How many NATO countries actually step up.

You do realise - dont you? - that every dollar Russia spends on defence buys far more than every dollar we in the west spend? It manufactures most of it's own weapons with far lower labour costs than we in the west have. It can thus produce weapons far more cheaply than we can. It pays it's soldiers substantially less too. And unlike the rest of Europe with it's assortment of independent states, some quite small , all with their own procurement systems and the massive duplication of effort this involves, Russia is one entity and thus has a far cheaper and better integrated system of supply in consequence. It also has far more trained reservists than the rest of Europe. And much of Europe is worryingly dependent upon imported arms supplies especially from the USA which might not be a reliable supplier if a Trump president does a deal with Putin. 

There is also the danger that China, far more numerous in population terms than Russia, and economically stronger, and with its own designs on Taiwan, might make common cause with Russia. Such a possibility cannot be ruled out. Also most of the former Soviet republics are firmly in the Russian camp. So it is nowhere near as simple as money spent.

Nazi Germany had similar labour and commodity costs to us. Russia does not.

SRB , I did wonder whether to let this thread lie now as we do seem to be going round in circles.  Lets try one more time but if we still can't agree, it might be time to "agree to disagree.  We do seem to be oscillating between two separate questions 1) whether spending more money on defence restricts the amount available for other services (to simplify lets just call it health but actually it applies to all spending, health, schools, prisons, etc etc) 2) whether further spending on defence is necessary.   I wonder if trying to agree on two questions simultaneously is causing the circling, so I suggest we seek to reach agreement on question one and once we have done that move to question two. Does that make sense?

Assuming it does, I think we have agreed that the country is not able to prudently borrow unlimited sums of money. Q1, Is that agreed?

Assuming the answer to 1) is yes, this really isn't anything to do with Keynsian economics, it really is just simple maths.   I agree that the prudent figure we can borrow up to may be higher than the figure we are currently borrowing. That isn't the point either.  The maximum amount the government can spend ("a") in a year is the sum of x - total tax receipts and y- total borrowing.  The government doesn't have to spend that amount, it can spend less, but that is the maximum it can spend.
Q2 - is that agreed?

Assuming the answer to Q2 is yes, that total potential spend will be the sum of all areas of government spending - in our simplistic model health (h) + defence (d).  The most government can spend is H+D = A

That formula can be restated as the most government can spend on H is H=A-D (again noting it doesn't have to spend that much on H but that is the maximum)

Q3 is that agreed?

Assuming the answer to Q3 is yes, it is simple maths that the bigger figure D is, the smaller figure H is.  

Q4 is that agreed?

If you have answered yes to Q4, then we are in agreement, the more we spend on defence, the less we can potentially spend on health.  My view is that we should spend as much on health as we prudently can given the state of public services so I am reluctant to spend more on defence unless we absolutely need to. We can move on to examining that once we have agreed this point.  If you haven't reached and said yes to Q4 could you point out very clearly which question you have said "no" to and why as frankly I am struggling to identify precisely where we disagree.











 

Indeed. 
In fact its so simple as to defy explaining. 
Dappy is not daft, so I conclude he is playing us. 

Well it's good that Sunak listens to someone with sense 

Problem is though that it's a kicked down the road for someone else to deliver commitment.  I wouldn't bet an empty glass to win a full one that it will be met.

Agreed. They can make as many promises as they want 6 months from an election they're going to lose.
And once again it looks like the figures are fudged and its not all new money. 

The better prepared we are for war, the less risk of us fighting one, as no dictator wants to go toe to toe with a capable foe.