Where do you want to push us?

NATO assumes 55% of the world’s military spending

Opinion

NATO and the European Union continue to push the insane policy of increasing military spending, arms escalation, militarism and war, with what it represents of death, suffering and destruction and attack on living conditions, rights, peace and the security of peoples. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), world-wide military expenditure reached US$2,887 billion in 2025. It should be noted that the military expenditures of the 32 countries that are part of NATO totaled 1.581 billion dollars, that is, 55% of the world’s military spending, that is, more than the sum of the military expenditures of all the remaining 161 countries that make up the UN.

The European continent has contributed significantly to boosting the increase in military spending worldwide, accounting for the largest increase in regional terms, with military spending increasing by 14% in a year, reaching US$864 billion. The 29 European countries that are part of NATO accounted for 559 billion dollars, that is 65% of that total, which represented an increase of about 23% compared to 2024. Two examples: Germany was the country that spent the most, with its military expenditures growing by 24% compared to the previous year, reaching US$114 billion, about 2.3% of GDP; Spain increased its military expenditure by 50%, totaling 40.2 billion dollars, also exceeding 2.0% of GDP.

After starring in decades of military aggression in Europe, Asia, the Middle East or Africa, this dizzying increase in military expenditure is due to the hysterical warlike spiral promoted by NATO and the European Union, in which the instigation and insistence on the prolongation of the war in Ukraine is inserted, in the continuation of decades of systematic enlargement of NATO, aiming at the siege and confrontation with Russia. It is recalled that the U.S. imposed on its NATO “allies” the increase of its military expenditure up to 5% of GDP – a target to be reached until 1935 –, in the framework of a statement of division of responsibilities and sharing of burdens within this political-military warmonger bloc, which has been embodied in the demand that they finance (even more) and be instruments (even more aligned and subservient) in the service of the interests of imperialism.

The finding of the acceleration and size of NATO’s increase in military spending, but also of the EU, is added to an immense list of intentions, decisions, measures and actions of a warmongering character, immediately the announced ambition of the transformation of the EU into a political-military bloc, the European pillar of NATO – a process in which some also play the nuclear card –, sustained from the fallacious “Russian threat”. However, the reality is demonstrating that the intentions of imperialism face strong and courageous resistance and that the decisive issue is the struggle of peoples for the sake of peace, sovereignty, rights, and their solidarity with the peoples facing the brutal interference and aggression of imperialism.

Pedro Warrior