Trump and NATO, a dangerous pincer for Spain
Eight years after Donald Trump first arrived at the White House, it seems that European countries have not learned their lesson. The situation now is much more serious than then, because no one has the wrong idea: bah, he won't dare to do what he announces. Nobody? I'm not so sure. Denying reality from the outset continues to be an option for some governments that trust that the worst expectations will not be met. Then they will run around like headless chickens looking for a solution they didn't bother to look for.
In the military spending section, Trump's return will have negative consequences for Spain. Our country is very far from fulfilling the commitment of NATO governments made a decade ago to allocate at least 2% of GDP to the defense budget. The difference could worsen if the EU adopts a strategy of appeasement towards the president of the United States, who takes office this Monday. Some have already rushed to try to placate Trump by agreeing.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has raised the bar these days by playing a warmongering and also alarmist card: “2% (of defense spending) is not nearly enough. And if we don't, we're safe, but not in four or five years. If we don't, we will have to start taking Russian courses or go to New Zealand.” We have returned to the times of the Cold War and the announcements that one day we will rise up with Russian tanks in the streets and they will impose the Cyrillic alphabet on us. By then, Rutte will be surfing in New Zealand.
The head of NATO claims that Russia has “a war economy,” which is true. All sectors of the Russian economy are focused on the war effort against Ukraine. Large business corporations carry out the orders that come to them from the Kremlin. That is an impossible scenario in EU countries.
Rutte was Prime Minister of the Netherlands for fourteen years. He was one of the leaders who were called “austere”, a euphemism that defines countries whose governments are committed to reducing public spending and debt. Together with Germany, they now have poor growth rates unlike the countries of southern Europe. In almost all cases, military spending is public spending, but at that point they are not so austere. On the contrary, departments such as health, education and pensions seem less urgent to them.
Rutte said it in another speech in December: “I know that spending more on defense means spending less on other priorities, but only a little less. European countries spend a quarter of their income on pensions and healthcare. “We need a small portion of that money to strengthen our defense and preserve our way of life.”
It is clear that for many Europeans it is the welfare state that defines their “lifestyle”, not the ability to increase military spending to confront the Russian threat. With that language typical of the 20th century and the confrontation with the USSR, elections are not won in Western Europe.
This comparison between defense budgets and those of other items such as health is misleading and disingenuous. Rutte does not dare to quantify spending “a little less”, because the math would not work out. Or he does not dare to tell Europeans how much they have to save on the investments that interest them most.
NATO estimates that 23 of the 32 members of the Alliance will have reached that 2% minimum spending by 2024. Only six were at that level in 2018. Countries like Spain and Italy are still a considerable distance from the goal. According to the latest estimate published by NATO, Spain's military spending is 1.28% of GDP, which places it in the last position in the table. Italy's is 1.49%. The ranking is headed by Poland with 4.12%. The US spends 3.38%, a lower amount than in 2014. In relation to another relevant scale used by NATO – the percentage of defense spending used to purchase weapons and military material – Spain's position is more or less in the middle of the table with 30%, a little higher than the US. To put it another way, there are countries that have many soldiers, but do not spend enough on weapons, airplanes, etc.
What happens is that now the goal posts have been moved. As a preventive way to respond to future claims from Trump, several governments are talking about that 2% is insufficient. The idea of increasing this percentage to 3% is beginning to circulate, a goal that is impossible in the short and medium term in many countries.
They are not even assured that the debate on 3% military spending will neutralize Trump's demands. In December, members of his team informed senior European officials that the new president will demand a percentage of 5%, according to the Financial Times, an absolutely disproportionate figure. A person who participated in those conversations told the newspaper that he believed Trump would end up accepting a 3.5% increase and that he intends to directly link defense spending with trade relations between Europe and the United States. Which amounts to very little hidden blackmail. “It is clear that we will be talking about 3% or more at the Hague summit,” he said, referring to the NATO summit to be held in June 2025.
As we are in favorable moments to send messages, Pedro Sánchez has also had something to say recently. “I do not share a militaristic drift that leads us to a new arms race,” he warned in the speech before the ambassadors accredited in Madrid. “The world has more urgent priorities to attend to, and in no manual is it written that peace and security are achieved by strengthening arsenals.”
Sánchez makes necessity a virtue. The increase in military spending provokes rejection among its allies in the Government and Congress. Without new budgets in 2025, the chances of a significant increase in military spending are greatly reduced. There is always the option of appealing to the Spanish contribution to UN peacekeeping missions and NATO military deployments. It would be a smart card, although that doesn't mean it will work.
The appearance of Trump as the proverbial elephant in the china shop will accelerate the debates on defense spending, which will also depend on the evolution of the war in Ukraine and the announced attempt of the new North American Government to promote peace negotiations between Moscow and kyiv. Everything is surrounded by great uncertainty, so no major changes are expected until the NATO summit in June. Countries like France with a runaway deficit or Italy, which is still subject to the excessive deficit procedure in the EU, are not in a position to make major changes. Germany is immersed in a period of acute economic stagnation. An alternative in the EU would be to approve debt mutualization mechanisms (finance this increase in military spending with debt subscribed by the EU), the same methods that northern European countries, such as the one Rutte comes from, have always rejected.
At the heart of the debate, so deep that it is almost not mentioned, is the question of why. If you consider creating a rapid deployment force with tens of thousands of soldiers in Poland or Germany in order to respond to a sudden threat to the Baltic republics, you can demand a specific contribution from each country that makes it possible. In general terms, the only thing left to do is create fear with the great Russian bear. There are experts who know Russia well who believe there is no basis for such alarm. “Russia has not made military deployments that threaten Finland or Sweden,” says Anatol Lieven. “Considering that Russia is stuck in Ukraine, the idea is absurd.”
The facts do not support that level of danger. Russia has failed to subdue Ukraine in almost three years of war. Can anyone in their right mind believe that they are in a position to invade Poland and confront all the NATO countries?
Racism is the PP's last weapon to save Mazón
To save Carlos Mazón, the Popular Party is willing to do anything. For example, to make racist statements or lie about State aid to Valencia after DANA (the latter is less surprising). In recent days, it has used an allocation of 24 million in humanitarian aid to Gaza announced by the Sánchez Government. First, Mazón compared these funds with those that have not been granted to his community: “The Generalitat Valenciana is going to receive zero direct aid from the Sánchez Government.” It's false. Of the aid fund of 16,648 million euros approved by the central government for those affected by the flood, 1,468 million euros have been paid so far.
The worst was yet to come. The New Generations of the PP launched the message “Gaza, municipality of the province of Valencia” on social networks, which confirms that the youth of the party are there to show that they can be as dirty as their elders if necessary. The bar is very high, so they have to work hard. The party's official account later surpassed them with these words: “If you ask for help in Arabic, it arrives sooner.” You have to be a disgusting racist to come out with a message in a style that is very common in Vox accounts.
There are many ways to come to power, or try to, but racism – including mocking the suffering of Gaza – should not be one of them. But, since they say that they are the only constitutional party in Spain, it may be that this is the only way they understand to defend democracy.
Fire walks with David Lynch
David Lynch has died at the age of 78. Visionary, says most obituaries. Surreal, like a kind of contemporary Buñuel, although he said he never saw his films. Capable of turning dreams into nightmares, as seen in 'Mulholland Drive', considered by many the best of his films, where practically the entire film can or should be seen as if it were a dream with an ending that leaves you breathless. Of course, never conventional. Capable of making people remember scenes or shots from their films better than their own plot. This is what happens with 'Blue Velvet', in which it is not possible to forget the image of Dennis Hopper with a respirator, not to mention other more shocking moments.
What to say about the beginning of that movie. The song and the close-ups take us to that idyllic, happy, Reagan-era America until suddenly…
By the way, those who are members of Filmin have six of their films available in the catalogue. An additional plus to watching them is that Carlos Boyero hates Lynch.
“Lynch was one of those directors who become adjectives and whose mixture of surrealism, film noir and horror coined a term like Lynchian and made his work one of the most influential for auteur cinema around the world,” writes Javier Zurro in the director's profile. It was on television where his influence was gigantic with 'Twin Peaks', a series, as the saying goes, ahead of its time. “Anyone who does drama in hour-long episodes who says they weren't influenced by David Lynch is lying,” recalled David Chase, creator of 'The Sopranos.' The authors of series like 'Lost' and 'Fargo' also recognized their debt to Lynch.
