Is the increase in military spending justified?

Military spending in 2023 in the US was $761 billion. In the EU, it was $268 billion; and in Russia, $81 billion. For the EU, winning the war in Ukraine is not a matter of military spending (we have plenty). It requires the will to win and the acceptance that there will be casualties. Europe refuses to accept this.

For Spain, increasing military spending from the current 1.3% of GDP, €19.72 billion, to 2% in 2030, €30.34 billion, would mean having €26.385 billion more over the next five years, if growth is linear. There is no way to spend or invest this money, except to buy aircraft, radars, and missiles, among other things, from the US. There is no specialized defense industry in Europe capable of responding to this demand in the short term. The US request for increased military spending undoubtedly has this in mind, especially with such a mercantilist administration as the current one. It is also now trying, taking advantage of Ukraine's weakness, to recover (in excess and on raw materials) for its military spending to date.

Spain has not suffered a military invasion since the 8th century, except for the French invasion in 1808. This is not the case for Poland or the Baltic States, which were invaded numerous times, most recently in 1940 by the Third Reich and in 1944 by the USSR.

Military expenditure is more than 3% of GDP in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland, and less than 2% in Italy, Spain, and Belgium. The rest of Europe's countries are around 2%. The only exception is Greece, which has a military budget of more than 3% of GDP due to the memory of the bloody war with Turkey at the beginning of the 20th century, from which it still suffers consequences (as, for example, in Cyprus).

This makes it clear that the military spending of EU member states, with Russia close at hand and imperialist, is now tied to their own historical memory.

The US's explicit demand that all NATO states increase their military spending to more than 2% of GDP has two objectives: to reduce the US contribution to NATO's budget, which is 15.8%, the same as Germany's (Spain contributes 5.8%), and to create a market demand that only US industry can satisfy.

Spain is part of a political and commercial club, the EU, which has transferred €80 billion to us without compensation from 1980 to 2010. Our infrastructure, financed with European funds, is excellent. The Spanish high-speed rail network is the largest in Europe, and Spanish port capacity will not be saturated for another thirty years.

Now the EU is asking us to increase our military budget to 2% of GDP, as the rest of the member states are already doing. Beyond the reason and rationale for the request, which are debatable, we cannot refuse. It is necessary to do so for political reasons. But how we do it is our decision. Investment in defense can have a significant technological component. Aviation, space, the internet, antibiotics, and nuclear energy are discoveries that, without military demand and impetus, would not have occurred or would have arrived later. The first conclusion to be drawn from fulfilling the request to increase military spending is that this spending must be dedicated to the scientific and technological sphere, and the second is to leverage it to undertake this spending jointly with other European companies, thereby increasing the degree of internationalization of our industry, technology, and science.

President Eisenhower said in the 1950s that the lobbying of the American military industry could influence US policy. At that time, the largest companies were those involved in military production (Northrop Grumman, GE, Raytheon, Electric Boat, etc.). Today, the largest companies are found in the fields of digitalization, communications, and networks. There is no military technology that doesn't have dual uses in the civilian sector. The line between the civilian and military sectors is currently thin and tenuous. This provides a clue as to where and how to invest, while complying with the EC's volume demands, with regard to the defense industry. Since these budgets are public, the government has the ability to guide and even dictate activity as it deems most appropriate based on its own industrial interests. Increasing the defense budget gives the government a significant capacity to set and implement industrial policy.

For aviation and, in part, for space, the way forward is Airbus. The presence in space has a dual component: civilian and military intelligence, key in the war in Ukraine.

For military shipbuilding, it makes sense to seek a European partnership, particularly with France, given its longstanding collaboration with Spain, which has shaped the supply chain, which has worked with French standards.

For the ground war, the partner could be German or French, as a continuation of the automobile market.

But what's needed is for this public demand to be accompanied by programs to strengthen and upgrade our defense-related companies. This would produce tangible results so that the investment in defense would have a positive impact on the industrial fabric itself.

Spanish industry faces the problem of company size, which is generally too small (many SMEs). A program like this, in which the government holds the key to demand, should foster collaboration, integration, and consolidation in the affected industrial sector. It would be a tangible benefit, albeit of limited scope.

If we have to do it, let's do it, but let's take advantage of the benefits it can bring us.