Il grande piano italiano per raggiungere l’obiettivo della NATO: un ponte di € 13,5 miliardi in Sicilia

Haven’t they been trying to build that bridge for decades?

The arbitrary spending goal as percent of GDP so stupid. Some countries literally can’t meet it because they have too small militaries/populations, and couldn’t even come close to staffing the equipment. Might as well just start writing off things like education as “defense” spending to please the americans.

Middle sized countries have it tough too. The Americans want italy to increase spending to 120 billion euros per year. For a military which employs 150,000 people. 800,000 euros for each soldier, sailor, airman, and civilian contractor…

Not quite as bad as Luxembourgh, which trump wants to allocate 3 billion for its 900 soldiers… but still.

Of the 5 percent of GDP NATO target, only 3.5 percent needs to be core defense spending, while 1.5 percent can be steered to broader strategic resilience such as infrastructure.

This is well within the intended purposes of the rule. I honestly wish more countries followed suit. This Sicily bridge would also be the longest suspension bridge in the world, which is pretty cool.

Here in Norway, a landslide destroyed a locomotive last year and so the train departure schedule has been cut in half. The new locomotive is supposed to be back on schedule in 2030. This is because nobody takes care of rail here and we’re stuck using a diesel locomotive from 1980 to pull out trains on the line. Everyone else got electric trains a century ago so it’s hard to find replacements. This is something that should be done using the NATO budget, since its use in warfare is incredibly obvious. 

They are speedrunning the 1.5%, they probably will be the fastest at this rate to get to it lol.

Italy should reduce their debt, next year it’s estimated to be higher than Greece’s according to the imf

The Italians have a bridge to sell you, Mr Trump. Genius.

5% was just a number that Trump can take back to the US and sell to his voters saying “look what I did”.

Most of the actual numbers will be highly rubbererised, or not met at all. Eg:

UK has until 2030 (or 35?) to get to 5%. Italy is building a bridge. Greece spends a vast amount of its military money on military pensions.