3 hours ago
2
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
“Learn to speak Russian,” the secretary-general of the alliance warned nations unwilling to make politically unpopular budget decisions.
June 9, 2025, 2:52 p.m. ET
The chief of NATO on Monday called on the alliance to make a “quantum leap in our collective defense,” committing to increases in military spending that far outstrip what Britain and most other members have yet pledged.
Speaking in London, Mark Rutte, NATO’s secretary-general, laid bare the budget pressures that will face Britain and its European neighbors as they confront the aggression of Russia and the retrenchment of the United States.
Mr. Rutte, a former prime minister of the Netherlands, is pushing for members to commit to spending 5 percent of their gross domestic product on military and defense-related activities, a target promoted by President Trump, who complains that the alliance has long unfairly burdened the United States.
Mr. Rutte hopes to enshrine the new benchmark at a NATO summit meeting in The Hague on June 24 and 25. But he has yet to set a timeline for when members would be required to meet it — and the goal still seems elusive.
Britain has pledged to increase military spending to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2027, paid for by diverting funds from overseas aid. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has set a goal of 3 percent within a decade, though he has refused to give a more specific date without knowing where the money will come from.
Ramping up to 5 percent, analysts say, would necessitate politically painful trade-offs for Britain, which is already dealing with straitened public finances. Britain currently spends 2.3 percent of its economic output on defense, more than France or Germany but less than the United States, at about 3.4 percent.
