Simon Gros

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At NATO headquarters in Brussels on 18 June 2026, Secretary General Mark Rutte presented the meeting of Allied defence ministers as the final major ministerial stage before the Alliance’s forthcoming summit in Ankara. The press conference took place after a closed ministerial session dominated by three closely connected questions: whether European allies and Canada were moving rapidly enough toward the new defence-spending commitments agreed at The Hague in 2025; how NATO should interpret the United States’ review of its military posture in Europe; and whether the Alliance could remain politically unified while adapting to a strategic environment shaped simultaneously by Russia’s war against Ukraine, instability in the Middle East, pressure on global maritime routes, and the long-term redistribution of military responsibilities inside the transatlantic alliance.

Rutte stated that the defence ministers had made progress on NATO’s principal priorities: increasing defence expenditure, converting higher budgets into usable military capabilities, strengthening industrial production, and preparing the Alliance for the implementation phase expected at the Ankara summit. He emphasized that the central objective was not merely to allocate larger sums of money, but to translate financial commitments into combat-ready forces, ammunition stocks, integrated air defence, command structures, logistics, infrastructure, and industrial capacity. In his formulation, the Alliance needed more resources, more forces, and a stronger defence-industrial base on both sides of the Atlantic. He described NATO’s current transformation as a rebalancing of the Alliance, in which European allies and Canada would assume greater responsibility for conventional defence while remaining embedded in a transatlantic structure still backed by American military power.

The financial framework behind this discussion was the pledge made at The Hague in 2025, where NATO allies committed themselves to investing 5 percent of GDP annually by 2035 in core defence and defence-related security requirements. That commitment was divided into two categories: at least 3.5 percent of GDP for core defence expenditure, including the capability targets required for deterrence and collective defence, and up to 1.5 percent for wider security-related investments such as infrastructure protection, cyber defence, civil preparedness, resilience, innovation, and the strengthening of the defence-industrial base. Rutte stressed that European allies and Canada had already made historically large increases. He said that in 2025 they had spent more than 90 billion dollars extra in real terms compared with the previous year, equivalent to 139 billion dollars in nominal terms. He described that increase as unprecedented, while also acknowledging that not every ally had moved at the same pace and that some governments still needed to accelerate their efforts.

The sharpest part of the press conference concerned remarks delivered earlier by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who had criticized some NATO allies for insufficient defence spending and announced a U.S. review of American force posture in Europe. Reporters repeatedly asked Rutte whether this review implied a coming reduction of U.S. military presence on the continent, whether European and Canadian allies would have to replace capabilities that only the United States currently possessed, and whether Washington was effectively threatening or punishing allies for political disagreements, including over the conflict involving Iran. Rutte avoided endorsing the more confrontational interpretation of Hegseth’s comments. Instead, he framed the review as a structured process that would take place over roughly six months, in close consultation with allies, and without a predetermined outcome.

Rutte distinguished between NATO’s Force Model and the physical presence of U.S. forces in Europe. The NATO Force Model, he explained, was a planning instrument used by the Supreme Allied Commander Europe to understand what forces and capabilities could be counted on in the event of a simultaneous multi-theatre crisis or an Article 5 contingency. Because it was connected to operational planning, Rutte refused to discuss its details, saying that NATO did not wish to provide Russia with useful information. He argued that the American adjustment to its pledged contributions to the model should be understood as an effort to make NATO’s defence plans more realistic. If the United States had to manage simultaneous demands in Europe, the Indo-Pacific, and other theatres, NATO planners needed a precise and credible assessment of which assets would actually be available. In Rutte’s account, that made the plans stronger rather than weaker, because unrealistic assumptions about American availability would create more dangerous vulnerabilities than a transparent and revised force-planning structure.

The most sensitive question was whether the U.S. review would produce a significantly reduced American presence in Europe. Rutte did not exclude future changes, but he emphasized that the review was being launched in the context of sharply rising European and Canadian defence investment. He described it as logical that Washington would reassess its force posture as its allies assumed more responsibility for conventional deterrence and defence. He also rejected the suggestion that allies were being punished for their positions on Iran, saying that he had heard nothing to support such a claim. When asked whether Hegseth’s rhetoric had undermined NATO unity or whether the U.S. message had failed to recognize European progress, Rutte answered that NATO had to be capable of speaking frankly internally. He said the United States remained by far the largest ally, with an economy larger than those of the other 31 members combined, and that it was therefore unsurprising that Washington wanted to maintain pressure on allies that remained behind in defence spending.

Rutte’s defence of Hegseth’s intervention rested on a distinction between political pressure and strategic disengagement. He conceded that NATO was entering a difficult phase, but presented that difficulty as the consequence of a structural transformation rather than the breakdown of alliance cohesion. In his formulation, NATO was building what Hegseth had called “NATO 3.0”: a modernized alliance adapted to a security environment in which Russia remained a long-term threat, China and Russia were expanding defence-industrial output, and the United States wanted a more equitable division of labour. Rutte did not deny that Hegseth had used forceful language. He instead characterized the American message as a combination of acknowledgment and pressure: acknowledgment that Europe and Canada were now investing substantially more, and pressure on those allies that had not yet matched the urgency of the moment.

Several reporters pressed Rutte on the practical and institutional implications of Hegseth’s comments. When asked whether the United States would make its annual NATO dues contingent on other allies meeting defence-spending targets, Rutte did not directly evaluate that formulation. He responded that NATO’s central task was to implement the decisions made at The Hague and to prevent any situation in which burden-sharing disputes would damage Alliance cohesion. He pointed to Germany, the Baltic states, Poland, and others as examples of allies moving rapidly or already exceeding expectations, while noting that others were still lagging. Asked what NATO common funding paid for, he explained that allies financed their own militaries separately from their contributions to NATO’s central structures, which support the functioning of the organization itself. The review of U.S. posture, he said, had to be developed in more detail, and NATO would assist where useful.

The discussion also moved beyond Europe. Rutte linked the ministerial meeting to developments in the Middle East, particularly Iran’s nuclear and ballistic-missile capabilities and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. He said NATO allies had long agreed that Iran must not acquire a nuclear weapon and stated that, in NATO’s view, recent U.S. action had severely degraded both Iran’s nuclear capability and its ballistic-missile capacity. He presented the restoration of freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz as a major global economic issue, not merely a regional security concern. According to Rutte, France and the United Kingdom were leading a coalition of more than 40 countries with relevant capabilities, particularly in mine-clearing. He noted that the United States had immense military strength but that European states possessed significant demining capabilities that were directly relevant to the Strait. Several European countries, he said, had already been pre-positioning relevant assets close to the theatre. A direct NATO role was not yet foreseen, because the Strait of Hormuz lay outside the NATO area, but Rutte said the Alliance would remain available if it could assist.

Ukraine formed the other major strategic axis of the press conference. Rutte said that a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group would take place later that day and that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would join it. He argued that Ukraine had been changing the battlefield dynamic and inflicting very large losses on Russia, but could continue doing so only if allies maintained and increased support. Immediate needs such as air defence remained urgent, but Rutte stressed the importance of long-term planning to ensure that Ukraine remained sovereign, free, and secure. He repeated NATO’s core argument that Ukraine’s security was inseparable from the security of the Alliance itself.

Asked how Ukraine could contribute to NATO’s own modernization, Rutte gave a notable answer: Ukraine, he said, was not only a recipient of assistance but also a source of operational and technological knowledge. He pointed especially to drone and counter-drone technology, where he described Ukraine as one of the most advanced actors in the world, ahead of Russia and many NATO countries. Ukraine’s battlefield innovation, its defence-industrial base, and its practical experience against Russian forces were, in his view, already helping NATO update its policies, strategies, and plans. He mentioned a joint centre in Poland where lessons from the war were being collected. NATO could still assist Ukraine in areas such as the air domain, but on drones and related battlefield adaptation, Rutte said, Ukraine was teaching the Alliance.

When asked about a Ukrainian strike in the Moscow region, Rutte declined to comment on the individual operation. More generally, however, he described the front line as broadly frozen, with some limited Ukrainian gains compared with the situation several months earlier. He said Ukraine had become increasingly effective at using drones and other tactics to degrade Russian energy infrastructure and to affect Russia’s capacity to produce new weapons. He also stated that Russia was suffering between 30,000 and 35,000 killed each month, a figure he presented as extremely significant. These remarks were framed not as an assessment of imminent Ukrainian victory, but as evidence that Ukraine was holding the line and imposing rising costs on Russia.

The question of Russia’s future capacity to threaten NATO was raised by a German-based reporter, who referred to warnings from German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius and others that Russia might be capable of attacking NATO countries by 2029. Rutte answered that Russia was under severe strain but remained dangerous. He stated that Russia’s defence burden had risen dramatically, claiming that defence had increased from 40 percent to 48 percent of the Russian state budget and that roughly three quarters of Russian tax income was being spent on defence. For Rutte, those figures demonstrated that NATO could not be naive about Russia’s militarization. At the same time, he argued that Russia understood NATO’s aggregate strength and could not win a confrontation with the Alliance. The 2029 date, he said, reflected open-source assessments by European intelligence services that Russia might be able to rebuild sufficient strength by then. NATO’s task was therefore to remain stronger not only in 2026, but in 2027, 2029, and beyond, so that Moscow would judge any attack as a grave mistake.

Rutte also addressed the diplomatic track on Ukraine. He said that President Vladimir Putin would eventually have to decide whether he was prepared to participate seriously in peace efforts. He credited U.S. officials, including Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and Marco Rubio, with working to advance a peace process, and referred to President Donald Trump’s direct dialogue with Putin in February 2025 as having broken a diplomatic deadlock. Yet Rutte’s conclusion remained that NATO had to strengthen Ukraine while any negotiation remained uncertain. The Alliance’s immediate responsibility, in his account, was not to anticipate Russian concessions, but to ensure that Ukraine remained as strong as possible in the fight.

Two other issues closed the press conference. On Kosovo, Rutte said that Kosovo remained important for NATO’s security calculations, but that its closer relationship with the Alliance was complicated by the fact that several NATO members still did not recognize Kosovo as a state. He emphasized that the more immediate priority was the continued effectiveness of KFOR, NATO’s Kosovo Force. Because NATO assessed that the security situation had improved over the preceding years, a decision had been made to return KFOR toward pre-2023 force levels. Rutte said KFOR stood at roughly 4,700 personnel and would likely remain substantial, between about 3,000 and 3,500 personnel depending on circumstances, while operating under the existing legal framework.

On Finland, Rutte was asked about the Finnish parliament’s approval of amendments to the country’s Nuclear Energy Act. He described the decision as historic but treated it as a sovereign national matter. He avoided detailed comment, saying that each ally had the right to determine how it approached such issues. His formulation was deliberately restrained: he acknowledged the significance of the Finnish decision without transforming it into an Alliance-level policy statement.

Overall, the press conference showed NATO in a phase of accelerated institutional and strategic adjustment. Rutte’s central argument was that the Alliance was not collapsing under American pressure but undergoing a difficult redistribution of responsibility. The U.S. review of force posture in Europe, in his framing, was part of that adjustment rather than a predetermined withdrawal. European allies and Canada had increased spending at historic speed, but the Alliance still faced the harder task of converting money into deployable forces, industrial capacity, integrated defence plans, and operational credibility. Against that background, NATO’s agenda before the Ankara summit combined deterrence against Russia, long-term support for Ukraine, renewed emphasis on nuclear and conventional planning, burden-sharing reform, defence-industrial expansion, and crisis management beyond the Euro-Atlantic area. The dominant message was that NATO’s future cohesion would depend not on rhetorical unity alone, but on whether allies could transform political commitments into measurable military capability quickly enough to deter simultaneous threats in a more unstable international system.