Yesterday, the New York Times published an interview with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. What stands out about it is the combination of obsequiousness towards Trump and paranoia about Russia and China and the rest of the world outside of NATO’s boundaries. Rutte used that paranoia as an appeal to Americans about the “necessity” of the Alliance, and of its increased spending and territorial expansion.
“If you want to defend the U.S., you have to make sure that three things are secure,” Rutte said. “You need a secure Arctic, because it is opening up and the Chinese and the Russians are sailing there. You need a secure Atlantic, because it’s your sea; it is crucial. And you need a secure Europe, because Russia’s here, and Russia is reconstituting itself at an incredible pace—not to attack Norway, but to attack ultimately the U.S. If the Arctic, if the Atlantic Ocean, if Europe is not secure, the U.S. has a big problem.”
Rutte continued that argument when the interviewer asked him about the 5% of GDP for military spending that Alliance members agreed on at the summit in June. “We have an enormous geopolitical challenge on our hands,” he said. “And that is first of all Russia, which is reconstituting itself at a pace and a speed which is unparalleled in recent history. They are now producing three times as much ammunition in three months as the whole of NATO is doing in a year. This is unsustainable, but the Russians are working together with the North Koreans, with the Chinese and Iranians, the mullahs, in fighting this unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine. So here, the Indo-Pacific and your Atlantic are getting more and more interconnected. We know that China has its eye on Taiwan. Given this whole geopolitical setup, there is no way we can defend ourselves if we stick to this old 2%.”
If NATO countries won’t put up the money, he said, “we’ll have to learn Russian.”
As for Trump, Rutte dismissed criticism that he was fawning over Trump both before and during the summit. “I think when somebody deserves praise, that praise should be given,” he said. “And President Trump deserves all the praise, because without his leadership, without him being re-elected president of the United States, the 2% this year and the 5% in 2035—we would never, ever, ever have been able to achieve agreement on this.”
It gets more ridiculous after that, particularly regarding Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping and the ostensible need to deter both of them. “If Xi Jinping would attack Taiwan, he would first make sure that he makes a call to his very junior partner in all of this, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, residing in Moscow, and telling him, ‘Hey, I’m going to do this, and I need you to keep them busy in Europe by attacking NATO territory,’” Rutte claimed. “That is most likely the way this will progress. And to deter them, we need to do two things. One is that NATO, collectively, being so strong that the Russians will never do this. And second, working together with the Indo-Pacific....” What nonsense.
TASS, in its brief coverage of the interview, notes that Putin has said as much. “The idea of Russia’s alleged intention to attack NATO countries has been constantly repeated in recent months by the heads of the alliance and the EU structures,” it said. “Neither the organization’s Secretary General nor the head of the European Commission explain why Moscow would do this. In the summer of 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a meeting organized by TASS with the heads of world news agencies on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, stated that the West’s collective assertions about Russia’s readiness to attack NATO countries was nonsense.”
Former President Dmitry Medvedev, now Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council, issued a more forceful statement: “Rutte has clearly gorged on too many of the magic mushrooms beloved by the Dutch. He sees collusion between China & Russia over Taiwan, and then a Russian attack on Europe. But he’s right about one thing: he should learn Russian. It might come in handy in a Siberian camp.”
