COLOGNE, Germany \u2013 German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer is pushing for a new yardstick to measure Berlin’s contributions to NATO, suggesting the country could shoulder 10 percent of alliance requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The figure is meant to reflect the share of NATO\u2019s total \u201cplanning targets,\u201d which are tabulated periodically, a defense ministry spokesman told Defense News. Such math would be able to more accurately capture Germany\u2019s efforts across the categories \u201ccash, capabilities and commitments\u201d than the current defense-spending objective of 2 percent of GDP, according to the spokesman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kramp-Karrenbauer has tried to sink the 2-percent target for some time, buoyed by the expected economic aftershocks of the coronavirus crisis. With global economies taking a major hit, any objectives tied to national economic output are too volatile to express members\u2019 actual utility to the alliance, her argument goes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defense officials outlined their thinking in a written response to members of the FDP party last month, as reported by the TAZ newspaper here. A follow-up request by the far-left Die Linke failed to bring clarity, however, about exactly how much money the defense ministry’s vision would translate into, the paper reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Germany\u2019s defense spending was almost $50 billion in 2019, following consecutive years of sizable increases. The figure amounts to roughly 1.3 percent of GDP, possibly hitting 1.6 percent once the post-pandemic economic damage has fully set in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Berlin distance from the official NATO goal has been a thorn in trans-Atlantic relations for years. Most recently, U.S. President Donald Trump justified the planned withdrawal of almost U.S. 10,000 troops from Germany as a means to punish the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Proponents of the 2-percent target have praised the yardstick for its unforgiving impartiality. No other measure is so immune to bartering and interpretation, the thinking goes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So far, it appears that defense officials in Berlin are hard-pressed to answer to that argument, acknowledging that because NATO planning targets extend so far into the future, matching the process up with concrete numbers would be a squishy endeavor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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