Biden ends his presidency on a high note by giving the highest award – the Medal of Freedom – to Hillary Clinton and George Soros, those who did the most to launch the NATO-Russia war in the heart of Europe via Ukraine. Biden is also providing Kyiv with a further six billion dollars to carry on the war.
Trump will soon take over the US presidency. As he promised during the election campaign, he should open negotiations with Moscow. But the situation is very complex. The plan in circulation in Washington and European capitals is to send a European peacekeeping force to Ukraine if a ceasefire is agreed with Russia. This force, which could number up to 100,000 troops, would be provided by France, Germany, Italy, and Poland as EU members but de facto NATO members and by NATO member Britain.
However the situation develops, it is certain that the European NATO countries will have to further increase their military spending. It has already grown (adjusted for inflation) from $250 billion in 2014 to $450 billion in 2024. Now Trump wants the European NATO countries to increase spending from 2% of GDP to 5% of GDP.
According to NATO data, Italy’s annual military spending has increased to around 32 billion euros in 2024. This means that the Italian government spent more in 2024 in public money on military purposes than it allocated to the government manoeuvre: 30 billion euros for measures concerning taxes, pensions, family and housing, and to finance projects like the Bridge over the Strait of Sicily. If Italian military spending were to rise to five percent of GDP, it would increase from the current 90 million euros per day to an average of 290 million euros per day, with further drastic cuts in social spending, starting with health and education.
In addition to the colossal increase in military spending, the major European economies have been in crisis since NATO and the EU blocked the import of cheap Russian gas. It has largely been replaced by much more expensive US LNG (liquefied natural gas). “I have told the EU” Trump wrote, “that they must make up their huge deficit with the United States by buying our oil and gas on a massive scale. Otherwise, it’s all out tariffs.” After the US sabotaged the Nord Stream pipeline that brought Russian gas to Europe and prevented it from being reactivated, a US businessman is trying to buy the company that owns the bankrupt Nord Stream, declaring that “acquiring Nord Stream will de-Russify the pipeline network and put it under US control”. This operation, aimed at reopening Nord Stream by giving the US control over European imports of Russian gas, is facilitated by the governments of European NATO and EU member states, which continue to fuel the war by portraying Russia as a threatening enemy preparing to attack Europe.
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This article was originally published in Italian on Grandangolo, Byoblu TV.
Manlio Dinucci, award-winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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