Europe is rearming itself. But not only because of the war in Ukraine and the fear of Russia’s aggressive stance, but also because of what Donald Trump said privately in 2018 (according to the reconstruction conducted by the New York Times), namely that the United States could do this. They have left NATO, the Washington Post wrote. “The US leaving NATO will be a huge pressure. This is the fear with Trump. The American newspaper quoted a high-ranking European diplomat as saying that every foreign ministry is thinking about this. Poland, which is leading this arms race, will be able for example to deploy more tanks than Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy combined. The size of its army has doubled. More than 10,000 American soldiers are deployed in Poland, and 80 percent of weapons are transferred from Poland to Ukraine.
In 2018, Poland spent about 2% of its GDP on defence. Next year, this percentage will almost double. It will continue to grow. Almost no other NATO country spends this amount as a proportion of GDP. Poland is approaching Israel’s levels (4.5 percent of GDP) in purchasing new fighter planes and helicopters, grenade launchers, air defense and artillery systems, and even tanks.
Even Germany, long reluctant to increase defense spending, has set a long-term expansion of the military sector, at a cost of tens of billions of dollars annually until the 2030s. France, which proposes “strategic autonomy” for the European Union through the United States, has increased military spending to a level not seen in half a century: Macron has allocated $450 billion to be spent on defense by 2030.
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