The week ahead has all the makings of the water-splitting event that the Atlantic Alliance has never known.
Following the visit of US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth to Brussels on 5 June, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte wasted no time in informing the press that NATO would ‘unanimously’ approve an increase in defence spending to a minimum of 5% of member states’ GDP.
Hegseth brought a message from President Trump to spend more on armaments, a recipe already known since his first administration, but now in more favourable circumstances. The Pentagon chief had just arrived from the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, where he gave orders to his Indo-Pacific allies to do the same, in view of the ‘growing threat from China’ in the region.
But why does Rutte say that ‘we will approve unanimously’? How does he know that this ambitious and fanciful target will be met? Do Rutte, Hegseth and Trump even know what this means for each of the 32 member countries?
What can we expect, for example, from Finland or Sweden, two countries that until two years ago enjoyed decades of social welfare, partly thanks to their military neutrality? How will the Swedes and Finns understand this blow to their economies, when they were promised that joining NATO would bring them ‘security’?
Five days after receiving Hegseth, the NATO Secretary General announced in London the total militarisation of the continent, stating that NATO needs thousands more armoured vehicles and millions of artillery shells, as well as a 400% increase in air and missile defence, and double the expenditure on logistics, transport and medical support.
The NATO chief also said that Europe needs ships and aircraft. As an example, US allies in Europe need 700 F-35 fighter jets’ (from the American company Lockheed Martin, which has strong ties to Trump’s son-in-law), said the Dutchman. ‘We know we need to spend much, much more if we want to achieve all these goals,’ Rutte warned, passing on the message that the Pentagon chief had brought him from the White House.
Trump’s plan has two main objectives: to restore US heavy industry through the arms sector at a time when the administration is desperately trying to reduce the ever-growing budget deficit, and, on the other hand, to lock Europe into a defence system that is hugely dependent on the US for hardware and software, while undermining any attempt at emancipation by pan-European defence industrial projects, which have been severely weakened since the EU entered the Ukrainian conflict under US orders. The US military-industrial complex thus aims to deliver the decisive blow to European strategic autonomy.
If approved, the expenditure will place a heavy burden on smaller countries with more fragile economies. It is definitely not the same to demand 5% from Germany, France or the United Kingdom as it is from Montenegro, Croatia, Hungary, Greece, Portugal or any of the Baltic States, neither in terms of the capacities of their economies, nor the history of the countries, nor the perception of their populations. It is pure naivety or ignorance to treat 32 countries in the same way. This idea could only come from a transactional mind like Trump’s.
Spain has already made it clear that it cannot afford it. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who has done so much wrong in economic and fiscal policy, will probably fall from government soon, just when he is doing things right, namely in his support for the process of recognising Palestine at the UN, in distancing himself from Israel, and now in daring to refuse to raise his military budget to the standards demanded by the US.
Trump’s imposition is a tremendous hypocrisy, since the US itself currently spends only 3% of its budget on defence and even aims to reduce it. It was known that Trump would make the Europeans pay for the US wars; this was warned here before his election.
Germany is an important element in this equation. Chancellor Friedrich Merz was the first to submit to Trump’s orders after Poland, immediately announcing a rise in the budget to 5% of GDP as soon as he took office in Berlin. Last week, at the G7 meeting in Canada, Merz took centre stage again, stating that ‘we have to be grateful to the Israelis because they are the ones doing the dirty job’ by attacking Iran. Germany is heavily involved in Israel’s wars, notably as its largest arms supplier.
Bezalel Smotrich wasted no time in taking advantage of these scandalous words. The controversial Israeli Finance Minister said that “the rich Arab countries, Germany, Britain and France must share the costs of Israel’s war against Iran, at least from an economic point of view. A nuclear-armed Iran with missiles is a threat not only to Israel or the Middle East, but to the whole world.”
In other words, in addition to the 5% target, NATO’s continued support for Kiev’s proxy regime in its long war against Russia, and now also Netanyahu’s recklessly initiated war against Iran, will also be on the table in The Hague. It is obvious that there will be no consensus, nor funds for all this, and discord will reign among the allies. The week ahead has all the makings of the water-splitting event that the Atlantic Alliance has never known.
Ricardo Nuno Costa ‒ geopolitical expert, writer, columnist, and editor-in-chief of geopol.pt
