Today's D Brief: EU defense trends; Biden-Putin preview; New radar in Alaska; New Jan. 6 allegations; And a bit more.
By Ben Watson and Jennifer Hlad
December 6, 2021 10:34 AM ET
The D Brief
Some good news for Europe: EU members are now spending more than ever on defense, totaling €198 billion. And that includes nearly €36 billion in new equipment, and a 5% increase overall to an average of 1.5% of GDP for member states in 2020.
Some bad news: Coordinated investments seem to be declining. That is to say “spending for collaborative projects does not seem to be a priority” for most members, and collectively totaled just €4.1 billion, which is a 13% decline from the year prior, according to a new report from the EU’s European Defence Agency. (An example of a collaborative investment is the Strategic Air Transport for Outsized Cargo program, which is one of 14 such projects the EDA launched in mid-November.)
Along similar lines, EU states bought only 11% of their equipment “in cooperation” with other EU members in 2020, and that’s “well short of the 35% collective benchmark” set for the 26 members of the EDA (Denmark is in the EU, but it has opted out of this security arrangement).
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2021/12/the-d-brief-december-06-2021/187300/
