U.S. Taxpayer Subsidies for European Welfare States Continue

The lackluster defense spending of U.S. allies is again in the news. At the G7 Summit in Germany earlier this month, President Obama implored British Prime Minister David Cameron to reverse the decline in the UK’s defense spending, which is widely expected to fall below NATO’s 2 percent of GDP mandate next year. This is not the first time in recent months that the topic has come up. During a private meeting in Washington in February, Obama reportedly told the Prime Minister: “if Britain doesn’t spend 2 percent on defense, then no one in Europe will.” In fact, hardly any of America’s NATO allies meet their NATO commitments. In 2014, only Greece, Estonia, the U.S. and the U.K. spent as much as 2 percent of GDP on defense. Excepting NATO member Iceland, which is exempted from the spending mandates, the 23 other NATO members failed to spend even two cents of every dollar to defend themselves from foreign threats. And Greece only met the 2 percent threshold because their economy is falling faster than their military spending. But the problem of inadequate defense spending by America’s allies goes even deeper. The U.S. and the U.K. are the only two NATO member states that met both the 2 percent of GDP floor, and the mandate that at least 20 percent of military spending be “dedicated to research, development and acquisition of major defence equipment” in 2014. If current trends continue, the United States will be the only NATO member to meet both mandates startin...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs