Defence Budgets

Photo credit: James Laurence Stewart

The current and future fiscal environments demand a smarter approach to defence budgeting and procurement in the Alliance. The debate in NATO has been too narrowly focused on burden sharing with accusations that Europe spends too little on defence. But the United States spends seven times as much on military force as on international affairs and homeland security combined, and its military budget accounts for around 45% of the global total. The United States needs to spend less on defence while some European states may need to raise their spending or allocate their existing defence budgets more wisely. It is time to consider whether NATO really needs military operations that cost double what the rest of the world spends on its various military functions. This is a summary list of all the content in the site categorised within the Defence Budgets policy area.