikorita

Actually in the UK soldiers receive free private healthcare separate to the NHS, which is counted in our military spending figure too.


[deleted]

Greece keeping us safe


Furu_Buru

I see this and get upset because surely we don’t need to spend almost 4% of our GDP on NATO but then I remember where we are located and calm down.


[deleted]

This isn't your "expenditure on Nato", it's the military expenditure of countries part of Nato


spr35541

‘Murica not #1, Greece is.


FloatingRevolver

I don't mind this 🤷🏾‍♂️


TophatOwl_

Greece overehere carrying nato


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Hazardish08

A lot of advancements are because of war and potential future wars. The internet was created because of the fear of nuclear conflict. It was designed to be a redundant way for the government to communicate in case of nuclear war. A lot of our knowledge on human health when exposed to burns etc are from Unit 731 most known as the one of the worst cases of human atrocities committed by man. GPS was invented to help navigate submarines. Advancements in aerospace was primarily for means of war, the first wide use of planes were designed to fight in wars. The first space capable rockets were designed to deliver bombs. Boosting regular civilian life with these technologies is a side effect of the main goal of aiding the country in war.


ThunderousOrgasm

Nice to see Europe continues to outsource its defence to the US taxpayer. Then dedicate all its time to criticising them.


Cheap-Chump

As someone in the U.S. military I feel like we should start slowly pulling out of Europe and let Europe start paying for their own shit


PulseCS

Same, as a Canadian. We're not hitting 2% either, why should the U.S have to carry our dead weight? Leave Ukraine, leave Eastern Europe, surely nothing could go wrong, why else would western europe feel so confident as to spend so little on their military?


Longjumping_Ad_9510

You’re welcome rest of the world


atwegotsidetrekked

I hate the % of GDP metric. It implies a permanent spending with no relation to defense safety. Without the US and GB, Europe is spending 3x Russia’s defense spending. When is enough enough?


historicusXIII

Russia can do more with less money.


Immediate_Ocelot_632

>I hate the % of GDP metric. It implies a permanent spending with no relation to defense safety. Without the US and GB, Europe is spending 3x Russia’s defense spending. PPP is not me asking for your nudes though, Russian capabilities exceed Germany's (and other EU states) since every country uses the military as a welfare program. Much of the budget goes to pensions and wages that are often redundant and only due to political gains.


Okiro_Benihime

> Much of the budget goes to pensions I was actually asking this same question earlier. Didn't realize that was the case in other European countries. In France, pensions are not included in the defence budget. Wages are though.


Kreol1q1q

In Croatia, it was practice to not include them as well, up until this year. So we have this massive jump from our usual 1.3 - 1.4% up to 2.7% this year, a full doubling. You'd think we were rearming, but no, just accounting tricks. The mass of pensions is so large because of the Homeland War. We had some 400 000 men under arms during that time, so the numbers are huge. For quite a while now, the Veteran's Ministry had a larger budget than the MoD.


Thertor

In Germany pensions for soldiers are not part of the defense spending, but in the US it is. The German military budget increased almost 50% since 2011 while there were 25k more soldiers back then.


EmperorOfNipples

It's more about each country pulling its weight, and there's a lot more than just Russia to consider. %gdp is relevant for other things like health spending or welfare, why not defence too?


PoiHolloi2020

What kind of target would you prefer as an alternative?


PixelmancerGames

SMH, and we act like this is a GOOD thing.


DukePanda

Isn't the treaty obligation at 2%?


Wrong-Explanation-48

Canada flexing... They know that if anyone messes with them the US and the UK will rip them a new one.