The top story for USA Today on July 8, 2016: Some Western countries aren’t spending enough money on weapons of war.
“NATO Nations Ducking the Check” was the headline across the top of the front page. “Despite Pledges, Some NATO Members Still Falling Behind on Defense Spending” was the online version (7/7/16).
The story, by USA Today White House correspondent Gregory Korte, emphasized the “big separation between those paying for the common defense and those who aren’t.” After noting that “only five member countries—the United States, Greece, the United Kingdom, Estonia and Poland—meet the required threshold of 2 percent or more of economic output devoted to defense,” the story continued:
Still, there has been overall progress. Twenty-two NATO members are spending a greater share of their economy on defense compared to last year, with an alliance-wide increase of 2.65 percent.
The story displayed not a hint of skepticism that increasing military spending is anything other than an unalloyed good. Nor did it mention the actual total military spending by NATO countries. It’s $906 billion a year—58 percent of the entire world’s military spending, though NATO countries represent less than 12 percent of Earth’s population. By comparison, Russia—which is sometimes portrayed as a looming threat to the West—has an annual military budget of $43 billion, or less than 5 percent of NATO’s.
The article gave no space for questioning whether in a world in which 3.1 million children die from malnutrition each year, there might be more pressing spending priorities. It offered no evidence that increased NATO military spending would make the world safer, either—just quotes from officials, like NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who treat more Western war spending as a good in itself:
“This is real progress. After many years of going in the wrong direction, we are starting to go into the right direction,” he told defense ministers in Brussels last month. “But we are still far from where we need to be. And we clearly need to do more.”
USA Today‘s choice of terminology reinforces the militaristic slant: The word “defense” appears 11 times in the article, whereas the words “military,” “war” and “weapons” don’t appear at all.
Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org. He can be followed on Twitter at @JNaureckas.
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al perry
n.a.t.o. is an antiquated piece of shit!…hasn’t mankind learned yet?!…war pacts (euphemistically referred to as “defense pacts”) are dangerous!!!…have the lessons of the world wars been forgotten?!…in a war pact scenario, if one nation gets into a violent disagreement with another, before you know it, a whole clusterfuck embroglio develops!!!…the reason for a “united nations” is so that no gang-like pacts exist and that a democratic, international forum can be adhered to when disagreements among nations arise…
the u.s. has never left cold war mode…it won’t rest until the globe becomes a totalitarian neo-liberal capitalist wet dream…obama turned out to be such a demonic asshole…
– al perry
ger
You are correct.
Francis Xavier
USA Today is a Reich wing rag.
Cedar Cat
How dare they choose butter over guns? Let’s tell them what to do and threaten to topple any leader who doesn’t comply. The US has become the warmonger of the world. Along with Israel. These 2 countries produce and sell billions, if not trillions of dollars of weapons.
So, what’s the point of arming up if the goal is to live in peace? That just isn’t profitable enough, I guess.
Plus, war and violence helps keep people afraid be compliant with their masters who “protect” them. Snark.
Ahmed Sakkal
I thought after 5 years of massacres in Syria killing more than 400,000 people they will try to stop these massacres , but they apparently are more concerned about their preservation of power rather than whether they can use it for any good cause . Alas !
Eric
Greece is certainly a wealthy country that can afford to spend more on its military.
In fact, I understand, one thing Germany wanted and got in the bailout was for Greece to buy some expensive military hardware from Germany. Spending 2.4% of GDP on the military, some of it going abroad, is certain to refloat Greece’s national economy.
Greece also outsourced some of its foreign policy to Israel and now conducts joint military exercises with Israel. That’s sure to promote regional peace and harmony.
NATO is such a dear — how great of it to protect Canada from Russia.