The power of NATO to deter other states from aggression is in “doubt” because its members do not spend enough money on defence, the Secretary General warns, calling for a revival of European defence industries and spending increases.
The world is becoming more dangerous, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte again warns as he continues his campaign to cajole the member states of the alliance to at least meet their minimum obligations, never mind respond to the Ukraine war and President Trump’s calls for Europe to take more responsibility for its own defence.
Speaking alongside British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer — whose main impact at the joint statement was appearing to flee press as questioning turned to whether he had broken the coronavirus lockdown rules he’d demanded be enforced harder back in 2020 — Rutte expressed the catchphrase: “to prevent war, we must spend more”.
The former Dutch Prime Minister turned NATO leader warned of a rising tide of “Russian destabilization campaigns” and that “To stop these attacks, once and for all, we need to up our game and make sure our deterrence leaves no room for doubt. We can do this by investing even more in defence.”
NATO members agreed in the 2010s that their spending on defence should equate to two per cent of each member state’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a minimum. Almost a decade on, the average spend of Europe’s NATO states is still stubbornly low at 1.9 per cent, with some major members like Spain spending as little as 1.3 per cent while continuing to benefit from the umbrella of protection provided by the efforts of other members, including the nuclear powers the United States, United Kingdom, and France.
But in the light of Russian aggression on Europe’s eastern flank and Donald Trump’s insistence that European states need to stop taking advantage of American defence benevolence while doing so little themselves, new, higher proportions of GDP have been discussed. A fractionally higher 2.5 per cent spending floor has been mooted, the European Union has suggested 3 per cent, and President Trump says he’s now looking at a Cold War-tier five per cent from European members.
While not naming a number himself, Rutte supported a boosterist position alongside Starmer yesterday, saying: “To put it in another way, to prevent war, we must spend more… in a more dangerous world, 2% will not be enough to keep us safe. We need to invest considerably more. We also need to replenish our stocks, and fast, there’s no time to waste reviving our defence industries, to ramp up defence production, is an absolute must.”
Echoing other NATO leaders, who assert NATO deterrence can’t truly discourage war if it doesn’t have industrial strength behind it, the guarantee that not only will NATO members stand up for themselves but have the ability to keep fighting if needed to, Rutte remarked, somewhat optimistically of the ever-more de-industrialised West: “During World War II, factories in the UK and the US produced billions of rounds of ammunition. That was before digitization and automation. With all the might of British manufacturing, just imagine what we could achieve now.”
Read More: ‘To Prevent War We Must Spend More’ Says NATO to Underpaying Europe
