After being urged to make sacrifices for a greener future—such as eating less meat, taking shorter showers, and adopting other measures to save the planet—European citizens are now being kindly requested to embrace war-driven fearmongering and curb their "ultra-luxurious" lifestyles to save Europe from Russia. At least, this is how the situation is being framed by the greatest former Dutch Prime Minister and current great NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte.
"Citizens of NATO member states should "accept to make sacrifices" such as cuts to their pensions, health and security systems in order to boost defence spending and ensure long-term security in Europe, the head of the military alliance said on Thursday."
Cuts to pensions and healthcare—probably to education as well. Who cares about that, right? And let's not even mention the already €124 billion spent on Ukraine, which the European Commission (led by Ursula von der Leyen) deems "not enough."
But why, you might ask?
"To protect our freedom, our prosperity and our way of life, your politicians need to listen to your voices. Tell them you accept to make sacrifices today so that we can stay safe tomorrow," Mark Rutte said during a speech in Brussels."
It's truly hard to top off this kind of bullshit. Citizens are now being told they should be "spending less on other priorities" and allocating more to military budgets.
The madness continues:
"To unlock further cash for the defence sector, citizens of NATO countries, especially in Europe, should also tell their banks and pension funds that it is "simply unacceptable that they refuse to invest in defence industry", Rutte argued."
NATO (and the so-called globalists) are pushing for another great Cold War—and they want it quickly, as the Ukraine project is unraveling at an alarming pace. Yet, Rutte also declares:
"The NATO secretary general admitted that while there were no imminent threats to the allies, the danger was moving "at full speed" towards the transatlantic alliance. "We are not at war, but certainly not at peace either," he said."
So, there are no direct threats to NATO, Ukraine is not a member of NATO (and likely never will be, for better or worse), and, without a doubt, we are at peace—and would like to stay that way. However, peace rarely consolidates power, nor does it generate massive profits. Unless, of course, it involves a certain kind of crisis—say, a virus that necessitates lockdowns and worldwide government-mandated vaccinations. Allegedly, something like that has happened before.
But how much money is actually spent on NATO?
From this source, all the juicy details:
"Currently, two-thirds of its members (23 of 32) have fulfilled this commitment, and will collectively spend $1.47 trillion on defence this year. This is up from just 10 countries meeting the 2 percent guideline in 2023 and three countries meeting the commitment in 2014.""The United States remains the world’s largest military spender by far. In dollar terms, the US represents about two-thirds of NATO countries’ annual defence spending, budgeting an estimated $967bn.
This represents about 3.4 percent of the $28.7 trillion US economy.
The next four top spenders in dollar terms are Germany ($97.7bn), the UK ($82.1bn), France ($64.3bn) and Poland ($34.9bn)."
The Netherlands spends only 1.85% of its GDP on defense, placing it near the bottom of the rankings.
With the economic situation deteriorating across Europe—especially in Germany—tough decisions are on the horizon.
Will the average citizen take the bait?
