In light of increasing global tensions, discussions around defense budgets have intensified. A detailed breakdown reveals that Ukraine's defense budget for 2024 is approximately $40 billion, with $30 billion allocated for military personnel salaries and payments, and after excluding costs for PMMs and uniforms, $6 billion remains for weapons procurement. Simultaneously, discussions in the US and among the Group of Seven allies suggest a potential increase in defense spending to 4% of GDP annually over the next decade to address new geopolitical challenges, amounting to an additional $1 trillion per year. This would be a significant increase from the current expenditure of 3.5% of GDP. Additionally, there is a call to boost high-tech defense R&D to levels seen during Reagan's presidency, which would require an additional $170 billion, as current efforts are deemed insufficient.
Iβve got bad news for the republicans fighting against spending on Ukraine. We are only spending 3.5% of GDP on national defense. The least we have ever spent is 3% of GDP about 10yrs after the wall fell. During the Cold War, it was 6.5%-9% of GDP. Peak WWII spending +46% of GDP https://t.co/jv9CfQTuhk
Bloomberg anticipates it would cost 4% of GDP spent on defense over the next 10 years to meet all the threats the G7 nations face today (link in thread). Thatβs $20 Trillion. Should we spend that amount of money?
Until we restore high-tech defense R&D to Reagan levels, everything we say about the military balance with China is self-serving copium. That's about 0.6% of GDP, or $170 billion, that we're short. Who cares how many 155mm shells or Patriot missiles we send to Ukraine or Taiwan?β¦ https://t.co/ioXyBeEj96
Basically, this is saying if we are entering a new cold war we - the US and the "Group of Seven" allies - will likely need to spend 4% of GDP on defense to meet the challenges we face. Or $1 Trillion a year for the next 10 years OVER what we are already spending. π³ 1/3 https://t.co/2ZPtZzZvbE
πΊπ¦π‘οΈ "The entire defence budget for 2024 is about $40 billion - of this amount, $30 billion is for salaries and payments to military personnel, from the remaining $10 billion, excluding the costs of PMMs and uniforms, $6 billion remains for the purchase of weapons", - Kamyshin https://t.co/unlvoSYAVk