NATO’s defence is predicated on the assumption that each country will spend at least 2% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defence. A year later, Philip Hammond, the UK Defence Secretary, acknowledged that Libya had ‘cruelly exposed the imbalances and weaknesses in NATO and thus the scale of the task facing European NATO nations’. He made clear that he wanted European defence expenditure to increase markedly, and that Libya had exposed the countries that ‘could but wouldn’t; and those who would but couldn’t. Is it right that the UK should be the only European NATO nation taking part in action that aims to benefit all European nations? Ultimately, the UK should exert whatever pressure it can on our European allies to get them to spend more on defence.

Source: The Times March 05, 2024 06:03 UTC