NATO tells members to divert social spending to militaries
Security comes above all else, the US-led bloc’s head Mark Rutte has said

European members of NATO need to cut welfare and direct more of their GDP to the military-industrial complex in the name of “safety,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has said.

Rutte spoke at an event in Brussels organized by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a US-based think-tank.

“I know spending more on defense means spending less on other priorities. But it is only a little less,”Rutte said on Thursday.

“On average, European countries easily spend up to a quarter of their national income on pensions, health and social security systems. We need a small fraction of that money to make our defenses much stronger, and to preserve our way of life,” he added.

While NATO members are spending more of their GDP on the military than a decade ago, that’s nowhere near the Cold War levels, Rutte argued, noting that the US-led military bloc will “need a lot more than 2%”if it wants to defend Europe against an allegedly aggressive Russia.

Spending billions on weapons will bring security, Rutte argued, and “without security, there is no freedom for our children and grandchildren. No schools, no hospitals, no businesses. There is nothing.”

He urged the audience to tell their governments that “security matters more than anything” and that they “accept to make sacrifices today so that we can stay safe tomorrow.”

“Tell your banks and pension funds it is simply unacceptable that they refuse to invest in the defense industry,” Rutte said. “Defense is not in the same category as illicit drugs and pornography. Investing in defense is an investment in our security. It’s a must!”

In 2014, the US pressured its fellow NATO members to ramp up military spending to 2% of GDP, citing the tensions between Ukraine and Russia following the Western-backed coup in Kiev.

The US and its allies have sent over $200 billion worth of weapons, equipment, ammunition and cash to prop up Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. The West has mainly emptied out its military stockpiles, while struggling to ramp up production of ammunition and replacement parts due to deindustrialization and the “green energy transition,” among other reasons.

Meanwhile, the Russian military industry has gone into high gear and kept the frontline troops well-supplied, defying predictions from Western experts about the impact of sanctions.

https://www.rt.com/news/609272-rutte-nato-spending-welfare/

PREPARING FOR WW3 MEANS EVEN WITHOUT WW3, THE RUTTE POLICY OF PREPARING FOR WW3 WILL WIPE OUT THE NEED FOR SCHOOLS AND HOSPITALS AND FOOD... HE'S AN UNTHINKING IDIOT THAT GUY.... The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is a MISNAMED front for US SPONSORED FOREVER WAR...

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME RUSSIA IF WW3 STARTS. BLAME YOURSELF.

BY ANTHONY J. TOKARZ

The deeper Ukraine’s demographic crisis grows as a result of its ongoing war with Russia, the more its long-term viability as a state teeters.

This sentiment is common among Ukrainian expats in Europe, according to several who spoke to me during three visits to Poland in recent years. Most had begun the war with patriotic zeal, with many believing in the possibility of a total Ukrainian victory. 

By the summer of 2024, almost all of them had trimmed their expectations as they wrestled with the fear that the United States and its allies had traded hopes of a total Ukrainian victory and for the more practical goal of weakening Russia. The most cynical believe that the United States adopted a mentality reminiscent of the Vietnam War’s Battle of Bến Tre, when an American commander quipped, "it became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”

My earlier visits reflected a more agitated mood, since many refugees and political pundits worried that Russia would continue to advance into Ukraine. By 2023, the Russian campaign had ground to a halt and devolved into brutal trench warfare, so the mood shifted to reflect the widely-held hope that Ukraine would hold on to its territories and perhaps begin to incrementally regain Russian-occupied territory.

Today, most Poles and Ukrainians feel confident that Ukraine will succeed in containing the Russian advance, although they fear the re-election of Donald Trump will result in less support and perhaps even pressure to negotiate a peace deal that would result in the surrender of Russian-occupied territories. 

In Ukraine’s case, the demographic figures speak for themselves. According to a report by the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, the overall population had declined to 29 million people in 2023 — compared to 48.5 million in 2001.

Today, the exact figure remains difficult to establish, due to state capacity to conduct surveys throughout the country and the fact that several eastern EU countries have opened their border checkpoints to traveling Ukrainians. The most recent official figure comes from an October UN report, which estimates the population at an optimistic 35 million.

Moreover, the country's demographic pyramid has inverted due to aging, low birth rates, and emigration, such that there are roughly 9.5 million employed people whose taxes provide for 23 million pensioners, children, and unemployed people. However, in many cases, it is unclear whether those receiving government transfers currently reside in Ukraine or collect their benefits abroad. Furthermore, Ukraine depends not only on tax revenues but also on budget support from its allies to pay the salaries of public sector employees.

According to USAID, since 2022, the American government has provided $26.8 billion dollars in direct budgetary support to Ukraine’s government, in addition to billions more in military assistance and in-kind transfers of weapons. A 2023 press release from the U.S. State Department highlighted how American aid funded transfers to Ukrainian public sector employees, government officials, and pensioners. Without the support of the U.S. and its European allies, Ukraine would not only struggle to equip its troops, but also to maintain basic government services.

Thus, Ukraine, fresh off a deal to restructure its international debt, lacks the resources to attract military recruits with competitive salaries. Consequently, it has turned to conscription to shore up its forces, strengthening its military but weakening the economy. A report by the Financial Times from March 2024 found that of the 11.1 million Ukrainian men aged 25 to 60, 7.4 million were either already mobilized or were unavailable for reasons ranging from disability to employment in critical sectors. 

Another 900,000 men of military age are not registered in any government systems and thus cannot be conscripted. Of the 3.4 million military-age men in the workforce, 600,000 are considered critical workers and thus unlikely to face conscription. The remaining cohort of potential conscripts therefore numbers just 2.8 million — roughly equal to the number of those who have fled or are disabled. 

Consequently, Ukraine faces a 1-for-1 tradeoff between conscripting men into the armed forces or leaving them in the workforce, where they can support the government by paying taxes and otherwise keeping the economy afloat. A few Ukrainian insiders who spoke to me off the record insisted that the Ukrainian economy remains resilient, but admitted that it relies on funding from allies.

The decision to conscript more men will reverberate for generations due to its impact on the fertility rate. If Ukraine conscripts older men, it risks creating more widows and orphans who will likely depend on the state for survival. If it conscripts younger men, it risks further damaging the fertility rate and preventing more Ukrainians from being born at all.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ukraine-2669870654/

MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

THESE WILL ALSO INCLUDE ODESSA, KHERSON AND KHARKIV.....

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

TRANSNISTRIA WILL BE PART OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION.

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

EASY.

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME RUSSIA IF WW3 STARTS. BLAME YOURSELF.