NATO Defense Spending
A little work-in-progress on NATO Defense Spending
So, it comes as no surprise that I’ve been watching NATO’s collective defense spending (when compared to each member’s GDP) for some time. Below, you can find access to a Google Sheet that catalogs defense spending numbers for all member states, going back to 2014 and stopping in 2024. The 2023 and 2024 numbers are estimates provided by NATO in 2023 USD. The GDP data, going from 2014 to 2024, has been pulled from two sources, chiefly the IMF and the World Bank, and these estimates are in 2025 USD. If the data didn’t take so long to collect, clean, and vet, from various sources, I would have had time to convert the NATO defense spending 2025 US dollar equivalents (that’d be easier given the data set size), but that’s for another day. Until then, I have published the Google Sheet and provided a link below.
Don’t forget: This is a work-in-progress, so some errors might be found.
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Check it out here: NATO Defense Spending vs. GDP
This discussion about spending xxx% of GDP is the hype since Donald The Trump started his first election campaign and has dominated the press and the political rethoric since then. Is it usefull? Let's remember, it once started with providing military capabilities within a given alert time, and this contribution was regulary checked by NATO teams.
Now it is basically about spending money, wether it is for getting a new pavement in front of a military installation or money for public work or buy modern fighters, everything out of the budget counts, the US probably financed its Indycar adventure out of the defence budget. Let me stay with the US spending for a moment to make things clear, and my intention is not to devalue such spending. It will be interesting though how much of the US spending is out of NATO area of responsibility, in the Pacific and Indian ocean, all the aircraft carriers, the subs, the multiple US military bases around the globe, how much is NATO interest and how much is USA interest alone? In what areas would NATO had a say , and which are and would stay SECRET NO FOREIGN? How much of these large US assets is earmarked for NATO assignment or intended and useful for assignment in a NATO / Russia conflict?
Since Trump is ruling not only the White House but all governing agencies by the mood with which he comes out of bed in the morning, what leverage does this vast amount of US spending really carry in preventing a war in NATO territory? I haven't seen any statistic yet to look behind that money trap.
Or is it all about spending as much as possible and use the lump of it to buy American produced gadgets?
Thanks, Ryan.