Big news out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) meeting this week is member governments agreeing to a declaration stating they each “commit to invest 5 percent of GDP annually on core defence requirements as well as defence-and security-related spending by 2035 to ensure our individual and collective obligations.”
“Defence” is used, largely outside America, as an alternative spelling of “defense.”
Most the focus in media coverage of this development is on the increased spending that will be required to meet this goal by nations other than the US that was the primary pusher of the move. But, it should also be noted that the US government will have to direct much more spending to “defense” to meet the goal as well.
A NATO chart of member governments’ spending levels as of 2024 puts the US at 3.4 percent of GDP (gross domestic product) on this type of spending. That means meeting the goal would require that such spending gobble up roughly half again as much of GDP within the next ten years.
In April, I wrote about how it would be disastrous if the US government achieved this increased spending goal that was then being promoted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. You can read that post here.
