NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte will urge allies to massively increase defense spending and build more weapons in a speech in London later Monday.
“The fact is, we need a quantum leap in our collective defense. The fact is, we must have more forces and capabilities to implement our defense plans in full,” he is expected to say at Chatham House in London, according to remarks shared with reporters.
“The fact is, danger will not disappear even when the war in Ukraine ends,” the NATO chief will add, amid worries that Russia could look to attack the alliance’s territory.
Rutte — a former Dutch prime minister who now heads the transatlantic military alliance at a critical moment for global security — will meet with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer in London. His speech comes ahead of a high-stakes summit in The Hague later this month, which will mark U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to the NATO scene.
Allies are expected to agree to a new Trump-backed spending target of 5 percent of GDP — 3.5 percent for purely military expenditures and 1.5 percent for other, yet-to-be-defined defense-related items. That’s a huge increase compared to the current 2 percent goal.
Last week, NATO defense ministers approved new so-called capability targets — meaning new requirements for military equipment to implement the alliance’s regional defense plans against a potential Russian attack.
While the details are classified, the priorities include air and missile defense, large formations of land forces, long-range capabilities and logistics.
Rutte will call later Monday for a major increase in air defense, according to the notes shared with the press.
NATO allies need “a 400 percent increase in air and missile defence … Our militaries also need thousands more armored vehicles and tanks, millions more artillery shells, and we must double our enabling capabilities, such as logistics, supply, transportation, and medical support,” he will say.
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