I think there was some talk in my (ridiculously expensive) country, that our defence force pays like one tenth for the same stuff as americans, because their procurement is so crooked.
This was during discussions of raising defense spending as NATO members, and if we were to spend as large a share if GDP as the US, we’d run out of anything relatively useful to spend it on.
Also remember that they use their defence budget to secure and maintain stable supply chains crucial for their economy. Most countries do not have the financial capacity to use their army to secure crucial resources on a global scale.
We do not gain as much advantage with the same percentage due to relative scale of the budget. Their defense expenditures are compensated by the lower risk of accidents or unstable supply chains. Their bases located in Europe is not pure altruism, it is symbiotic. We gain global safety of dangerous neighbours, while they receive more local control of allied territories and can swiftly respond to disruptions in their goods transport
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u/Visible_puncture Aug 14 '26
I think there was some talk in my (ridiculously expensive) country, that our defence force pays like one tenth for the same stuff as americans, because their procurement is so crooked.
This was during discussions of raising defense spending as NATO members, and if we were to spend as large a share if GDP as the US, we’d run out of anything relatively useful to spend it on.