A few weeks ago, the washington post published excerpts from a Pentagon document revealing Justin Trudeau’s true opinion on NATO’s recommended military spending targets.
According to this document, the Prime Minister allegedly told the leaders of the Atlantic Alliance that Canada will never reach the target of 2% of gross domestic product allocated to the national defense budget. Canada currently devotes 1.3% of its GDP to military spending.
This revelation sparked an onslaught of criticism of the Liberal leader from representatives of the military-industrial complex, his media outlets and the Conservative Party. Trudeau did not deny the facts. Rather, he recalled that Canada is a reliable NATO partner.
On the substance of the matter, the Prime Minister is right: Canada will not achieve this target, because it is more political rhetoric than an assessment based on objective criteria of what is really necessary and possible to ensure the defense of a country and a military alliance.
Let’s start by clearing up the extraordinary confusion in the media and among some commentators about what percentage each country spends on military spending. “In 2006, NATO Defense Ministers agreed to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense to ensure operational readiness remains Alliance-wide,” reads -on on the website of the organization. This value also serves as an indicator of the political will of each country to contribute to the global effort. »
In no case is this a NATO requirement, but rather an objective. Moreover, contrary to what this text may suggest, this percentage of military expenditure is not entirely devoted to the defense of the North Atlantic zone.
Thus, the United States certainly devotes 3.5% of its GDP to military expenditure. However, we forget to say that this percentage includes all US military spending within the country and around the world. The same goes for the military budgets of France, the United Kingdom and Canada, whose forces are deployed around the world.
Difficult analysis
Is the 2% target adopted by NATO members the best measure to assess the military “health” of a country? He’s a stallion, but he’s not the best.
Before establishing a military budget, at least three parameters must be taken into consideration: assessing the strategic context in which the country is evolving, identifying the equipment necessary to act in this context, and determining the government’s financial capacity to cover military expenditure. . We immediately see that the leaders have to arbitrate between diplomatic, military, financial and technological considerations to establish their military budget.
Military budgets are often difficult to analyze because each country has its own way of establishing them. Again, the 2% target does nothing to help understand each country’s true contribution to its security and that of the Alliance.
Indeed, a country can devote 90% of its military budget to salaries, pensions and other expenses, and almost nothing to the purchase of equipment. Therefore, it is more interesting to evaluate the military effort by referring to the resources devoted to the purchase of equipment and infrastructure. This effort normally accounts for 20 to 30% of the military budget. Most NATO countries, including Canada, reach this proportion.
Several NATO countries have reached and even exceeded the 2% target, which should push Canada to do better than the current 1.3%, say some commentators. The argument is specious. Estonia exceeds the target, but its military budget is only one billion dollars annually. Canada, with its 27 billion budget this year (40 billion in four years), ranks sixth among the 31 members of NATO. It’s not nothing. And Canada doesn’t have to try to do as well as France (1.9%) and the United Kingdom (2.2%), two countries that devote a sizeable part of their budget to their nuclear weapons.
Ability to spend
So Canada is doing well. So why the reviews? Philippe Lagassé, a specialist in military issues at Carleton University, points to the process of acquiring equipment. It would be long, politicized, strewn with obstacles, and contributes to delivery delays and increased costs.
It’s not unique to Canada, there are similar horror stories in the UK and the US. However, over the past twenty years, he tells me, politicians have often changed their minds about certain weapon systems and, moreover, the costs have often been underestimated for electoral reasons.
There is also another problem that plagues materiel acquisition processes: the ability to spend. Even if the government immediately increases the defense budget to 2% of GDP, “the Ministry of National Defense would not have the capacity to spend these funds, given the lack of personnel and the very strict processes that must be followed to acquire equipment, he said. Canada will need to continue to increase the defense budget to maintain the new capabilities it is acquiring, but it would be counterproductive to pump far more funds into a system that cannot yet spend them.” .
So, should we abandon the 2% objective? I believe him. This measure leads to unnecessary quarrels between the United States, which would do more, and its allies accused of dragging their feet. It should no longer be the target to be reached and certainly not the floor for establishing a budget as the NATO Secretary General now recommends. There is no correlation between spending 2% of GDP and better military “health”. This can be achieved with 1.5% of GDP, depending how the money is spent.
And to avoid the confusion caused by the information disseminated by NATO, it is time that the references on military expenditure used by journalists and experts come from specialized and independent institutes rather than from the Alliance itself.