Do you the think the EU and its individual country members from 1949 to present carried their fair share of the NATO spending ($55 to $60T), or troops and equipment deployments, or did they "default" on their side of the treaty? The US has paid 65 to 70% of the total of $1.4 to 1.5T/year from 2018 to 2025. That's 9.8T in 8 years (2018 included). Our soldiers, not theirs, carried the weight. If you go per capita, The US has spent an overage of $13 to $16T in 2025 dollars. Let's credit the account for that and see who owes who...
I'm pretty sure they all answered the call when the US invoked Article 5 after the 9/11 attacks, no?
> The US has paid 65 to 70% of the total of $1.4 to 1.5T/year from 2018 to 2025.
Are you suggesting that the US has paid over $1 trillion into NATO each year? That would be difficult because the US military budget has never crossed $1 trillion. The DoD budget is going to be $900.6 billion in FY2026. [0]
The share of the European countries in supporting NATO has been higher than the official numbers.
For instance, when the East-European countries have been admitted into NATO they were forced to pay dearly for this, with many billions of $ for various lucrative and overpriced contracts assigned to some well-connected US companies (e.g. Bechtel), either for various infrastructure projects or for military acquisitions.
Those billions of $ do not appear in the US budget, but they have enriched certain US businessmen.
It is normal for a regular US citizen to believe that NATO has not been beneficial for himself/herself, because this is true, but what regular citizens are not aware of is that NATO has been a great source of profits for some US citizens who are more equal than the others.
You're counting the entire US military budget as "NATO spending" which is not a useful way to look at things. We only contribute roughly $800M to NATO's shared budget (about 16%)[1]
eggy|1 month ago
5upplied_demand|1 month ago
I'm pretty sure they all answered the call when the US invoked Article 5 after the 9/11 attacks, no?
> The US has paid 65 to 70% of the total of $1.4 to 1.5T/year from 2018 to 2025.
Are you suggesting that the US has paid over $1 trillion into NATO each year? That would be difficult because the US military budget has never crossed $1 trillion. The DoD budget is going to be $900.6 billion in FY2026. [0]
[0] https://www.meritalk.com/articles/senate-passes-fy26-defense...
adrian_b|1 month ago
For instance, when the East-European countries have been admitted into NATO they were forced to pay dearly for this, with many billions of $ for various lucrative and overpriced contracts assigned to some well-connected US companies (e.g. Bechtel), either for various infrastructure projects or for military acquisitions.
Those billions of $ do not appear in the US budget, but they have enriched certain US businessmen.
It is normal for a regular US citizen to believe that NATO has not been beneficial for himself/herself, because this is true, but what regular citizens are not aware of is that NATO has been a great source of profits for some US citizens who are more equal than the others.
beardyw|1 month ago
Did you forget that the one and only Article 5 call to date on NATO to members was for the USA following 9/11?
spamizbad|1 month ago
[1]https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/us-contributes-16-nato-an...
Hikikomori|1 month ago