The militarists are looking to slash social entitlements to massively boost war spending. Yet there’s little organized opposition.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte sent a letter to all 32 member states asking them to agree to spend 5% of GDP on the military and associated initiatives. Up from the already outrageously high current alliance target of 2% of gross domestic product, the plan is to devote 3.5% to “hard military” initiatives by 2030 and 1.5% more for infrastructure and defence-related activities.
Donald Trump’s administration has been pushing for this huge expansion in war spending.
Militarism from Trump to Carney
The US president has repeatedly said he wants NATO allies to boost military spending to 5%.
While it’s widely understood that Germany, Belgium and others are pushing back privately, Spain appears to be the only country publicly opposing the plan to be finalized at the June 24-25 NATO leaders’ summit. On Thursday Spanish Defence Minister Margarita Robles said, “We think that this 2% is enough to meet the responsibilities we have committed to.”
Canadian officials haven’t expressed any criticism of the proposal while publicly celebrating NATO’s uber militarism. After speaking with Rutte on Friday, Prime Minister Mark Carney posted, “had a productive call with the Secretary General of NATO this afternoon ahead of the upcoming NATO Summit. I raised Canada’s plan to rebuild, rearm, and reinvest in the Canadian Armed Forces — part of our commitment to strengthening the Alliance and its military readiness.”
Canadian officials’ public comments are ever more aggressive in support of massively boosting military spending. At a NATO meeting in Brussels on Thursday defence minister David McGuinty discussed “a top to bottom” look at war spending.
Canada currently spends $40 billion per year on its military. Reaching the 3.5% of GDP target would boost military spending to nearly $110 billion and the 5% target would be about $160 billion. Assuming some current spending could be counted towards the 5% target we could still be looking at an $80 or $100 billion increase in military spending. By contrast, t(The Coalition for Healthy School Food says a national school lunch program would cost about $2.7 billion a year.
Welfare not warfare
They are also starting to allude to cutting social entitlement to pay for the military expansion. At the CANSEC arms fair in Ottawa last week McGuinty said, “I read yesterday that the Netherlands let 22 per cent of their public servants go — except for the defence department — to meet their obligations. Other countries are doing away with national holidays. Others are increasing corporate taxes or running larger deficits in anticipation of the troubles that might be forthcoming.”
Outside of government, militarists are becoming bolder in their calls to cut social programs to pay for war. In “The high cost of failing to pay for peace”, last week the Globe and Mail editorial board noted, “That promise avoids hard choices, and an opportunity to assemble the funds needed for a rebuilding of Canada’s defences. The Old Age Security payment, which sends funds to households with hundreds of thousands in annual income, is ripe for reform. So too is the equalization program. Expanding pharmacare to displace private insurance coverage is simply a waste of money.”
Putting money into the war machine is an investment, but covering medicine is a “waste of money”.
Anti-war forces need to reach out to the Council of Canadians, Canadian Health Coalition, Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC, Canadian Union of Public Employees, Public Service Alliance of Canada and other public sector unions who will face ever greater pressure from the massive boost in military spending. In London, England, thousands marched Saturday against cutting social programs to pay for rearmament, calling for “Welfare Not Warfare” and “Nurses Not Nukes.”
Anti-war forces in Canada should be raising withdrawing from an alliance demanding such a huge shift in public resources while whole communities are being displaced by forest fires worsened by climate change. Any push to go above the already outrageous 2% of GDP on warfare must result in calls for Canada to withdraw from NATO. Slashing social programs to spend more in service of a belligerent US-led alliance must be flatly rejected across Canada’s left.
Last week in Ottawa I asked interim NDP leader Don Davies if the party would raise withdrawing from NATO if the alliance commits to boosting military spending to 3.5% of GDP. Davies wouldn’t commit to calling for withdrawing from NATO but said he opposed shifting public resources away from social priorities to reach the current 2% of GDP target.
The NDP, Greens and Bloc Quebecois need to be hearing opposition to Donald Trump’s extremist NATO military agenda.
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