The frightening maths of Europe’s military black hole
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. ON NOVEMBER 23rd Mark Rutte, the new head of NATO, and Donald Trump, America’s president-elect, were photographed together grinning delightedly and shaking hands in Palm Beach, Florida. Yet the mood in Europe’s defence ministries is one of grim foreboding.
At a gathering of defence officials and defence-industry executives in Prague a few days after the election, the most optimistic sentiment was that Mr Trump was “unpredictable". Others were a lot less upbeat. Some at the meeting, run by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), took heart from the fact that 23 out 32 NATO members are this year meeting or exceeding a target to spend 2% of GDP that was established ten years ago following Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Since 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, defence budgets across Europe have risen steadily. This year, total spending has increased by an average of 9% in real terms, reaching $436bn. Few believe this will be enough to persuade Mr Trump that America’s allies are doing what they should.
He appears to dislike the very notion of NATO, which was founded on the principle that all members are obliged to regard an attack on one as an attack on all. On the campaign trail, he invited Russia to “do whatever the hell they want" to any NATO country that is not paying its way. Mr Rutte has warned that the 2% spending goal is now obsolete: meeting it is neither enough to impress Mr Trump, nor to deter Vladimir Putin should Europe be forced to bear most of the responsibility for its own security, as seems all too possible.
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