They are cutting on everything to increase “defense” spending
Comment on NATO’s Hallucinations
MrScruff@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Whoever wrote this is pretty silly. They’re assuming 5% of GDP goes towards making guns. That is not the case. 1.5% of that can be spent on things like infrastructure and cyber security. Which isn’t (necessarily) going to be stripping money away from other spending.
The traditional defense spending budget is only raising to 3.5%.
rumimevlevi@lemmings.world 2 weeks ago
solo@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
I don't think I understand why you say that the author is assuming 5% of GDP goes towards making guns, since they talk throughout the article about military expenditure and military spending, which are much broader terms.
MrScruff@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
The author wrote that Germany has pledged 650 billion to the military over the next five years.
That’s roughly 3% of GDP per year.
The author then claims that Germany will have to raise an additional 155 billion per year to meet 5%.
155 billion is 3.5% of Germany’s GDP.
??? The author is either misinformed, or being willfully misleading.
My earlier point was that the infrastructure portion (1.5%) of the new 5% is for things ranging from roads and bridges to power stations in addition to actual military facilities like barracks, etc. Germany is certainly spending money on these infrastructure items already each year. Implying (or outright lying) that this would come from social welfare cuts is also wrong.