TRUMP IS RIGHT, AMERICA IS FUNDING THE DEFENSE OF THE FREE WORLD

By: John Gray | April 05, 2016

The North American Treaty Organization (NATO) is an intergovernmental military alliance between North America and Europe – overall, 28 members. The organization is self-funded, with each country owing a percentage based on their economic resources. As you can imagine, the United States provides the largest share of funding.

Since NATO’s founding in 1949, there has been criticism that the U.S. is carrying the weight of what is ultimately a European defense. In a recent campaign stop in Wisconsin, Donald Trump resurrected that criticism, noting that the United States is “giving them [Europe] military protection and other things, and they’re ripping off the United States. And you know what we do? Nothing.”

Whether or not the NATO mission is a necessary and meaningful effort in mutual defense is a question I leave for national security experts. However, from a budgetary standpoint, Trump has a point. U.S. taxpayers are overwhelmingly subsidizing the defense of our NATO partners; not just in terms of total spending, but in terms of member nations failing to abide by the cost-sharing rules in NATO’s founding treaty, which calls on each member nation to spend at least 2 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on military defense.

Interestingly, Trump’s frustration with the failure of our NATO allies to cover their costs is shared across the political spectrum. Just this month, Obama expressed frustration with the NATO allies, calling many of them “free-riders.” Obama even went to far as to threaten America’s top ally, Great Britain, with losing their “special relationship” status if it failed to meet their NATO spending threshold.

Yet, even when one considers Europe as a whole, the European NATO countries still fail to provide proportionally similar resources to those of the U.S.


A similar sentiment was also shared by Secretary of Defense Bob Gates in 2011. Gates warned of “a dim, if not dismal future,” for NATO unless members increased their participation in funding their defense resources. He called on NATO member states to “devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.”

Overall, the United States provides 72 percent of all military funding among NATO countries. The country closest to the U.S. in providing military resources is Great Britain, which provides about seven percent of NATO’s total military funding – 10 times less than what is shelled out of U.S. coffers.






Because the United States is a large country with a dominant economy, it’s often tough to compare the resources the U.S. dedicates toward security compared to individual NATO nations. Yet, even when one considers Europe as a whole, the European NATO countries still fail to provide proportionally similar resources to those of the U.S.

And it matters. Based on NATO statistics, Europe as a whole has a larger economic output than the United States. As you can see from Fig. 2, Europe in total has a larger economy, but has dedicated far fewer resources to military expenditures than those offered by the U.S. taxpayers.

How much is Europe failing to fulfill its role in NATO? It’s a lot. If Europe was meeting the rules outlined by NATO, the continent would be spending at least $118 billion more on military spending per year.

But get this: if Europe was to match the United States in spending more than 3.5 percent of GDP on military spending, they would spend an additional $406 billion.

These are not little numbers. They are reflective of the amount of resources the United States sacrifices and how little our NATO allies don’t. In fact, NATO specifically requests each member nation to spend at least two percent of GDP on the military. Yet, only five nations have complied with this request.

That is unfair to the United States, and it’s unfair to the American taxpayers who have to pick up the tab for nations who don’t want to pay to secure themselves.




Most experts will agree that the U.S. has a larger pool of resources, and thus, has the ability to commit more than other NATO nations. Fine. Nevertheless, it is not the U.S. taxpayer dollars that are solely responsible for protecting our allies; NATO was not an organization designed to have America play the world’s cop. Our friends and allies should be held accountable to participating in their own defense by fairly sharing the monetary burden requested by NATO.

- See more at: https://www.conservativereview.com/c....bd0auBWA.dpuf