If going by GDP percentage, Germany spends more on NATO defence than everybody else except US. Germany's 1.24% contribution is probably higher than UK's 2.10% considering its GDP is nearly 80% higher than UK.
Yet Germany kena marah also. Memang betul la kata NATO's own 1st sec gen: "NATO is created to keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down".
Apparently not enough to keep readiness of its subs and air force.
There's spending, effective spending and effective usage.
The Cold War German army was indeed the meat of the Fulda Gap forces.
But the modern German army is shockingly poor in readiness. Though it has contributed significantly to the Baltic Air Patrol and Standing NATO Maritime Group, amongst other initiatives, its nothing compared to what they used to do.
Meanwhile the British forces contribute a lot to NATO. Not only to BAP and SNMG, but in other ways - their AEW aircraft and drones, C17 and A400M fleet are in high demand amongst NATO partner nations, and QE2 will be heavily tasked in the next few years between NATO and US commitments. Plus of course the RN provides half of Europe's nuclear retaliation capability.
Committed to at least 24 UK F35s fully operational by 2023, plus some USMC F35s, and surge capacity for even more if need be. That's more than zero at least. QE2 will be filling in the EU carrier gap while the US gets the delayed Ford-class fully operational. Thats part of why the US and UK are working so closely together on carrier ops.
Military Thread V26 
Jul 13 2018, 02:14 PM
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