It is now likely that Mark Rutte will be the new NATO Secretary General

Two news items published in recent days hint at the future NATO as a European defense-security alliance. The first news: at the Paris ad hoc European summit supporting Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron somewhat unexpectedly stated that sending Western soldiers to Ukraine should not be ruled out. Predictably, he made the main headlines in the media. The second news: at the same summit, after receiving support from key member states, participated the now likely future NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte; albeit still as the outgoing Dutch technical prime minister.

Rutte is known as a master of quiet compromises, one of the longest-serving European prime ministers, and his characteristics are associated with the nickname – Teflon. The future of NATO, and thus European defense, metaphorically depends on the success of integrating these two extremes: political performances and competition (Macron) and the quiet negotiated construction of European defense (infra)structure (Rutte).

New friend of Ukraine

Macron’s bombastic statements and moves regarding European defense and security are not new. Along with the inherited French idea of a self-sufficient European army that excludes the US from European defense, President Macron is particularly remembered as the politician who declared ‘the brain death of NATO’ (2019). After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, NATO ‘resurrected’, more needed by Europe than ever. We remember him as a great European peacemaker who rushed to the then already deeply isolated Russian President Putin, two weeks before the invasion, to resolve what the US and UK could not through conversation. There, Putin placed him at the end of a long white table to lecture him on Russian history like a schoolboy.

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Putin has at least always known the specific weight of each in international politics. So we remember how overnight Macron went from a fervent advocate of European energy cooperation with Russia to a fervent supporter of Ukrainian defense, albeit more in words than in deeds, and an advocate of its complete sovereignty. As the new friend of Ukraine and its President Zelensky, he convened that ad hoc Paris European summit, just a week after the conclusion of the traditional Munich Security Conference, which is the main forum for projections of European defense and security strategy. From there, he issued those bombastic warnings about the possible sending of Western soldiers to Ukraine and the possibility that Russia might attack one of NATO’s member states.

The future NATO Secretary General will be tasked with calming, coordinating, and involving all political performers and egotrips, motivated by personal or state interests, in building a new European defense system. This system includes significantly strengthening the European military industry and NATO’s European military component. Of course, while retaining the US’s primary role in NATO. Because, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown, Europe does not have the capacity to take care of its own defense, neither in terms of political decision-making nor in terms of military and armament.

The art of whispering to politicians

And so it is not surprising that the UK and Germany jointly proposed, and the US supported, and finally France along with a number of other member states, the candidacy of Mark Rutte, a gray political broker, the long-serving Dutch prime minister whom we do not remember and will not remember for colorful statements. Recently, one of his advantages was highlighted as having saved NATO from collapse in the first year of Trump’s presidency, when he allegedly whispered something to the American president after Trump’s accusations against Merkel and other European allies for insufficient defense spending, after which a split was avoided. This is, of course, an exaggeration, just as Trump exaggerated in threats that the US would exit NATO, which nevertheless proved quite effective in increasing European defense spending. But this skill of ‘whispering’ to politicians will serve the future Secretary General well, just as the traditional Dutch political position: an EU member, foreign policy close to the UK, a reliable ally of the US in defense, politically close to Germany, without serious conflicts with France…

Macron’s statements cannot be unconditionally classified into the category of ‘unreal’ or ‘irresponsible’. After all, he did not say when and under what conditions he would send French soldiers to Ukraine. Perhaps as peacekeepers one day? Because building a new European defense architecture, for states that have ambitions and recognize the time, is above all – an opportunity.