NATO countries have agreed a statement ahead of their upcoming summit that sets a target of increasing annual defence and security spending to 5% of GDP by 2035, overcoming opposition from Spain.
The UK in 1985 was being run by people who grew up getting their cities bombed out and not having enough to eat because of the war, or having friends and family members dead because they were in the infantry and didn’t come back.
I posted a chart elsewhere in these comments; all during the modern era it’s been hovering around 1.5%, and then suddenly in the last few years people are invested in paying more, what with the US and Russia collaborating to make them nervous about their safety again.
Now it is whole 25 years after the Matrix movie, Windows 2000, Babylon V series and Star Wars The Phantom Menace. Which feel like almost recent. In 1985 it was 25 years after the moment closest to starting a nuclear war, and 25 years before that there were wars in ex-colonies all over the globe. And 50 years before that WWII was starting.
Time is elusive. The Phantom Menace is closer to USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan than to now. And much closer to 1985 than to now.
OK, what I really mean is - 1985 was before USSR failed. When it failed, every first and second world society underwent a cultural shock. Expectations formed that it will be futuristic heaven now with no war and reaching for the stars, some capitalist version of the Soviet futurism with unified humanity, that now western nations are unmatched militarily, because all military actions will be like SG-1 series expeditions.
So - this shock led to some popular, but catastrophic changes, like complacency in the face of totalitarianism and reduction in armed forces in the western nations. One can even say that the USSR lost the cold war, and the west lost the peace that followed it.
5% is about what the UK spent up to 1985. It was 7% in 1960.
France spent 3% in 85, and 5% in the 60s, but they count “defence spending” differently.
The UK in 1985 was being run by people who grew up getting their cities bombed out and not having enough to eat because of the war, or having friends and family members dead because they were in the infantry and didn’t come back.
I posted a chart elsewhere in these comments; all during the modern era it’s been hovering around 1.5%, and then suddenly in the last few years people are invested in paying more, what with the US and Russia collaborating to make them nervous about their safety again.
Now it is whole 25 years after the Matrix movie, Windows 2000, Babylon V series and Star Wars The Phantom Menace. Which feel like almost recent. In 1985 it was 25 years after the moment closest to starting a nuclear war, and 25 years before that there were wars in ex-colonies all over the globe. And 50 years before that WWII was starting.
Time is elusive. The Phantom Menace is closer to USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan than to now. And much closer to 1985 than to now.
OK, what I really mean is - 1985 was before USSR failed. When it failed, every first and second world society underwent a cultural shock. Expectations formed that it will be futuristic heaven now with no war and reaching for the stars, some capitalist version of the Soviet futurism with unified humanity, that now western nations are unmatched militarily, because all military actions will be like SG-1 series expeditions.
So - this shock led to some popular, but catastrophic changes, like complacency in the face of totalitarianism and reduction in armed forces in the western nations. One can even say that the USSR lost the cold war, and the west lost the peace that followed it.