Cash alone won’t stop a tank, NATO chief warns

Record increases in European defence spending must now be turned into combat-ready military capability at speed, NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte has warned, telling allies that money alone will not stop a Russian missile or tank, the alliance has said.

Speaking after the final meeting of NATO defence ministers before next month’s Ankara summit, Rutte said allies had made good progress on “spending more, and better, on the forces and capabilities we need to defend every inch of Allied territory”, with what he described as a strong commitment to reach 5 per cent of GDP by 2035 and some allies set to get there this year, “way ahead of schedule”.

European members and Canada were, he said, “really stepping up with record increases last year, over $90 billion extra in real terms”, a figure he put at “$139 billion extra in nominal terms”, repeating the number for emphasis. Pressed later on the scale of it, Rutte said the increase was “historic”, adding that the alliance had reached the point where “you have to question yourself, if it is even more in one year, can you absorb all that money?”

Cash was not enough on its own, however, with Rutte warning that while it was crucial, “you cannot stop a missile or a tank with a dollar or a euro”. The shared priority for Ankara and the years ahead, he said, was to “turn the cash into combat-ready capabilities, and fast”, which meant “more forces, we need more resources, and a strong industrial base”.

To that end, Rutte said defence ministers had agreed “a renewed push to turbo-charge transatlantic defence cooperation” and to scale up defence industries on both sides of the Atlantic, while fostering “the kind of cooperation that leads to better innovation as well as more production”. NATO would, he insisted, “always be a transatlantic Alliance”, but one that needed “a stronger Europe in a stronger NATO”.

He cast the effort as part of what he and the United States have begun calling a NATO 3.0, describing the alliance as going through “probably the biggest transformation in its history”, a process he conceded meant “some rough waters” and difficult debates, but which he said was healthy because “we need to speak the truth to each other”.

Rutte acknowledged the picture remained uneven, saying that while the collective met the Hague commitments, “there are still some who need to do more, and others who are overachieving”, citing Germany as “already reaching the 3.5” and on course for 5 per cent by 2029, alongside Poland and the Baltic states, even as he conceded “some others are lacking behind a little bit”.