NATO’s North Atlantic Council elected Rutte in June to succeed Jens Stoltenberg after 10 years in the hot seat, the second longest tenure in the alliance’s history.
Rutte takes the job after a record 14 years as premier of the Netherlands, during his 17-year leadership of the country’s center-right People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD).
His political career has earned him a reputation as a modest and hard-working man of the people with an uncanny knack for sensing the public mood. Still living in the same part of The Hague he grew up in, in a house he bought with friends as a student, he shunned smartphones for years, preferring an old Nokia, and famously left office on his bike.
He is also known as a shrewd political player whose penchant for avoiding crises and scandals have earned him the moniker ‘Teflon Mark.’ One of his most valuable personal attributes in his new role, however, will likely be his talent for consensus building, honed through governing with broad ranges of political parties.
Political divisions
Rutte joins NATO at a time of political division within Europe and the alliance’s member countries. Right-wing and Putin-sympathetic parties are blossoming across the continent and seem likely to strain the North Atlantic community’s commitment to supporting Ukraine. Rutte may need all his diplomatic wiliness to bridge the gap.
It will not be untested ground for Rutte. Always a staunch supporter of Kyiv and a harsh Putin critic, his VVD party nonetheless forged a coalition with the Party for Freedom (PVV) led by far-right firebrand Geert Wilders, who once said of Putin: "I applaud him as I applaud Mr. Trump for being leaders, who are standing there on behalf of the Russian and the American people." The deal was struck even as Rutte was gunning for the NATO top job.
Wilders is hardly alone in Europe in his admiration of the Russian president. Rutte will have to seek compromise between the likes of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico of Slovakia and the bloc’s more Kyiv-friendly centrists and leftists. Then there is the race for the White House.
Return of Trump?
America goes to the polls just four weeks after Rutte starts his new job, and the prospect of a return by Donald Trump to the Oval Office has rung alarm bells in many European capitals.
Trump has campaigned largely on his opposition to funding Ukraine and skepticism over NATO. If he follows through on threats to cut Kyiv’s financial and military aid, it would be a huge blow to NATO, not least in terms of its promise to let Ukraine join the alliance.
One of Trump’s key bugbears with NATO is the failure of many members to reach the benchmark defense expenditure. This has risen from just three member countries a decade ago to 23 out of 32 now.
But although defense spending has increased within the bloc, Rutte will have to squeeze the alliance’s membership for even more cash to achieve its plans. And to appease Trump, if he is re-elected.
Many observers see Rutte as the right man for the job if Trump wins in November. He has been nicknamed ‘The Trump whisperer’ after reportedly averting disaster at the 2018 NATO summit by persuading the then-president that not only had European defense spending increased but that the credit for it was due to Trump himself.
Moreover, Rutte has told allies to stop “whining and moaning about Trump,” arguing that Europe has to work “with whoever is on the dance floor.”
Political survivor
More than anything, Rutte’s political career has been marked by a survival instinct. After coming to office in 2010 as the first liberal to lead a ruling coalition in the country for 90 years, he navigated his party through crisis after crisis and went on to win one election after another.
During his NATO leadership, the EU will have its first commissioner for defense, and the former Dutch prime minister will need to exercise his matchmaking abilities to reconcile the bloc’s own defense ambitions with the needs of NATO. A skeptic of EU federalism and a fiscal conservative, Rutte may be in a position to marry the potentially polar opposites.
Rutte is seen as a down-to earth pragmatist, whose favorite quote comes from former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt: “People with visions should see a doctor.”
He is seen as more of a political manager than a visionary, which could bode well for the NATO role, described by one analyst as “more secretary than general.”
