The defense effort depends on the distance to the Russian borders in NATO

After a long period of underinvestment in the armed forces, following the end of the Cold War, the defence effort once again represents a major challenge for many countries in Europe, particularly since the start of the war in Ukraine and the rise in tensions with Russia.

However, this defence effort is far from being homogeneous between the allies, including on European territory, which nevertheless shares a certain unity of destiny, as well as very strong political and economic relations, through the European Union.

Is there one or more criteria that could explain such differences in defense effort, and what are the thresholds that could be applied to model it?

2% GDP gap between the 5 European countries that spend the most and the least within NATO

In terms of defence efforts, very significant differences are observed between countries. On average, European countries spend 2,19% of their GDP to their defence investments, well beyond the objectives set by the Cardiff summit in 2014.

However, once the cumulative defence expenditure of European countries belonging to NATO is taken into account, compared to the cumulative GDP of these countries, this rate is reduced to 1,96%.

Above all, there are considerable gaps between the 5 countries devoting the most of their GDP to their armies (Poland, Estonia, Greece, Latvia and Lithuania), with an average effort of 3,3% of GDP, and the 5 countries devoting the least to it (Spain, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Belgium and Italy), with an average defence effort of only 1,33%, or a 2% GDP difference between the two groups of five countries.

Population, per capita income, or seniority within NATO are not effective filters to explain the gaps.

Several parameters can be studied to represent the reality of the defense effort. Thus, the population of a country could constitute a relevant angle of analysis in this perspective.

This is not the case, however. Thus, countries with fewer than 5 million inhabitants spend on average 2,26% of their GDP on their armies, compared to 2,21% for countries with 5 to 10 million inhabitants, 2,07% for countries with 10 to 25 million inhabitants, and 2,21% for countries with more than 25 million inhabitants. All these values ​​are less than 5% around the average European defense effort within NATO, of 2,19% GDP.

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