[JumpCrisscross]

> Trump has done more for NATO rearmament than any US president in history

Putin did that. To the degree Trump's statements have had an effect, it's in deharmonizing trans-Atlantic military coöperation.

(EDIT: Trump and Putin had similar effects. See [1].)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39540275

[TMWNN]

>Putin did that.

No. As I said, not even an actual land war in Europe has been as effective as Trump's mean words in getting Western Europe to actually get off their butts regarding defense.

[kergonath]

You said that, but it does not make it true. Trump rocked the boat but did fuck all.

The truth is that for many European countries military defence is was a bit of an abstract concept, with no real enemy nearby and no really interventionist foreign policies. Letting NATO rot was not a big problem in that context. What changed everything was when an enemy willing to use its military in a war in Europe materialised.

[JumpCrisscross]

> not even an actual land war in Europe has been as effective as Trump's mean words in getting Western Europe to actually get off their butts regarding defense

Putin and Trump appeared to have played similar roles in increasing European defence spending, with Putin beating out Trump (but not by much).

Let's look at Ex-US NATO defence expenditure as a fraction of GDP from 2017 to 2020 in comparison with 2014 to 2016 [1]. On average it rose +13 bps, 1.43% to 1.56%, (p = 0.09, unpaired t-test). Not statisfically significant. Same for '17 to '20 versus '21 to '23: +12 bps, 1.56% to 1.69% (p = 0.13).

Looking broader, '14 to '16 versus '17 to '23, we get +18.6 bps (p = 0.02) for Trump. Significant! But if we do the same for Putin, '14 to '20 versus '21 to '23, we get +18.1 bps (p = 0.02). Also significant! (And uncannily similar.)

Seeing the above, I get why there is an impasse. The data support an insignificant conclusion for giving the entire effect to Trump or Putin with low confidence. They more significantly support giving half the effect to each. Given we're "crediting" (in the high-confidence analysis) '21 to '23 to both, and Putin's effects have manifested over just 2 years, that makes the claim that Trump did more to boost ex-US NATO defence spending than Putin technically incorrect. But only technically.

(Would note that a t-test for such data isn't really correct, so would take the above as casual calculations.)

[1] https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2023/7/pd... Table 3