Alliances are in their most human form, more than just a friendship. They are a business partnership, a tribal agreement, and at the end of the day – perhaps more a complicated weave of intersecting mutual interests.

Not all members of such partnerships, either personal or national, will be as large or as rich as the other partners. Members know this. What they understand is there is strength in unity of purpose and mutual support. What keeps the relationships strong is the respect that comes from shared burdens with the understanding that regardless of a member’s relative strength or wealth, all will do the best they can.

What is destructive to unity and potential is when some members see that others are not really doing as much as they should, what is “fair.”

In an alliance there are many competing definitions of what is “fair” but the simpler the better. Though not perfect, for a long time the 2% of GDP has been a useful entering argument. It has its critics, but is handy as a benchmark of relative effort.

The follow on question, rightfully, often becomes not so much how much you spend, but what you spend it on. This was clearly on display at the height of the USA/NATO uplift of forces in Afghanistan at the end of the first decade of that conflict where some nations would show up with all their people and kit, ready to go. Other partner nations literally just had a plane load of personnel show up and then asked for someone to equip them. Some allied nations have nice forces on paper, but they have no way of transporting them or any kind of idea how to operate in an expeditionary manner.

On the other hand, you would have some small nations or nations with smaller militaries than you would wish not send as many personnel as you would like – but those they do send come with all their kit, and at a high state of readiness to get to work.

Recognizing this is a more complicated measure of utility. Instead of just looking at percent of GDP, others offer that if you are concerned about utility for an alliance, look at what percentage they do spend is spent on equipment.

That’s fair. NATO even has a benchmark for that, 20%.

Yesterday, NATO published its Defence Expenditure of NATO Countries (2013-2020). In the report, they do just that. For the sake of discussion, I think this graph can break alliance members in to roughly four quadrants, with the extremes going to the corners. By looking at where nations are in those four quadrants, you can get an idea what the alliance should do to help steer nations to a better quadrant – the ideal Quadrant II – or to better refine where they are trending.

Let’s review the four quadrants as I define them; Show Ponies, War Horses, Free Riders, and Garrison Armies.

Quadrant I: The Show Ponies

The Show Ponies are not spending enough on defense, but what they do spend has some quality kit. They are good, useful, and if war ever comes, commanders will want more of them … and generally will badmouth that nation’s politicians for being stingy partners. Our Show Ponies are, in decreasing from the extreme, Luxembourg, Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, Hungary, Turkey, Denmark and Montenegro. These nations are the ones we should gently encourage towards more investment. They “get it” but just are not putting enough change in the purse. If you notice the dashed blue line average for the alliance, NATO is, on average, a Show Pony.

Quadrant II: The War Horses

The War Horses are the ones who are not just investing what they promised to with their friends, they have actually bought the tools to fight with when the call comes. NATO’s War Horses are the United States, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, Norway, France, Lithuania, Great Britain, and Romania. The key with these nations is to stop them from sliding left or down.

Quadrant III: The Free Riders

These nations not only are not spending enough, what the do spend is mostly on salaries and not enough equipment. The equipment these nations do have are often obsolete, too few, or non deployable. When they do deploy, they need a lot of enablers from War Horse nations and often just send enough to justify having their flag in front of the HQ. These nations should be put on a remedial program and generally encouraged to be a mensch and not a putz. NATO’s Free Riders are Slovenia, Belgium, North Macedonia, Albania, The Czech Republic, Canada, Bulgaria, Portugal, Germany, and Croatia.

Quadrant IV: The Garrison Army

Only one NATO nation is in this quadrant, Greece. You can expect her, maybe, to be able to handle her own territorial defense. She has a lot of people, or at least well paid people, but she does not have a lot of equipment, and what she does have will probably be not the best, and not expeditionary without a lot of enablers from War Horses.

What do we need to worry about now? Well, this graph represents a snap shot in time where alliance members were under regular pressure from the USA for three years to spend more. Some did respond, moving in to War Horse or Show Pony status. This was also pre-COVID.

One final note, I would really like a Z-axis on this, but it would require me to find a declassified version of my national caveats list from ISAF. Even if you normalize for equipment and readiness, not all nations are of equivalent utility at war. Due to national caveats, a company of Estonians are many orders of magnitude of use to any commander than a company of Belgians.

Many orders of magnitude.

That would make a more interesting graph, but we’ll stick with what we have.

What will 2022 bring us when the effects of new pressures from the USA and COVID hit defense budgets? Remind me to revisit this again, the good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.