Austria Prepares to Give Up ‘Dream’ of Disarmament

Austria’s government will make good on pledges to double its military budget over the next seven years, its chancellor has affirmed, in the latest example of a newly unsettled global outlook driving a boom in defense spending in Europe.

The chancellor, Christian Stocker, who took office in March and is a member of the center-right Austrian People’s Party, told The New York Times in an interview in Vienna on Monday that the historically neutral Alpine nation must respond to growing threats and uncertainties. That means reversing a decades-long trend of shrinking military budgets as a share of the economy.

“After the fall of the Iron Curtain, after a peace effort that evolved from the 1970s under Jimmy Carter, disarmament was a dream that was dreamed but is now over,” Mr. Stocker said.

His comments are the latest response from European leaders to a rapidly changing security situation on the continent, which has wiped out the so-called “peace dividend” many countries enjoyed after the Cold War.

Countries across Europe have pledged to ramp up military spending in the face of Russia’s three-year invasion of Ukraine and fears that the United States will pull back some or all of the troops, weapons and other support that have for decades helped guarantee European security.

Austria’s neighbor Germany has pledged to spend 5 percent of its annual economic output on military and strategic infrastructure, an increase financed in part by additional borrowing. Its fellow NATO members committed to the same target last month, under prodding from President Trump.