NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has said European allies and Canada must take greater responsibility for their own security, describing the change as part of what he called the Alliance’s most significant transformation since the Cold War, according to NATO.
Speaking at the annual German Heads of Mission Conference in Berlin, Rutte referred to the shift as “NATO 3.0”, arguing that the relationship between Europe and the United States is changing as European allies assume a larger share of the defence burden.
He said the change required a different mindset, adding that “security is not something the US should do for us, but with us.”
Rutte singled out Germany’s role in the Alliance, pointing to its new armoured brigade permanently stationed in Lithuania, the First German-Netherlands Corps taking on a new command role on NATO’s eastern flank, and German aircraft and warships supporting deterrence and defence activity.
He also linked the military shift to increased defence production across Europe. Rutte said: “You are producing more, and doing more for our Alliance.”
He added: “Revitalising our defence industrial base is not only good for our security – it is good for our economies too.”
The remarks come as NATO continues to push European members towards greater responsibility for conventional defence, industrial capacity and the forces required to reinforce the Alliance’s eastern flank.
Rutte also addressed what NATO described as a Russian hybrid attack at Leipzig airport, expressing solidarity with Germany.
He said: “NATO stands in full solidarity with Germany. You have 31 friends and Allies by your side.”
With a traitor imbecile in the WH we really do need to step up. The complacency under both Tories & Labour is deafening. The same authoritarian criminal fascism could take root here if we’re not careful. Plans to up our game would shame even a snail. We remain incredibly weak & vulnerable.
So Trump putting America First makes him a “traitor imbecile”? Traitor to whom? Certainly not the US who is sworn to put first. I guess he is a traitor to parasite Brits and Europeans who have been sheltering behind the United States without bearing their fair share of the burden. So, on behalf of America go pound sand.
In terms of the NATO he is a traitor to propose annexing Canada & Danish Greenland that NATO, including the USA, defends & the USA has radically reduced the presence it had on Greenland. Most obviously he is a traitor by being so close & supportive of Russia, expecting Ukraine & European NATO to cower & conceded to Putin. Most on this site have been decrying cuts & underspending on our forces & think we should have always been doing more towards out national & NATO defences, plus preparing for deterring Russia far better than we have. He is a traitor for not recognising or honouring the USA’s responsibilities to support the sovereignty of Ukraine when Putin ratted on their own responsibilities by invading & seeking to genocide Ukraine.
In terms of the USA he is a traitor for abusing, offending all the NATO allies, supporting Putin & welcoming his support & interference in US elections, joining the axis of evil, losing many defence industry contracts NATO allies have moved away from the USA under Trump, trashing the US constitution, rule of law, conducting genocidal wars, stealing/embezzling from the US taxpayers, lying about elections, seeking to reward those who were the paramilitary tip of the spear in the attempted J6 coup(which he is succeeding in doing, making the taxpayers pay compensation to those rightly prosecuted), imposing illegal tariffs on trading partners(often allies) that result in Americans paying a lot more for those things, removing healthcare from millions of Americans, persecuting productive, peaceful, law abiding Americans when every American without first nation heritage is the descendant of immigrants -including his own family. etc.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg of corruption, treachery & crime he is burying America under.
It is not America or Americas best interests he is putting first, it is himself.
‘We need more UK and more Europe in the alliance’ NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte Wednesday 16 Sept.
Berlin will invest €124.7 billion in military capabilities this year. Germany’s defence spending will reach 3.6% of GDP by 2030.Europe faces decisive weeks and months in the effort to “defend the freedom and peace of our continent” in the face of the threat from Russia.'”this is important – much more important than some of the domestic political debates we’re having.” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz Tuesday 15 Sept.
‘I am acutely aware that our changing climate is a major concern for many Britons, not least because we have just emerged from our hottest summer on record. Punishing heatwaves left nurses collapsing on hospital wards and bus drivers working in 40C cabs. Wildfires destroyed homes, leaving families with nothing. And more extreme weather is forecast in the months ahead. The climate crisis is not a distant threat. It is here and with us now.’
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham Thursday 17 Sept.
A bit of a worry: hot summers are the result of dry, sunny weather that goes away as winter approaches…conflict in Europe is caused by a totalitarian dictator engaged in a long term war of imperialist demographic expansionism who will not stop…
The extreme hot summers are only one aspect of the climate crisis that will have a catastrophic impact on everyone, no matter what season it is.
Most types of extreme weather exhibit no statistically significant long-term trends over the available historical record. For example,While there has been an increase in hot days in the U.S. since the 1950s, numbers are still low relative to the 1920s and 1930s.
In 2010, ahead of the fifth assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), researchers developed four different scenarios to describe how carbon emissions might change over the rest of this century. One of these clumsily titled “Representative Concentration Pathways” (RCPs), was called RCP8.5 and it was intended to show the impact of very high emissions.
RCP8.5 became known as the “business-as-usual” scenario by climate scientists thereafter and has been used in well over 2,000 research papers since. Britain’s Net zero by 2050 policy based on the idea of climate change causing catastrophe as suggested by RCP8.5.
RCP8.5 was retired by modelling experts in 2026 because of widespread acknowledgement that it is an implausible emissions scenario.
As a result, many news agencies have dropped or substantially reduced their climate desk. Another consequence has been substantially reduced funding for climate-related NGOs, with USAID and other funds drying up.
There is no climate emergency. The sky is not falling. We have simply had a lovely summer.
Nonsense! go read the NASA website on Climate Change, and that in a country hostile to net zero! Putin will not always be there but the effects of climate change will!
The UAH Global Temperature record relies on combining and calibrating the data from several different NASA satellites over the entire temperature record since 1979
This global temperature record from 1979 shows a modest and unalarming 0.16° Celsius rise per decade (0.28⁰ Fahrenheit rise per decade) that is not accelerating.
In 2022, a group of scientists at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) headed by Cheng-Zhi Zou, published a study with with a new approach to NOAA’s satellite microwave sounder data so that it virtually matched the UAH Global Temperature record, corroborating the UAH analysis. Now Zou’s analysis agrees with the UAH series very closely—in fact it has a slightly smaller warming trend. In addition, this temperature record has been corroborated by the massive temperature data record developed with atmospheric balloon temperature records from around the globe.
That is why RCP8.5 has been retired by modelling experts in 2026; widespread acknowledgement that it is an implausible emissions scenario
RCP8.5 became known as the “business-as-usual” scenario by climate scientists thereafter and has been used in well over 2,000 research papers since. Britain’s Net zero by 2050 policy based on the idea of climate change causing catastrophe as suggested by RCP8.5., now officially retired.
Over hundreds of millions of years, CO2 and temperature have often moved independently or even in opposite directions. In ice cores covering the last several glacial cycles, temperature typically rises first; CO2 follows hundreds of years later.
The climate is changing. It is always changing. The current variation is as likely to be beneficial as it is deleterious. There is no climate emergency. The sky is not falling.
The weight of scientific opinion is against you. I think the PM is correct we need to be prepared for a Russian attack that might come and climate change effects that are already happening.
‘The weight of scientific opinion’ has just retired RCP8.5., the emissions scenario on which net zero by 2050 is based.
‘Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results.’ Michael Crichton
So the scientist you chose is correct and all the others all over the world are wrong? As for retired scenarios they are constantly being updated with worse forcasts. Only today the UK Foreign Secretary has briefed the UN on the devastating impacts climate change is already having. If the government really wants to look after its people, protecting them from this is vital. Yes the climate changes naturally but humanity is now drving it in a dangerous direction. And don’t think the Germans or anyone else in Europe is not concerned by it either.
I haven’t chosen a scientist. I have chosen evidence:
‘The UAH Global Temperature record relies on combining and calibrating the data from several different NASA satellites over the entire temperature record since 1979
This global temperature record from 1979 shows a modest and unalarming 0.16° Celsius rise per decade (0.28⁰ Fahrenheit rise per decade) that is not accelerating.
In 2022, a group of scientists at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) headed by Cheng-Zhi Zou, published a study with with a new approach to NOAA’s satellite microwave sounder data so that it virtually matched the UAH Global Temperature record, corroborating the UAH analysis. Now Zou’s analysis agrees with the UAH series very closely—in fact it has a slightly smaller warming trend.
In addition, this temperature record has been corroborated by the massive temperature data record developed with atmospheric balloon temperature records from around the globe.’
The Foreign Secretary made three claims in New York:
1. Over 150 million hectares burned globally in the first four months of 2026 alone
But the figure that he gives is not for four months, it is at week 37 and there is nothing remotely unusual or catastrophic about the number he quotes. In fact, this year is the lowest wildfire area since the start of records in 2012.
2. Record extreme heat causing widespread loss of life
There is absolutely no evidence or data supporting this claim, and the Government website gives no further detail.
3. Nepal’s devastating floods happening due to glacial collapse
The floods were triggered by a bedrock collapse, not a glacial collapse. They had nothing to do with climate change.
‘A close look at what survey data we have, and there isn’t much, tells us, yes, there is a great deal of agreement that CO2 is a greenhouse gas to some degree, that the Earth has warmed in the last 160 years, and that humans affect their surroundings. But that survey data also tell us there’s far less agreement on everything else including whether we face a crisis.’
‘…they took 77 out of 3,146 responses. But that’s the key statistical trick. They found a 97 percent consensus among 2 percent of the survey respondents. And even so it was only that there’d been some warming since the 1800s, which virtually nobody denies, and that humans are partly responsible. These experts didn’t say it was dangerous or urgent, because they weren’t asked.’
So you think it is a hoax? believe what you like, but the World Meteorlogical Organisation confirmed the last 11 years as the hottest on record. Global temperature is accelerating at .35 to .36C per decade a dangerous amount. The Nepal collapse was by climate change weakening the glacier and rock wall even if it had been previously destabilised by seismic activity. Glaciers around the world are retreating and wildfires have sharply increased in Europe and Nth America. The world now has an El Nino larger than anything before with record sea temperatures and the Great Barrier Reef dying. I could go on but as I say believe what you like. I hope the Govt. keeps trying to act on it and it.
Aunt Sallys are not arguments. I have never used the word hoax. But I do believe in evidence The climate is changing, has always changed.
Re the ‘Great Barrier Reef. We now look like we’ve had 6 years in a row where every year we’ve had more coral than in any of the previous 35 years.’
My final remark below refers.
Glaciers are inherently unstable; nothing you do with vlimate change
Re Nepal, clearly a bedrock failure , very similar to what casued the Chimole flood in the Indian Himalays in 2021 which has been extensively studied. Check out Dr Shawn Willsey’s videos on YouTube if you are interested in what happened in both these events, the physics involved is truely mind-blowing. As for the impact of climate change… this was an avent that was 60 million years in the making. Given the violent geological history of these rocks that had them thrust-up from more than 10km below the surface to over 5km above, when the Indian Plate collided with the Eurasian Plate, starting 60 million years ago, followed by millions of years of weathering and erosion and many thousands of freeze-thaw cycles, such collapses are inevitable. The tiny amount of warming over the last 100 or so years might have changed the timing of this collapse by days/weeks/months or even years – we can only guess. But it was going to happen and will happen again, even if every country adopts NetZero.
Germany?
‘German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that Germany was reopening five power plants that burn lignite, a low-rank coal.’ 2022
‘Germany may need to keep “existing” coal-fired plants connected to the power grid “longer” than currently planned, should the energy crisis continue and there is a shortage of electricity, Chancellor Friedrich Merz…’ 2026
That really does not mean anything as they are short of energy and this is ultimately a temporary measure. But the German Government offically accepts Climate Change is real.
Everyone accepts that climate change is real. The climate is a dynamic system changing constantly. My final remark below refers.
All we really know so far:
Temperatures have probably been accelerating in the relatively short term but that could be just a natural variation.
‘Probably…could be’ because northern and southern extremes of the planet aren’t warming as (comparatively) fast as the theory predicts and ice caps have been more resilient than was expected with a warming planet – especially the melt season minima. Also, the expectation was that the melt seasons would be extended and freeze seasons shortened. This hasn’t happened.
Climate change is exceptionally complex when all of the possible variables are considered – land use changes (for example) being one of the many issues poorly understood.
And that being said, it’s still not completely clear whether the moderate warming and CO2 build-up observed over the past few decades is, on balance, actually a negative impact.
The jury is still out.
The EU should control its own destiny, which involves leading NATO from the front. Whether people like Trump or not, he lit fires under the backsides of EU countries who keep expecting the US to carry the primary military load in Europe.
Get real. Pay what it takes for a Europe to be capable of defeating Putin, or just give everything you have to Ukraine!
“NATO 3.0” is the entirely logical and indeed inevitable and necessary path forward. PRC by itself has become a peer future probable opponent. Coordinated CRINK campaigns across multiple theaters would overwhelm US conventional capabilities. Increased allied capabilities may delay the US decision point to escalate into a nuclear response.