While the Netherlands barely meets the NATO standard of two percent of gross domestic product, NATO is already considering a higher standard. Defense ministers of NATO countries are meeting today in Brussels to discuss these new standards.
Last week, Admiral Rob Bauer, chairman of NATO’s military committee, also advocated in the BNR’s Big Five last week for an increase, and that call is backed by CDA deputy Derk Boswijk. He believes NATO’s two percent standard should be a minimum, not a ceiling.
The reason for this is that the standard is almost ten years old. “The trend in 2014 was that the next war was going to be a cyber war,” says Boswijk. “But now we clearly see in Ukraine that it’s an old-fashioned war, with trenches and rocket and artillery fire.”
Additional threat
He calls it logical that the NATO standard should be revised, because the threat of cyber warfare is still present. “It’s just been added,” says Boswijk, who believes the number of threats has increased on a net basis. “So it makes sense for the budget to be adjusted upwards.”
According to Boswijk, the Netherlands has also structurally failed to meet NATO standards. For example, too little money has been spent for thirty years, “a total of 70 billion to be exact,” he says. “For now, we are working to catch up. So more investments will have to be made.’
Doubts
Where Boswijk is enthusiastic about a possible increase in NATO’s budget, his colleague Jasper van Dijk is anything but. On the contrary, he believes it is a bad plan and claims that the requested amount must be released, without a certain percentage having to be met.
It is therefore well aware that financial resources are needed to supply Ukraine with, for example, additional ammunition. “And it’s okay to have that debate, but you shouldn’t set a percentage to chain yourself to that,” he says. “You just have to determine in a healthy political debate how big the defense budget should be.”
Source: BNR
Fernando Dowling is an author and political journalist who writes for 24 News Globe. He has a deep understanding of the political landscape and a passion for analyzing the latest political trends and news.
