2% of GDP has been the NATO suggested ask for awhile now. And with Russia invading European countries, they need to be doing more than the minimum ask.
Edit: I just realized you meant the 1.6% of GDP is also just the increase. That is a damn respectable increase.
Another thing to note is that it highly depends on how and what they procure with that money from who. The weapon sector has a huge price inflation issue from how i understand it, everything costs way more than it actually has to. If they make their own equipment instead of buying it from some shitty US contractor, then they can get much more value out of their money. Really the solution is nationalizing weapon manufacturing and all existing private contractors is going to be a necessity if Europe is really going to prepare for war.
Given they are such a small country, they can certainly produce some things locally. Obvious choices are small arms, artillery, and MRAPs. Anything beyond that they could probably pick one thing to specialize in, such as anti-air missile production or destroyer production, then export these to other countries. They currently export F-35 components, among other things.
However, expanding past that would be too inefficient for their size. Everything else they will need to buy from a partner. This will almost certainly include production from other European countries as well as the US.
Looks like 1.6% of their GDP. That’s respectable for non US countries I thought. That is also just the increase.
Agree though that it’s prolly not enough. It does like like the EU is starting the motions for a European army though
2% of GDP has been the NATO suggested ask for awhile now. And with Russia invading European countries, they need to be doing more than the minimum ask.
Edit: I just realized you meant the 1.6% of GDP is also just the increase. That is a damn respectable increase.
Another thing to note is that it highly depends on how and what they procure with that money from who. The weapon sector has a huge price inflation issue from how i understand it, everything costs way more than it actually has to. If they make their own equipment instead of buying it from some shitty US contractor, then they can get much more value out of their money. Really the solution is nationalizing weapon manufacturing and all existing private contractors is going to be a necessity if Europe is really going to prepare for war.
Given they are such a small country, they can certainly produce some things locally. Obvious choices are small arms, artillery, and MRAPs. Anything beyond that they could probably pick one thing to specialize in, such as anti-air missile production or destroyer production, then export these to other countries. They currently export F-35 components, among other things.
However, expanding past that would be too inefficient for their size. Everything else they will need to buy from a partner. This will almost certainly include production from other European countries as well as the US.
Yeah the EU coordinating arms production in a way that doesnt involve everyone building the same stuff and reinventing the wheel would be nice.