The secretary-general of NATO, Mark Rutte, urged Europe to strengthen its conventional defences and called for faster advances in drone and air defence technology during a lecture at Tallinn University of Technology, adding that NATO is facing no imminent miliary threat.
However, Rutte did warn that Russia was intensifying hybrid attacks across Europe and remained a long-term danger to the alliance.
“If there is a build-up, like there was before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, then we will see it and we will deal with it,” Rutte told students and researchers at Tallinn University of Technology, known as TalTech.
He said NATO was ready to defend its territory and that all allies remained committed to Article 5, the alliance’s collective defence clause. “NATO stands with Estonia against every threat,” he said.
Estonia’s contribution goes beyond defence spending
Rutte praised Estonia’s defence investment and support for Ukraine, calling the country an example to other allies. He also highlighted the role Estonia plays in NATO’s presence and operations: hosting the alliance’s forward land forces at Tapa, supporting its air policing mission from Ämari and sharing its cyber security expertise through NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Tallinn.
A large audience listens to Mark Rutte’s public lecture at TalTech. Photo: Jürgen Randma.
Estonia’s technology sector was another strength, he said. Companies are developing drones, air defence interceptors, cyber security systems, battlefield software and energy storage solutions. Estonia’s expertise in software, artificial intelligence and autonomous systems can be combined with the manufacturing capacity of other allies, he added.
That investment could strengthen both NATO’s military capabilities and Estonia’s economy by creating skilled jobs and helping turn new ideas into practical technologies. “Estonia is a place where people can turn a good idea into reality,” Rutte said.
He also praised Estonia’s “whole-of-society” approach to resilience, from the tens of thousands of people volunteering in the Defence League to school lessons in survival skills and media literacy.
“What is remarkable about Estonia is that it’s not just your national defence forces or your advanced tech sector or your growing defence industry that are contributing to NATO’s strengths. It’s everyone,” he said.
Ukraine’s battlefield lessons point to drones and air defence
Asked what TalTech students and researchers could work on to strengthen security, Rutte pointed to drone and counter-drone technology. Ukraine’s experience had shown that stockpiling drones was not enough, he said. Allies also needed the capacity to build them quickly as the technology evolved.
“Having the drone-building capability when it is needed” was crucial, he said.
Mark Rutte addresses students and researchers at TalTech. Photo: Jürgen Randma.
He also called for a layered air defence system, with affordable solutions to protect cities and critical infrastructure alongside high-end systems such as Patriot. NATO was learning from Ukraine on drones and counter-drone technology, while sharing its own expertise in battlefield tactics and strategy. “It is really a two-way street,” he said.
At the 2025 summit in The Hague, allies committed to spend five per cent of annual GDP on defence and security-related needs by 2035. Rutte said European allies and Canada were taking on greater responsibility for the alliance’s security, while insisting that Europe should remain closely aligned with the United States.
Asked whether Europe could match the US militarily, he said the allies were “so much stronger” together. The US also had a direct interest in NATO, he said, because the alliance helped protect the North Atlantic and the approaches to North America.
Rutte rejected the idea of creating a separate European army alongside national forces. NATO already had the command structures and plans needed to coordinate the 32 allied militaries, he said. A single European military would require countries to give up their own armed forces, which he did not expect them to do.
NATO keeps its response to hybrid attacks deliberately unclear
Rutte said NATO was “explicitly ambiguous” about when a hybrid attack might trigger Article 5, so as not to give Russia or other hostile states useful information. The alliance had a range of response options, he said, although they would not always be made public or take the form of direct retaliation.
Mark Rutte speaks at TalTech, with the NATO logo behind him. Photo: Jürgen Randma.
He praised Estonia for sharing information with NATO about a hybrid incident in August and urged other allies to do the same. Baltic Sentry, the NATO operation launched after undersea cables were damaged in late 2024, was one visible response that had increased the costs for Russia, he said.
The alliance’s security also depended on public resilience, Rutte said. He ended his lecture with a story about Estonian students who, during the Soviet occupation in 1982, staged a mock NATO base at a summer camp. They put up English-language signs and held afternoon tea at their “British” base. One of the students later became Estonia’s ambassador to NATO.
The episode, Rutte said, showed how young people could resist an empire with courage and creativity. Russia was attacking Ukraine and using hybrid tactics in Europe, he said, “not because they are strong, but because they are weak”.
“As long as we have young people like you showing courage and creativity, our alliance will keep our one billion people safe, now and in the future,” he told the students.