Europe is rearming. But it is not just because of the war in Ukraine and the fear that Russia’s aggressive attitude generates, but rather because of what Donald Trump said in private in 2018 (according to a reconstruction by the New York Times), namely that the United States The United States could abandon NATO, writes the Washington Post. “The US leaving NATO would be a huge stress. And that is Trump’s fear. Every Ministry of Foreign Affairs thinks about this”, said a senior European diplomat, quoted by the North American newspaper. Poland, which is leading this arms race, will be able, for example, to deploy more tanks than Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy combined. And the size of its armed forces is doubling. More than 10,000 American troops are deployed in Poland and 80 percent of weapons transit from Poland to Ukraine.
In 2018, Poland spent around two percent of its gross domestic product on defense. Next year this percentage will almost double. And it will continue to grow. Almost no other NATO country spends as much as a percentage of GDP. Poland is approaching Israeli levels (4.5% of GDP) in purchasing new combat aircraft and helicopters, grenade launchers, air defense and artillery systems, and even tanks.
Even Germany, long reluctant to increase defense spending, has set out a long-term expansion of the military sector, at a cost of tens of billions of dollars a year until the 2030s. France, which proposes “strategic autonomy” of the European Union by the USA, increased military spending to a level not seen in half a century: Macron allocated 450 billion dollars to be spent on defense until 2030.
Source: IL Tempo
John Cameron is a journalist at The Nation View specializing in world news and current events, particularly in international politics and diplomacy. With expertise in international relations, he covers a range of topics including conflicts, politics and economic trends.
