NATO Struggles With Alarming Defense Weaknesses As European Countries Continue To Depend On US Taxpayers

NATO has discovered alarming problems with European allies’ defenses as the U.S. continues to prop up the alliance with taxpayer funding, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

While a historic number of European NATO members are meeting their defense spending obligations, the U.S. spends the most on defenses by a factor of ten and is seen as the leader of the alliance, according to the World Population Review and Reuters. But even with increased spending, NATO has found that European allies are far behind in critical defense categories that will bring enormous costs to fix, several officials and a military planner told Reuters.

Among the biggest problems facing European NATO allies are shortages in air defense systems, missile capabilities, ammunition levels, low troop numbers and lackluster warfare communication abilities, according to secret plans and conversations with NATO officials as reviewed by Reuters. A final cost estimate hasn’t yet been decided, but is expected to be at least billions of dollars.

Behind the scenes, NATO officials are carrying out this classified plan to address the problems, one that was delivered to alliance nation governments in recent weeks, the military planner told Reuters. A NATO official told Reuters that alliance members were in congruence that the 2% goal — referring to how much NATO members are obligated to spend on defense as a percentage of their total gross domestic product (GDP) — should be an urgent target for all NATO members, given the threat environment in Eastern Europe with Russia’s ongoing war with Ukraine.