Summary
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned that the alliance must adopt a “wartime mindset” to prepare for long-term confrontation with Russia.
Speaking in Brussels, he urged members to increase defense spending beyond the 2% GDP target, noting that only 23 of 32 members currently meet it.
Rutte emphasized boosting defense production, addressing cyber threats, and countering China’s military buildup and actions toward Taiwan.
His remarks come as Donald Trump threatens to withhold defense support from NATO members failing to meet spending commitments, raising concerns about alliance unity.
Can’t say I’m a military analyst but if Russia can’t take over Ukraine why should NATO be worried, 2% or otherwise? Russia’s ongoing sabotage against NATO countries is a job for intelligence and policing. Greasing the palms of the arms industry won’t touch that.
Because the industrial base for producing critical things like ammunition is nearly nonexistent. Despite USA and European arms support Ukraine has been permanently shell-starved for the entire course of the war. Three years later, even after spinning up some new production, Ukraine’s allies still don’t make enough shells to get anywhere close to 1:1 with what the Russians fire at them (and that was before North Korea started supplying the Russians)
The invasion of Ukraine has made it crystal clear that Europe’s military industrial base is utterly incapable of responding to an actual peer conflict on their own soil, let alone providing a deterrent to wars of expansion outside of it. It would be foolish not to be investing in sovereign military capability in today’s world.
You’re talking like the whole of Europe has been pouring everything it’s got into the war in Ukraine, which it hasn’t even come close to.
I think Czechia is the only country who has not immediately replenished military aid given to Ukraine. UK arms manufacturers continue to supply the international market. Meanwhile Russia is pulling tanks out of museums, begging from impoverished North Korea and has spent nearly three years capturing 20% of a non-NATO country below Egypt and Australia in military rankings.
The issue here is not that Europe is vulnerable to Russia, it’s that there is a renewed American mandate to cut spending on other people’s wars and deterrents and they are wondering whether Europe should cough up more money. Mark Rutte licks Trump’s anus and is making what he thinks are the right sounds. Fair enough. On the flipside European lawmakers are going to be wondering whether Donald will go back to keeping intelligence documents in his bathroom, whether US military bases in their countries are really worth it and whether they want much to do with the US at all as gets more and more nutty.
Other countries should be jumping at the opportunity to shed their american shackles.
instead of war let’s use critical weather as an analogy.
it’s getting colder, and there’s 16 extra feet of snow on the local mountain range than usual.
do you:
a) prepare for a long hard winter by increasing your grocery budget by 25%
b) do nothing because the snow is up there and you haven’t seen more than 4 ft id snow in 45 years.
That’s hard to agree with. War efforts are largely dependent on finite resources, of which the upstream comment argued that if Russia is struggling (and losing those finite resources for later use) in Ukraine, they’re sure to have even less if they spread their efforts elsewhere.
Weather generally doesn’t get “used up” the same way, so it would make more sense to be prepared for that theoretical unlimited supply of snow.
Do I think countries around Russia should be on alert? Yes. Do I think their position is weaker now than it was before they invaded Ukraine, which would continue further if they tried the same thing elsewhere? Also yes.
In your analogy it’s like increasing your grocery budget by 25%, knowing that you already have more than enough groceries to see you through the winter and that extra 25% will rot before it gets used. Spending that extra money on groceries has also cost you the opportunity to buy a backup generator in case the snow knocks out your power supply as well as a new starter motor for your snowmobile.
you do realized there’s shelf stable food that can last years…right?
also, buying a generator or motor would also go towards your “defense budget” of your impending blizzard…
that means you either didn’t understand the analog or you’re arguing under the false pretense that Russia isn’t a credible threat.
and although I tend to agree that Russia is not an advanced threat, even a broken old dog is able to bite you once so we should prepare for it at least.
Hey man you chose groceries as an analogy, not me.
Agreed in part. We should absolutely continue to support Ukraine in any/all ways possible against Russia. However Russia doesn’t have the economy to really do much to the rest of Europe. Rubles are going to be worth more as toilet paper than money in the next few years.
If you put aside the argument that Russia isn’t capable of running over Ukraine, cities are still laid to waste, people are getting killed…
Why put that aside? It was the whole point of their invasion.
Wether or not Russia is capable of taking over Ukraine, lives are lost in Ukraine. That’s a reason to be worried. You can laugh at Russia’s failure to carry out the task they put before themselves, but in the end people are suffering.
The whole point of their operation wasn’t to “not be capable to take over Ukraine”, it was “(to be capable) to take over Ukraine”.
I think you misunderstood me.
Don’t get me wrong, what has happened to Ukraine is absolutely awful. But the argument that European NATO countries should respond by spending more money on arming themselves is wrong IMO. First because it’s unnecessary and second because we have other important things that need investment like energy, transport and healthcare. I dont want these things to be neglected for the sake of handing over billions to big arms companies for weapons that sit unused in a warehouse for decades. We need to be invested in a stable and peaceful future.
Well the good news (/s) is that they won’t be sitting in a warehouse - they will instead be sold to one of many conflicts around the world to “test” their product.
“never let a disagreement go unarmed”
does intelligence count as defense spending?
Ukraine is receiving a TON of military aid, a lot of which is about the cease.
Trump is Putin’s pet, and the new US National Intelligence director is a Russian asset. Ukraine is about to be railroaded.
Because Russia doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Also it is better to be prepared and not need it, rather than not be prepared and lose a large portion of the population, industry, potentially getting genocided away etc.
I agree about that but in the case of defence against a potential Russian invasion of European NATO members I think it’s a false dichotomy. We are already stronger than Russia by nearly all measures and would be better off investing in infrastructure that makes us more prosperous and resilient whatever the future holds.
Are we stronger than Russia + China + Iran + any other country that joins them?
If we were strong enough, we could have helped Ukraine win. Multiple countries have neglected their military up to a point it should be considered treason.
There seems to be a general misconception that Europe has been unable to help Ukraine more when it has actually been a free choice for them. That’s the whole purpose of NATO - it binds member states to shared defence. Ukraine was not a member when it was invaded.
Russia: Ukraine. China: needs to keeping selling us stuff to keep its property bubble from crashing the economy, far away. Iran: Israel.
Imagining a terrifying and powerful threat and gearing up for a world war is a good way of helping that to actually happen. Fair enough. Some people want that. Perhaps because they stand to profit individually from the economics of it, are lacking purpose or are simply bored.
“Imagining a terrifying and powerful threat and gearing up for a world war is a good way of helping that to actually happen”
Except the threat isn’t imaginary. Same shit was said about Russia in 2008, 2014 and here we are, after 2022 happened. Three years and they are still occupying a significant amount of Ukraine. The truth is - if NATO is a defensive alliance, then gearing up with a shitloads of weapons to defend any offensive action doesn’t make a world war happen easier - quite the opposite. It prevents opportunists who would grab territory with no consequence - like Russia did in 2008 and 2014.
And all the time the eastern flank of NATO was screaming about a threat and being told by the western part to calm down and don’t be hawks, when their entire existence was threatened. All because it’s pretty simple - because the western part of NATO is only possible to be invaded when the eastern side has been taken over and capitulated. Hence why the idiotic policy that was luckily reversed, to let Russia capture the Baltics in case of a war, and retake them later. Everyone on the eastern flank knows what happens to people under russian occupation, it just doesn’t get through to people who don’t have to worry about the consequences of doing nothing and pushing the problem down the line with appeasement and ignoring it altogether.
Also, Ukraine had a pact with the US for defense if the integrity of the country was ever touched. And then 2014 happened and what? If a threat big enough exists that countries are scared of fighting it, NATO means fuckall. It’ll be the start of WW2 again with alliances that don’t do anything when their “buffer zone” is being taken over by hostiles.
China is not a warmongering country. Neither is Iran. I’m not sure your point here.