Mark Rutte, NATO’s secretary general, argued for a sizeable boost to the bloc’s air and missile defense capabilities in a speech at Chatham House in London on Monday, June 9th, in the lead-up to the NATO summit June 24-25.
Pointing to Russia as a looming threat even beyond an end to the Ukraine war, Rutte said “Russia could be ready to use military force against NATO within five years.”
Let’s not kid ourselves, we are all on the Eastern flank now. The new generation of Russian missiles travel at many times the speed of sound. The distance between European capitals is only a matter of minutes.
Rutte pointed out that defense investments do not only include weapons, but also improved European infrastructure, saying “roads,rail and ports are just as important as tanks, fighters and warships” and that, to manage that, NATO countries need “cheaper electricity, access to critical minerals, and more engineering know-how.”
Otherwise, he said, the commitment to spend 5% of GDP on defense—something he expects consensus on at the summit in The Hague—”will be lost to production costs, rather than invested in defense.”
