By Lee Hockstader*

Its new general secretary NATO, Mark Rutteis 1.93 m, and can look at him Donald Trump directly into the eyes. He is a skilled negotiator who managed four different coalition governments in 14 years as Dutch prime minister – during which he got along well with Trump, whose disdain for the US-led alliance set the stage for chaos in his first term.

Rutte’s friendly atmosphere with the US president-elect may be his key qualification for the job, given Trump’s explicit threats to weaken NATO’s collective defense that ensures Europe’s security or leave the alliance altogether. What Rutte needs now, in addition to his proven political flexibility, is a survival guide for NATO, where officials I interviewed last week were clearly worried.

“They are wounded, but they don’t admit it publicly,” Muriel Domenach, who served five years as France’s ambassador to the alliance before leaving in July, told me. “They talk about ‘protection from Trump,’ but the reality is a sense of panic.”

Rutte, 57, who met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, has a lot of work ahead of him. But the components of NATO’s survival in the Trump years are clear enough, even if some will be politically excruciating.

Europe will bear the brunt. In order to succeed, he needs to manage the following issues:

– Cash. Most of NATO’s 30 European nations have been shrinking their armed forces and military industrial capacity for years. Spending increased significantly after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. By the end of this decade, Washington’s European allies are expected to have 600 advanced American-made F-35 fighter jets in their arsenal. But the alliance’s 2014 guideline, which requires member states to spend at least 2 percent of total economic output on defense, is seriously outdated and insufficient to carry out existing battle plans.

Rutte should use the NATO summit in The Hague next summer to set a higher minimum defense spending target for the alliance, at 2.5% of R&D immediately, rising to 3% by 2030. (The spending of the US is about 3.4% of GDP.) This means tens of billions of dollars in additional annual spending by European NATO members and Canada.

This would mean a massive (and unpopular) transfer of funds from social programs, infrastructure projects and schools, a shift that some leaders would consider political suicide. At the very least, it would require political courage rarely seen outside of the vulnerable states on NATO’s eastern flank: Poland and the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Rutte should focus on the alliance’s four major European countries: Germany, Britain, France and Italy, which together accounted for nearly two-thirds of NATO’s non-US defense spending last year. Each faces severe budget constraints and would struggle to meet the target – especially Italy, whose reduced defense spending should be a national embarrassment.

However, even 3% of GDP is less than what some major European nations spent on defense during the Cold War. And it’s just half of the 6% of national income Russia will spend next year.

– Debt. Rutte should also push for euro defense bonds, a form of joint borrowing that could raise hundreds of billions of dollars to boost defense industries and modernize armies.

The key will be to convince Germany, which has blocked the idea so far. But Rutte may have an opening as Germans prepare for federal elections in February, as well as a strong argument: The European Union has jointly borrowed about $850 billion to boost economies hit by the pandemic and could she does it again to reinforce her own security.

– Exploitation of assets. Washington and its European partners have been discussing for months the use of $50 billion in future earnings from frozen Russian state assets, located mostly in Europe, to support and rebuild Ukraine. This is very little. As lawyers wrangle over the seizure of the underlying cash, some $300 billion, Rutte may argue that this is a political decision, not a legal one – and this is the time for Europe to show resolve.

– Ukraine. A central issue in any peace negotiations to end the war in Ukraine will be security guarantees for Kiev – securing its sovereignty and the territory under its control. This will require continued economic and military support, paid for in part by the measures above, and possibly a European-led peacekeeping force after a credible ceasefire is agreed.

Peacekeepers may not wear NATO insignia. But Rutte can still play a role in persuading European leaders. The sooner this message is sent to the incoming US administration, the better.

-Strategy. Trump may want to accelerate Washington’s shift in focus toward China and away from Europe. Rutte will have to convince that these two issues are interrelated. And not just because China has become the Kremlin’s key ally, energy exporter and supplier of critical defense components such as chips – and thus a threat to Western security. Also, the final installment of the war in Ukraine will send a message to China about Washington’s resolve, or lack thereof.

In NATO, there is optimism that Rutte is the right man to keep Washington on the NATO stage. Let’s hope this isn’t just wishful thinking.

*Lee Hockstader is The Washington Post’s European affairs columnist, based in Paris, since 2023. He was awarded the Post’s Eugene Meyer Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2014.