94Ha ViewpointSo, here’s the scoop. On June 9, all the European news outlets started buzzing—NATO’s soon-to-be-chief, Mark Rutte, basically showed up in London and dropped a spicy little warning while chatting with the new British PM, Keir Starmer. The gist? Pony up for defense or, hey, maybe just start learning Russian. No, really, he said it like, “If you don’t bump defense spending up to 5%—that’s 3.5% on hardcore military stuff, and another 1.5% on, you know, ‘defense-ish’ stuff—sure, you can hang onto your hospitals and pensions and all that, but maybe brush up on your Russian.” Subtle, right?
Apparently, NATO’s got this big summit coming up later in June and they’re expected to lean hard on countries to throw 3.5% of their GDP at defense, plus an extra 1.5% for anything remotely war-related, by sometime in the 2030s. Latest numbers? Out of all the NATO folks, 23 are probably gonna squeak past the 2% GDP mark for military spending this year, but 9 countries are dragging their feet like a bored teenager. And, obviously, people are raising eyebrows—like, are these governments gonna have to gut healthcare or pensions just to keep up with the defense demands? Because, honestly, nobody wants to see grandma’s medicine swapped for a tank.
