The Guardian ·
Nato leader warns of ‘most dangerous and complex security environment in a generation’
Mark Rutte asks UK and Europe to ‘provide hard power Nato needs’ in face of geopolitical uncertainty
Nato needs “more UK and more Europe” to deal with the most dangerous security environment faced by the west in a generation, the secretary general of the 32-country military alliance said this afternoon on a visit to the UK.
Mark Rutte praised Britain for promising to increase defence spending in line with US demands after a meeting prime minister Andy Burnham – but argued that the military and financial effort must continue into the future.
“It is essential that your armed forces continue to provide the hard power Nato needs,” Rutte said in a speech to a specialist audience at Ditchley Park, a wartime retreat used by Winston Churchill in Oxfordshire.
It was a plea for the UK to make progress towards an alliance-wide target demanded by Donald Trump of spending 3.5% of GDP by 2035, about £30bn in real terms, money that has to be found from extra taxation, borrowing or reducing other spending.
Britain has so far only budgeted to increase defence spending to 2.7% of GDP by the end of the next decade. Short-term financial pressures have meant that the army has been told to stop non-essential training by the end of the year.
Chancellor John Healey resigned as defence secretary from Keir Starmer’s government in June because the former prime minister would not commit to 3% by 2030, arguing that it would require too great a step up in the next decade.
But Healey refused to recommit to the interim target when he was appointed to the Treasury by Burnham a month later, raising questions that the new government was backloading spending increases until after the next election.
Rutte said that he had discussed Britain’s “Nato commitments” when he had met Burnham at a science business park in Oxford earlier on Wednesday, without offering any details, in the first one-on-one meeting between the two.
Prior to that meeting, Burnham acknowledged that he had replaced Starmer, but insisted that there was “never any change in the UK’s unwavering commitment to Nato and our Nato obligations”.
The Nato chief, a former Dutch prime minister, said many in Europe had made the “casual assumption” that the US would “always provide most of the muscle and pick up the bill, no matter what” until Trump returned to the White House.
Instead, he noted that during a summit in The Hague in 2025, the UK and other alliance members had agreed to increase their own defence spending to match US levels, in response to Trump’s demand that Europe take the lead in defending the continent.
“We need more UK and more Europe in the alliance,” Rutte said, because Nato “faces the most dangerous and complex security environment in a generation” with a return to wars in Europe and the Middle East, and wider geopolitical uncertainty.
Citing “Russia and its war against Ukraine, terrorism, Iran and the tectonic shifts of global geopolitical competition”, Rutte argued that the UK and Europe needed to invest more, because otherwise “our collective defence will not be credible”.
Britain, he said, had “a central role in building this stronger Europe in a stronger Nato” and noted that the UK was spending billions to upgrade the Trident nuclear deterrent, which is pledged to the defence of Nato members.
The UK is also gradually upgrading its conventional forces, though the UK’s overall defence spending, long the second largest in the alliance, is now behind Germany. By 2029, Berlin’s military budgets are on track to be twice that of the UK.
The UK was “leading the pushback” against a Russian campaign of provocation and sabotage across Europe, Rutte said, and that the UK had been “a good friend to Ukraine”. Britain spends £3bn a year supporting Ukraine with weapons.
Meanwhile, Canada, seeking to diversify its defence ties away from the US, has formally applied to join the British-led Joint Expeditionary Force military coalition, prime minister Mark Carney’s office said on Wednesday.
The a grouping of 10 North Atlantic Nato member states is a rapid response military partnership.
Canada, already a Nato member, is seeking closer military cooperation with Europe.
The JEF comprises Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK.