Would be interested to see any data on capacity to manufacture ammunition and things like tanks and planes etc.

32 comments

1. This is the American military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about. But yeah, let’s complain about all the other “deadbeat” countries that aren’t “pulling their weight.”

2. American military spending is crazy to think about…

3. It’s inaccurate to show this as “NATO defense spending”. It’s defense spending of countries that belong to NATO. And they have very different “private” uses of their military. Some are all over the place…

4. I’d rather have a comparison of Western and Eastern Europe in they preparedness for a conflict with Russia. 

5. Spending per country based on per capita would be a much more useful chart.

6. I have a feeling those 15B spent by Turkey go a longer way than other similar countries’ spending, for example Greece and Romania combined.

7. Show me this statistic per capita

8. As someone else pointed out, this is total defense spending, not defense spending specifically for NATO. A better comparison might be % of GDP spent specifically on NATO.

9. Considering the US accounts for about 1/3 of the population of NATO, it is quite impressive.

   But also, considering the US spend more than 3.5 per cent of their GDP, and most others are smaller states population wise compared to the US, and spend around 2 per cent (or less)…. it makes sense the US ends up with that amount of the whole of NATO.

10. I would like to see the beneficiaries of these spending.

11. Don’t you Americans ever get tired of posting this daily, pretending that you spend so much and the EU spends so little? And cause a rift? Cause that’s exactly what the Republicans/Kremlin want.

12. I like to see the amount spent per inhabitant. Can you create this graphic again?

13. As others have pointed out, this is misleading. This is just national spending, and for especially the US, a lot of it has got nothing to do with NATO / defending the transatlantic region.

14. Well. if you show it on a percent GDP basis the gap narrows

15. ” the pie chart sucks lets avoid using it”

    “Alright, i have a new great idea!”

16. OP, I’m going to see this as you seeing the data without needed context and biting on the narrative that’s out there. That’s what happened to me at one time.

    It must be noted this is total defense spending. That makes sense as an equatable to NATO for all European countries as they are spending direct to NATO needs and capabilities. But for the US that direct defense spending as a whole, not specifically slotted to NATO.

    It skews the data and screams narrative. If the gripe is countries that don’t defense spend what they commit I get that. But this data does nothing for that argument but close ears and eyes.

    If the take is why spend so much defense I agree, but wonder why NATO needs to be the place we make cuts, especially now.

    All that said….i get the question on capacity to manufacture. I don’t have such data, but agree it can be an interesting context. It could also be bent wildly for narrative. As with anything these days.

17. Don’t the Americans also include military-related social programs such as veteran retirement funds in their military budget?

18. Having based all over the world isn‘t only for ‚defense‘.
    So I cry foul.

19. And Trump wanting countries to spend more is like him saying “give us money”

20. I’d also like to see where the money is spent. How much of Germany’s 70 billion is driving the us military machine. US : “please spend more money buying our military products, instead of building infrastructure that makes you less invadable” edit typos

21. USA is also having military based and a navy that extends actoss the globe. That’s not just in NATO’s interest, but in the US own interest.

22. I’d like to know who takes the money? we know who spends but where actually all that money goes to?

23. Romania military spending/defense budget for 2021 was **$5.56B**, a **10.11% increase** from 2020.

    source:https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/ROU/romania/military-spending-defense-budget

24. What’s Canada doing there?

25. It always boggles my mind how my country Germany is paying so much for defense yet our armed forces are a joke and our artillery ammunition supplies to Ukraine are so low. France is paying way less, has a nuclear program and an aircraft carrier. I’m not saying we should have those and of course it’s not easily comparable but it looks like a lot of our defense spending is eaten up by bureaucracy and inefficient equipment acquisition.

26. Defence spending doesn’t tell everything. In Finland the situation is that because of compulsory military service Finland is able to spend bigger amounts of its defence budget to weapons instead of military personnel salaries.

    Military experts in Nordic countries estimate that Finland’s Army is significantly stronger than The Swedish Army, though Sweden’s defence budget is bigger. Finland for example has the biggest artillery in Western Europe: 1600 heavy artillery pieces. The United States has about 4000. And Finland is the only Nordic country that has long range cruise missiles.

27. There is little public data on production capacity of ammunition. It’s mostly based on anonymous sources and estimates by analysts. The demand for ammunition and artillery shells has gone up all over Europe and production has been ramping up accordingly in many countries and even multiplying in some.

    According to sources seems this year Germany will probably surpass the US in production of artillery shells. After ramping up production German Rheinmetall will produce 450 000 artillery shells by the end of year while the estimated US production is 430 000 this year – provided the US does not ramp up their production even more.

28. Bank angle, bank angle

29. Germany and the UK spend about the same money on defence. How is it that the uk has an aircraft carrier and nuclear weapons and Germany can’t even restock the frigate Hessen?

30. Yet Europeans constantly shit on Americans. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

31. This is spending for each nations defense, not NATO spending. The US would probably be spending more if NATO didn’t exist.

32. This looks like a massive difference, but the US’ GDP is just larger than the rest of NATO’s. If you look at it by % of gdp, Poland and the US are almost the same with the UK only being about half the % of GDP as the US. It’s a very bad comparison to make as you aren’t factoring the size of the country at all.