Russia Not a Serious Threat to Anyone in NATO

Germany, Other EU Nations Resist NATO ‘Rearmament’ Calls

Russia Not a Serious Threat to Anyone in NATO

by Jason Ditz, 

US officials have been hyping the need to dramatically escalate military spending across Europe, a NATO “rearmament” to Cold War-era spending levels to counter the Russian “threat” to the continent.

The push is getting a lot more vigorous in recent weeks, but many EU nations, Germany in particular, are seeing strong resistance to the idea, and aren’t buying Russia as excuse to throw massive amounts of additional money at the country.

“Not a single NATO country is in any way threatened,” noted German MP Alexander Neu, dubbing the stories about Russia “artificial hysteria” being used to drum up support for NATO spending.

Even without the US, NATO’s European nations far outspend Russia’s military on their own, and many of those nations see the “two percent of GDP” spending the US is pushing as a waste of money at a time when budgets are tight.

http://news.antiwar.com/2014/05/07/germany-other-eu-nations-resist-nato-rearmament-calls/