us media: war or welfare, europe faces a painful choice
2024-09-17
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reference news reported on september 17on september 14, the wall street journal website published an article titled "europe faces a painful choice: war or welfare", written by tom fairless and bertrand benoit. the full text is excerpted as follows:
after the end of the cold war, european countries drastically cut their military budgets and invested the huge amount of money saved in people's livelihood projects - this policy was widely popular among voters. after all, europe at the time had almost no external threats and enjoyed the security protection of the united states.
today, as the war in ukraine reignites cold war-like tensions and the united states seeks to pivot toward china, european countries, most of which are not yet able to put their militaries on a combat footing, are finding it hard to let go of the benefits of peacetime.
here's the lesson: it's easy to change guns into butter, but much harder to change the other way around.
despite promises to increase military spending, european defense ministers say they are having trouble getting the money they need. in germany, europe's largest economy, military bases are either falling into disuse or being converted into civilian facilities such as sports centers, nursing homes, and pension fund offices. during the cold war, west germany had 500,000 troops and east germany had 300,000. today, germany has only 180,000 active military personnel. germany now has only a few hundred tanks, while west germany had more than 2,000 leopard 2 main battle tanks in the late 1980s.
the status quo could also frustrate u.s. hopes that europe will start to take on some of the burden, as the united states accounts for two-thirds of nato member states’ military spending. both presidential candidates have expressed a desire for europe to shoulder more of the cost of security.
with the exception of poland and the baltic states, few european countries spend close to 3% of their gdp on the military. britain, under the previous conservative government, vowed to raise its military spending to 2.5% of gdp by 2030, from around 2.3% currently. however, new prime minister keir starmer has so far been reluctant to give a timetable. italy and spain, on the other hand, spend less than 1.5%.
germany's kiel institute for the world economy released a report this month saying that at the current rate of arms renewal, it would take germany 100 years to bring its howitzer inventory back to 2004 levels.
earlier this year, german finance minister christian lindner said during the 2025 budget negotiations that he wanted to free up funds for defense by freezing social spending for three years to combat inflation. this proposal was rejected by other parties in the ruling coalition, and as a result, the basic defense budget increased by only 1.2 billion euros from 2024, which was only enough to pay for the latest military salary increase. military aid to ukraine was cut to 4 billion euros, about half of this year's amount.
the parties in the ruling coalition agreed to increase the maternity benefit by 108 euros per year for two years - all families can receive 3,000 euros per child per year regardless of their income. this subsidy alone will cost more than 50 billion euros per year, which is roughly equivalent to the total annual budget of the german ministry of defense.
"i think it is fatal to think that we should dismantle the welfare state because we need more money for the military," said german economy minister robert habeck. habeck believes that germany faces not only external threats from russia, but also internal threats: the public's illusions about the democratic system are gradually being shattered. "social spending is necessary to maintain national unity," habeck said.
in the mid-1980s, west germany's military spending reached 3% of its gdp, and east germany's was over 5%. by 2022, germany had only spent about 1.4%. according to a german think tank, germany saved a total of 680 billion euros, which was used to rebuild east germany and establish a welfare state system there. it is estimated that since 1991, europe as a whole has kept military spending below 2% of its gdp, saving about 1.8 trillion euros.
in 2022, shortly after the outbreak of the russian-ukrainian conflict, german chancellor olaf scholz said a "turning point" was coming. scholz pledged to increase germany's military spending to more than 2% of gdp and announced a 100 billion euro off-budget special investment fund for rearmament. military experts welcomed the move, but warned that the 2% threshold was not enough to quickly enhance germany's military strength given its long-term underinvestment.
however, two years later, germany's basic defense budget is still only equivalent to 1.3% of gdp. only with the help of off-budget investment funds, the overall military expenditure barely reaches the 2% threshold. by 2028, when the off-budget investment funds are exhausted, germany will have to significantly increase its basic defense budget by 60% to ensure that total military expenditure remains above 2% of gdp. some analysts believe that this is unlikely. (compiled by liu ziyan)
on july 29, a tourist took a photo in front of the brandenburg gate in berlin, germany. (xinhua)
