“500M Europeans Are Begging 300M Americans for Protection from 140M Russians Who Have Been Unable to Overcome 50M Ukrainians for Three Years”

A nice line from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk (Politico.Eu). I have no well-informed view on the proper role of the U.S. in the defense of Europe (though my intuitions are in favor of strong U.S. support for NATO, I can’t speak with confidence about the subject). But I thought this was a well-put call for action, from a country that is estimated to have spent 4.12% of its GDP on defense in 2024, compared to a 2.02% average for European NATO members and Canada, and 3.38% for the U.S. “The Polish military is now about 200,000, which makes it the third-largest in NATO after the U.S. and Turkey and the largest among the alliance’s EU members.”

Tusk added,

By the end of the year, we want to have a model ready so that every adult male in Poland is trained for war, and so that this reserve is adequate for possible threats…. Every healthy man should want to train to be able to defend the homeland in case of need. We will prepare it in such a way that it will not be a burden on people.

By the way, the only other NATO member that spent a higher fraction of its GDP than the U.S. is Estonia, at 3.43%. Latvia and Lithuania are also high, at 3.15% and 2.85%, well above everyone else except Greece at 3.08%. The one behind Lithuania (though closer to the middle of the pack) is Finland, at 2.41%. See a pattern?

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