NATO leader warns of “most dangerous and complex security environment in a generation”

NATO needs “more UK and more Europe” to deal with the most dangerous security environment faced by the west in a generation, the secretary general of the 32-country military alliance Mark Rutte said on a visit to the UK, The Guardian reports.

“It is essential that your armed forces continue to provide the hard power NATO needs,” Rutte said.

It was a plea for the UK to make progress towards an alliance-wide target demanded by Donald Trump of spending 3.5% of GDP by 2035, money that has to be found from extra taxation, borrowing or reducing other spending.

Britain has so far only budgeted to increase defence spending to 2.7% of GDP by the end of the next decade. Short-term financial pressures have meant that the army has been told to stop non-essential training by the end of the year.

Rutte said, that NATO “faces the most dangerous and complex security environment in a generation” with a return to wars in Europe and the Middle East, and wider geopolitical uncertainty.

Citing “Russia and its war against Ukraine, terrorism, Iran and the tectonic shifts of global geopolitical competition”, Rutte argued that the UK and Europe needed to invest more, because otherwise “our collective defence will not be credible”.