Nato Secretary General meeting Keir Starmer in Downing Street, 9 June. Photo NATO via Flickr (CC-BY-ND-CC-2.0) .
The 2025 NATO summit in The Hague on 24-25 June, was the first led by its aggressive new head Mark Rutte of the Netherlands. Rutte has stated that NATO should “shift to a wartime mindset and turbocharge defence production”.
In preparation, Rutte met in Sheffield with Keir Starmer and defence secretary John Healey, both seen as reliable proponents of a “more lethal NATO”. The venue was significant as the home of Sheffield Forgemasters, making nuclear-grade steel components for Royal Navy submarines.
Later, in a speech at think tank Chatham House, Rutte thanked Britain for being, in effect, compliant following Starmer’s “reset” with the EU. The British government is being primed to encourage the rest of Europe to pursue a “NATO-first” policy by increasing spending on munitions, roads, bridges, airfields and ports.
Rutte contended that Russia, with superior stockpiles of ammunition, would pose a threat to the rest of Europe even when the war with Ukraine ends. He gave it five years.
Several other recent events should be seen in the light of NATO’s drive to war. On 9 June a new defence industry body titled the Defence Industrial Joint Council was inaugurated in London, co-chaired by Healey and Dr Charles Woodburn of BAE Systems. The venue was the HQ of defence company Hadean, chosen for its work alongside NATO in specialised training in virtual warfare in preparation for real-time warfighting and decision-making.
“Warfighting readiness” is the stated aim of the new council – a qualitative and dangerous step up from the defence industry as it stood. For the first time defence firms, investors, and trade unions (Unite, GMB and Prospect) are brought together, ostensibly as the “engine for economic growth” but in reality to prepare for war. Coinciding with London Tech Week, Starmer promised to put the UK at the “cutting edge” of new defence technology.
The Strategic Defence Review commits to a rise to 2.6 per cent of GDP from 2027, increasing to 3 per cent in the next parliament, “when economic and fiscal conditions allow”, which means when the markets – finance capital – give the nod. This cautious approach is not good enough for Mark Rutte who wants allies to agree a 5 per cent increase and a 400 per cent “quantum leap” in military hardware.
The review commits to £6 billion this parliament in munitions with around a thousand new jobs. After decades of deindustrialisation, the prospect of war has caused the Labour government to develop a new interest in industry. Whether it can turn this into reality is another matter – funding and industrial capacity are both in question.