Rutte ha torto sulla difesa europea. Il capo della NATO deve promuovere un’alleanza più equilibrata con un forte pilastro europeo, senza indebolirlo
https://www.politico.eu/article/mark-rutte-nato-donald-trump-wrong-about-european-defense/
di goldstarflag
25 commenti
Honestly, this entire brouhaha sounds like “Rutte is being soooo rude for saying the truth and calling us out, he’s so mean, it hurts my feelings!”.
There’s nothing left to undermine because Trump already collapsed it. We need to get our heads out of our asses and rearm, cooperate and prepare. Not just the EU, us as well, and the UK too.
The article rightly points out that after a US President’s statement expressing a desire to annex the territory of a NATO member, it is necessary to reassess what NATO is and what America’s role should be.
He acts like he is Trump employee
Who is in charge of Rutte’s salary again?
Rutte always has a plan with the things he says. I’m sure backroom politics plays a big role too.
*How the US kept Europe’s armies small and fragmented – on purpose*
https://www.reddit.com/r/EuropeanFederalists/comments/1qepvgp
Not only can Europe defend itself without the US, it can become a global superpower. That is what Rutte and his boss fear. So they try to keep the focus on fragmented spending to keep the EU out of military matters.
> Rutte needs to be promoting a more balanced NATO with a strong European pillar
vs
> Domènec Ruiz Devesa is a senior researcher at Barcelona Centre for International Affairs
Which nation never wanted to increase defence spending? Laughed at the 3.5%/5% target? Was it Spain? Yes, it was Spain.
It is not the job of Rutte to be nice. It is the job of 32 NATO members to provide an adequate contribution for NATO and especially the richer and bigger industrial nations in Europe were lacking for 30 years. Even when NATO agreed to a 10 year timeframe to increase spending to 2% from 2014 to 2024, almost all nations lagged behind the time table, including Germany.
It is the job of these 31 Non-US (or 27 in the European Union) nation to increase defence spending, unify the industrial defence sector (how many different MBTs do we have right now? A dozen?), develop an European-centric doctrine which integrates European forces and *heavily* invest into strategic independence over the coming decades and not depend on the US military for the entire infrastructure and logistics for European defence. That is not Ruttes Job. Thats Macrons, Merz, Stamers etc job.
I think Rutte is purposefully misunderstood. He is not advocating to be submissive to Trump or the US, but he recognises the military fact that a lot of critical military capabilities are in US hands and in case of a Russian aggression NATO / Europe / EU / Non-US-NATO (or however you want to call it) needs these capabilities in the coming 5+ years. And unfortunately for many readers “military capabilities” stop at *”how many tanks do we have”* and do not even go over the *”how many tanker aircrafts do we have”* line, not to mention into *”how much bandwidth would we need in a drone-centric war and how many satellites can provide that”* territory.
Take the *Gripen* jet fighter for example. How often do you hear in recent times *”Dont buy the F-35, purchase the Gripen for strategic independence”*. Which ignores the fact that the engine of the Gripen is an US jet engine and parts of the electronics on the Gripen are US made. Meaning that the Gripen is fully integrated into the US logistics/maintenance system in order to keep flying.
And just to emphasise it: on the European sides there are only low level discussions about unifying and improving the European integration of the defence industry. When it comes to putting money on where the mouth talks, take a look at the FCAS project and how easily any idea of European independence crumbles under national industry politics.
SYL
Rutte has one goal, and one goal only, and that is to keep the US in NATO. Every word he says is purely ment to manipulate Trump. If you’re not Trump, you’re better off ignoring anything he says.
Again this rearming agenda. I feel like all caps-ing this, but i’ll refrain: who the fuck is/will attack Europe? Russia? Properly support Ukraine and integrate it into EU and the Kremlin will have such a massive implosion that they won’t be able to do shit besides it’s far east regions fight to split from Moscow. China? EU is one of their biggest markets and they will never go for a hot war …they’ve already won the future. The USA? That will never ever have support from the public. Who’s left? Africa? Invading hoards of rowboats? WHO THE FUCK ARE WE ARMING AGAINST?
I’s an obvious ‘last hurrah’ of the establishment to cash in on the old tech (and financial ‘mechanisms’ with banking), which they currently control, and drag their portfolios on as much as they can, until electrifying (on Chinese tech and manufacturing) becomes inevitable. They’ll do anything and everything else to try to delay that as much as possible, including wrecking the EU.
In all honesty I’m very disappointed about the reaction to Rutte statement. First of all, he is the head of transatlantic alliance, not a European one, and as such he must not have just Europeans interests in mind. Secondly, Europeans states have willingly put themselves in a situation were they can’t wage war without the US approval, because they lack military capabilities and industrial support to wage it completely and durably. In that sense, Mark Rutte is right, most European states cannot wage a high intensity war properly and durably without American support, that is not a opinion but a fact. His statement should be seen as a wake up call and a reminder of the political cost of sovereignty, not a defiance statement.
Now that the US is adversarial against the EU, we should be acting much more deeply to restore our military sovereignty. Yet we are not, I always insist upon it, but most European Air Force would be sitting ducks in case of a high intensity war without American support, F-35 would not get software updates, access to combat cloud, spare part and ammunition refill, therefor they would be useless. On the long run that would be the case for most American made planes. Yet, instead of boosting European production by massively ordering European made jets, a lot of EU states have committed against on US made equipment very recently. This is a true non sense and there should we wage our heavy criticism.
Yet, Europeans are bashing Rutte for a statement, as provocative it may be, that is not false, far from it, because it put European in front of responsibilities they have yet to assume.
Europe should just ignore everything he says. We need to be focusing on rearming. And one day he’ll wake up and realize that we don’t need the US or him anymore and it’ll be a shock to him.
Everything he says is wrong, we shouldn’t give him the attention he wants. It’s just aimed at keeping us on the leash.
His job is to suck Trumps dick so NATO won’t fall apart to soon.
But indeed we should move to military independance from the US. And kick the US out of Europe.
His job, since the day the treaty was signed, is to keep America in, Russia out, and the Germans down.
So first.. Rutte is Head of NATO. Expect him to be an advocate of NATO. That’s his role. If calling Trump NATO’s Daddy didn’t make this clear… Idk what would. This is Rutte.
Second.. US dependence is the NATO premise. This is the history. It is the organizational structure. It is the deep jure military posture. It is reality. It is a true fact.
Realities can be changed, but they cannot be denied. Or rather… reality *can be* denied, but this is not advisable. Denying reality is fantasy… it is not a good way of changing reality.
Changing reality requires *contending with reality.” *That* is something those advocating the opposite position (strategic process indendence) do not do.
R/Europeanfederalists are a good, reddit, example of cheerleading instead of contending with reality. I like that sub. I respect them. Its not necessarily their job to be realistic… but they are a good example.
Why, after years of war, is Ukraine’s military supply not superior to Russia’s. Europe’s GDP is 15X larger that Russia. Population 3X larger. It’s more technologically advanced. It isn’t sanctioned. It isn’t physically fighting. Ukraine does that. The advantages are there… but they do not translate into out gunning Russia. Same could be said for geopolitics.
Budgets have been raised for euro-defence. New financial instruments created to fund it. Agreements have been reached. How many more modern divisions are capable of deploying to an eatern front today? Probably none besides Poland.
How much has Europe’s air defence ammo stockpile grown?
If you want to challenge Rutte, get realistic. What is actually required for European defence? 10 expiditiinary divisions? 20? 30? How about air defence?
If Europe comes up with answer to such questions, there is no doubt they will be prepared to deter or defeat Russia. Europe is *way* bigger than Russia, better positioned geopolitically, rich, etc.
But… we are nowhere near this. Opponents of Rutte’s Trump-is-Daddy realism live at the “I have a dream” stage. They are like corporate envisagers.
Get realistic about command, fighting units, stockpiles, soft power, geopolitics… Then we can defend ourselves.
It’s a Politico article guys, chill…
Every day that Rutte wakes up his first though now a day seem to be, ”how do I need to humiliate myself, and take one for the team, so NATO doesn’t fall apart because of King Dementia Agent Orange for another day”.
I’m glad he’s doing that job because most of us probably have too much self-respect to do it.
But that also means, as another commenter said, if you’re not Trump you’re not Rutte’s audience right now so just ignore what he says.
But also, actions speaks lauder than words, so every day we’re not working towards proving Rutte wrong is another day when he’s right.
He’s in their pockets. He needs to be replaced
Can we, for the love of god, start actually downvoting politico.
daddy wouldn’t like that
That article, was without a doubt the most appropriate I’ve read in months. Extremely accurate with Rutte’s approximation of the strength of Europe and honest about the patronization of American Military power. Leave no doubt, American Military might is the envy of the world. That said the Chinese are not far behind and Europe bound together could and should be able to take care of itself. The help of friends should always be welcomed. At what price is important.
Rutte has a goal and his goal is to keep his seat. So he does everything that please his boss, starting from licking his dhies
Polictio… BTW..
Do you really think that Rutte is so dumb?! Think again! Rutte tries to keep USA in the NATO because Trump time will soon be over, but USA as allie is better to keep in NATO than to let it be by himself or allied to Russia. Rutte is ready to down his dignity as a true leader. The thing that you and many others don’t understand that, is sad at best.
check his crypto wallets …
NATO is dead anyways, even if it might take years until it becomes obsolete.
The trust is gone, nobody believes anymore that the US would stand with their former allies.