Rutte calls for 400% boost in NATO’s anti-aircraft capabilities

Brussels – Russia will continue to be a threat to NATO, even if peace is achieved in Ukraine. This is the conviction of the Alliance’s Secretary General, Mark Rutte, who, from London, called for a 400 per cent increase in air and missile defences to protect the skies of the 32 member states from Moscow’s attacks.

There needs to be a “quantum leap” in NATO’s collective defence capabilities if its members are to maintain a credible deterrence to the outside world. Starting with “a 400 per cent increase in air and missile defence” to defend the airspace of the organisation’s members. There is no room for interpretation in the message delivered this afternoon (9 June) by the head of the North Atlantic Alliance, Mark Rutte, during an event at the London Chatham House think tank that began shortly after a bilateral meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

According to the former Dutch Prime Minister, “our armed forces also need thousands more armoured vehicles and tanks, millions more artillery shells, and we need to double our support capabilities, such as logistics, supply, transport, and medical assistance.” Reserves and stockpiles, emptied by aid provided to Kyiv to resist Moscow’s aggression, must also be replenished.

These imperatives are linked to the threat posed by Vladimir Putin’s Russia on the eastern flank of the Alliance, which is projected to continue spending around 6.5 per cent of its GDP on defence. “In Ukraine, we see how Russia sows terror from above, so we will strengthen the shield that protects our skies,” Rutte said. Moreover, he argued, “the danger will not disappear even when the war in Ukraine ends“, since the Federation “may be ready to use military force against NATO within five years.”

To respond to the new geo-strategic reality of the Old Continent, the heads of state and government of the member states are preparing to give the go-ahead to increase military spending to 5 per cent of GDP at the forthcoming Hague summit scheduled for 24–25 June (counting a 3.5 per cent defence budget and an additional 1.5 per cent dedicated to other strategic investments, e.g. physical infrastructure and cyber security).

Moscow’s response was not long in coming. In the words of Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov, NATO “is proving to be a tool of aggression and confrontation.” According to Putin’s propaganda mouthpiece, “European taxpayers will spend their money to defuse a threat that they say comes from our country, but which is nothing more than an ephemeral threat.”