Prague, Feb 23 (CTK) – European politicians, including the Czechs, verbally agree with the demand that NATO members each raise its defence spending to 2 percent of GDP, but they do not feel like meeting the demand as no one has explained convincingly why the increase is necessary, Antonin Rasek writes in Pravo yesterday.
The demand for NATO members to fulfil their previous promise is probably the most-discussed issue in Euro-Atlantic defence. However, many European politicians doubt whether a higher defence spending would guarantee better security, Rasek writes.
Doubts in this respect have been voiced by German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, for example, but he is not the only one to feel them, Rasek writes.
European politicians’ opposition to the higher spending demand stem from the fact that no one has concretely and convincingly said why the increase is urgently needed, and what threats NATO is expected to face in the future, Rasek writes.
The above information usually serve militaries to plan their modernisation, he adds.
True, Russia has been spoken of as a threat. However, NATO officials’ statements in this respect, let alone U.S. officials’, have been far from unambiguous, and they even contradict each other now and then, Rasek writes.
In addition, Russia is often mentioned in connection with a hybrid war, which puts emphasis on ideological and propaganda methods as well as disinformation, neither of which is that cost-intensive, Rasek writes.
This makes many people suspect that the appeals for an increased defence spending are not aimed against security or military threats, but are meant to satisfy the need of the security and military complex, mainly that of the USA, and thereby help reduce the U.S. state debt, Rasek writes.
Simultaneously, in spite of numerous appeals, NATO is failing to rationalise its military research and armament production, though the allies have been losing dozens of billions of dollars this way, which NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has admitted, Rasek writes.
The insufficient explanation of the need to increase the spending on allied defence strengthens those who believe – and who seem to prevail now – that the most serious security threat to Europe is the uncontrolled soaring migration, problems with the integration of immigrants, and terrorism, Rasek writes.
That is why Europe mainly needs to face this kind of threat, with which NATO deals only marginally, since the North Atlantic treaty does not bind NATO to intervene against it, Rasek writes.
The problem evidently does not rest in European countries’ willingness, or rather unwillingness to raise their military budgets but in the need to persuade these countries’ governments and people that the increase is really necessary, Rasek writes.
