The Planned “NATO Bank” Is Expected To Finance Europe’s Impending Arms Race With Russia
Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter
The Russian-Polish security dilemma will likely serve as the impetus for fully unleashing and properly managing the capabilities of European NATO as a whole per the US’ National Defense Strategy.
RT drew attention in late January to a report by Izvestia about the West’s alleged plans to launch a “Defense, Security, and Resilience Bank” (DSRB) by 2027. Their article relies on in-depth research by the Atlantic Council, which first proposed what was called the “NATO Bank”. The purpose is to provide “low-interest loans for defense modernization”, thus facilitating the goal of NATO members spending 5% of GDP on defense without significantly curtailing social and infrastructure spending.
Instead of slashing such programs to redirect funds to defense at the risk of helping populist-nationalists in the next elections and/or provoking unrest, they’d only spend a fraction of the principal each year servicing their DSRB loan, rather than paying the cost upfront as if it were part of their annual expenditures. The Executive Summary of the Atlantic Council’s in-depth research, hyperlinked above, also notes that “An additional critical function of the DSR bank would be to underwrite the risk for commercial banks”.
This would then “enabl[e] them to extend financing to defense companies across the supply chain.” The supplementary purpose is to finance large-scale orders that these companies themselves are unable to afford, and that most member states can’t finance without potential populist pushback. Defense companies can then expand production, pump out the requested military-technical equipment at scale, and sell it at much lower prices to accelerate NATO’s planned militarization.