Rutte’s charade

I was “in da house”, Chatham House, for NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte’s speech on NATO’s priorities/agenda in the run up to the Hague summit looming in a couple of weeks.

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2025/06/nato-chief-mark-rutte-warns-russia-could-use-military-force-against-alliance-five-years

A couple of points on this for me:

First, Rutte is still maintaining the charade that the U.S. still stands full square behind Europe in NATO. This was also the message of assurance from German chancellor, Merz, in the White House last week. But after Vance’s trip to the Munich Security Conference in Vienna in February the whole of Europe knows that the U.S. backstop for European security is gone. This explains the remarkable about turn in Germany, finally revising the debt brake to allow €500bn in defence spending. Germany finally got it, as did the rest of Europe - we are on our own and need to build our own autonomous defence and military industrial complex ASAP. Actually we need to do this like tomorrow, but building the capabilities long given up will take the best part of a decade, and everyone in the defence establishment knows that.

So what are Rutte and Merz up to?

Well Europe needs time to build its own autonomous defence capability and the only way to get this time is a) hoping Ukraine lasts out against Russia for as long as possible; and b) the U.S. continues to sell Europe the weapons it now realises it needs to defend itself.

So the Rutte/Merz charade is trying to keep Trump engaged for as long as possible to get as much military kit out of the U.S. as possible until we can defend ourselves. It is also keeping him sweet that Europe can help the U.S. in its on-going battle for hegemony with China.

Actually the pitch from Europe to Trump and the U.S. should be two fold:

a) Europe is going to increase defence spending by multiples, from 2% of GDP to 3% plus and each 1% move is an extra €300bn in defence spend. Much of this spend can still be with the U.S., if it is still seen as a reliable partner for Europe. Europe could already play to Trump’s ego by promising a $100 billion of defence purchases per year from the U.S. over the next decade - a $1 trillion programme and call it the Trump programme for US jobs and European security.

b) Europe will get its defence and military industrial complex in order. If it gets to the 3.5% of GDP defence spend as targeted by Rutte, let alone the 5% target including infrastructure, Europe will be outspending the U.S. on defence at close to €1 trillion annually. Imagine the usefulness of Europe against China in that U.S. battle for hegemony and it calls out the senselessness of a U.S. - Russia alliance against China. The European economy is ten times larger than that of Russia and its military industrial complex will and can outgun Russia‘s when it gets into gear, as it will.

So the message still from Europe to the U.S. should be that we are a huge market for U.S. defence products, and it will grow and we are your natural partner and foil against China, not Russia.

Second, Rutte identified three sources of funding to increase defence spending in Europe: tax hikes, spending cuts, and borrowing. No, no, no, there is a fourth, making Russia pay. How about NATO pulling rank over the ECB on security and finally seizing the $330bn in CBR assets - Russian taxpayer assets - in Western jurisdictions and using these to fund Europe’s and Ukraine’s defence. This could moonshot Europe’s defence spending increase - enabling Europe to go from a 2% to 3% defence spend immediately. We can even commit to use a weight of these monies to buy US equipment to buy off Trump. The legal arguments are now clear - countermeasures, it’s legal! The economic arguments against are weak - read my blog herein. All we need is the political will, and surely our very security provides the political cover/imperative. The alternative is as Rutte said, we all need to learn Russian. But importantly for Europe if we don’t stop Russia then the whole European project is dead - we can wave goodbye to the Euro’s reserve currency status as a wave of political, social and economic instability would fan thru Europe.

The reality is that 3.5 years into the war in Ukraine we have to recognise that what we are doing is simply not working. We need to think outside the box - seize Russian assets to pay for our defence, or even take an idea from Trump and put tariffs on Russian trade with Europe, and beyond, to pay for our defence.