Germany hikes defense spending over 2% of GDP after Russian aggression

[Moon]

That Scholz wants to upgrade his country’s defensive capabilities makes sense.

I agree, I wish the previous Chancellor had felt the same way.

 

[Callen]

Use whatever word you like.
When will Canada live up to their obligation? Do you think any country who independently elects not to meet their obligation should be able to count on/rely on NATO support? If so, please explain why or how you consider that fair or ethical. Do you think being a part of a "group" without living up to the obligations of "membership" is fair? Is this kind of like an individual who chooses not to work but expects to be supported by someone who works hard?
I think it stinks that numerous countries don't meet their obligation. Shame on Canada!!!!!

Trudeau has pledged to significantly increase our defence budget and while we are making strides towards accomplishing that we still have work to do. The NATO guidlines call for 2% of a countries GDP be invested in their military. Countries set their budget based on their priorities not based on a percentage of GDP. The US has a huge military budget, it is so large because many Americans value defence more than other areas that require taxpayer funding. It's contribution of over 3% of GDP has zero to do with their NATO obligation and everything to do with how you prioritize the military spending. That is neither right nor wrong because it is the desire of a majority of taxpayers. Our taxpayers value their military but they have other priorities for their taxpayer dollars, priorities like healthcare. There are only a few ways to increase our military budget, cut other programmes or raise taxes. Neither of those options is palatable to the taxpayer so we have to make incremental increases which we have done but budget issues, especially due to covid, have slowed that. Should we increase our defence budget to meet our obligations.....yes, will we.....yes, will it happen quickly...no.

Although our defence budget is isn't where it needs to be our real contribution ( contribution being the right word in this context) to NATO foces is more than most countries. By that I mean the percent of our military which is deployed doing actual NATO defence missions rather than on other Canadian national defence missions. Canada has sent troops on every NATO mission since it was established. We have large numbers of troops engaged in training, command and control, communication etc. We just pulled our special forces out of Ukraine but they have been there several years doing special forces training. One other thing that tilts things a little is that the US, I believe, funds military healthcare out of their defence budget but we find ours out of our healthcare budget. So if you moved that element from healthcare to defence it would up our percentage automatically.

Anyway, yes we need to do better but it is a complex political issue and it is going to be slow progress. In the meantime, as we have always done, Canada will meet the call of all NATO requests for our military and in any other way we are needed.