The Two-Percent Story

In the spring of 2017, President Trump brought up a topic which kinda irked the German political establishment....the two-percent defense spending situation.  Some NATO members were meeting the goal....most weren't.  The German attitude about this was that they would meet the goal within the time planned (certainly not 2017, but very likely by 2020).  The topic was brought up a couple of times in 2017....but the German position is, there simply isn't enough government funding laying around to support a two-percent goal.

So ARD (public TV, Channel One) brought this whole subject up today.

The entire topic has become a hotly debated subject for the Bundestag.

For the SPD, Martin Schulz has said that the German government should do nothing to support President Trump's request.

But there's this one problem....this two-percent idea was dreamed up in 2002.  Yes, sixteen years ago.  There was even a SPD minister in charge of the German military at the time and attended the conference where this two-percent of the GNP discussion came up. For sixteen years, the goal has existed and most of the NATO members simply have avoided the goal.

If you look forward over six years, it would to a German problem of finding sixty billion Euro just laying around.  Frankly, the money doesn't exist unless you tax more.

One suggestion thrown around now is to dump the two-percent goal and settle for 1.5-percent of the GNP instead.  That would be achievable.

So you can sense that there is political problems here.  It's doubtful that Merkel or this new coalition government coming....will be able to work this out and find billions to achieve the two-percent goal.

Where does this lead onto?  I would speculate that some meeting in 2018 will occur where the US suggests that NATO can't meet its objectives and it might be time to reduce the US footprint in Europe.  Some German political folks will pat themselves on the back because that's a great thing.  And some downsizing of the US military in Europe occurs.

Then, as if on stage and following a script....Putin will conduct some major exercises and the German news media will hype the potential of a 'threat' existing.  Dragging the US back?  Maybe if they wait long enough for Trump to leave but the odds are that the US isn't going get itself dragged back in.  So, this brings on the real long-term issue....instead of worrying about finding the two-percent money laying around, the EU will have to force everyone to cough up more money....likely 2.5 to 3 percent, to build a major military force.

You can imagine the SPD big-wigs sitting there and trying envision how they got into such a mess.