Skip next section NATO chief calls for 'stronger, fairer and more lethal alliance' 06/09/2025 June 9, 2025 NATO chief calls for 'stronger, fairer and more lethal alliance' Mark Rutte made the comments in an address at Chatham House in London Image: Yui Mok//AP/picture alliance NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has urged the alliance to bolster its defenses in the face of Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine. "Wishful thinking will not keep us safe," he in an address at Chatham House in London. "We cannot dream away the danger.

Hope is not a strategy. So NATO has to become a stronger, fairer and more lethal alliance." Rutte has specifically proposed a target of 3.5% of economic output on military spending and another 1.5% on "defense-related expenditure" such as roads, bridges, airfields and sea ports "The fact is, we need a quantum leap in our collective defense," he added.