Reaction to Putin’s politics: NATO wants to expand defense skills extremely

In view of the continuing threat from Russia, NATO wants to extremely expand its military skills to deter and defend it. As the German Press Agency learned from alliance circles, it is planned to increase the previously valid targets by around 30 percent. In the future, significantly more far -reaching marching aircraft and drones as well as capacities in areas such as air defense and artillery should be kept.

In order to ensure that the requirements are reached, Germany and the other Member States are now assigned new national planning goals. They are to be formally accepted this Thursday at a Defense Minister of Defense in Brussels.

The new goals are a particularly major challenge because the ones who have been valid so far have not yet been achieved. Ranghohe military recently spoke of a gap of 30 percent.

Specifications are classified as strictly secret

The concrete new national planning goals are currently still classified as strictly secret. However, it is expected that after the defense ministers have been accepted, some details are made public.

For Germany, the military assumes that the approximately 182,000 soldiers currently have to grow up a high five -digit number if the Federal Republic wants to achieve the assigned planning goals. In addition, considerable investments in new air defense systems will also be necessary, for example.

Investments in billions of bills are approaching allies

The planned new requirement for defense spending is also derived from the current deficits and the new planning goals. At the end of the month, all NATO members should commit themselves to investing at least one amount of 3.5 percent of the national gross domestic product (GDP) in defense at the end of the month. In addition, another 1.5 percent of GDP for defense -relevant expenditure – for example for infrastructure – could come, so that in the end the quota demanded by US President Donald Trump is achieved.

According to Federal Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, the proportion of defense spending on German economic output is to increase by 0.2 percentage points per year over a period of five to seven years. A quota of 3.5 percent could then be reached by 2032 of the 2.1 percent last year.

According to Chancellor Friedrich Merz, each percentage point would currently mean more than an increase of 45 billion euros in defense spending. With a total of five percent, expenditure of 225 billion euros per year would currently be necessary. To classify: The total expenditure of the federal budget was around 466 billion euros last year.

Trump wants a new load division

The background to the plans is the assessment of secret services that, despite the still ongoing war war against Ukraine, Russia could be ready for further military aggression in Europe in a few years. With the new national planning goals for defense skills and with the new quota, however, the US claim for a more balanced load division within the alliance should also be taken into account. In contrast to most other alliance states, the United States have always spent significantly more than three percent of their economic output for defense for many years.

Trump now wants Europeans to assume significantly more responsibility for security on their continent in the future. Ideally, you should put all conventional defense skills in the future. The United States would then only have to guarantee nuclear deterrence in Europe.