Remarks

Mr Nicholas Thompson:
First question for you. Lot of technological change. It's been interesting to watch the war in Ukraine, where, in fact, one of the most interesting technologies that has been most impactful has been drones. Tell me, as you see military change and as you see AI coming, what to you is the most important change that will affect the balance of power in the coming years.

Mr Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary General:
Clearly, at the moment, it is the drone technology which is really changing the way we conduct these wars. You see now $400 Ukraine drones taking out multi-million dollar, in terms of cost, Russian tanks. We just launched Baltic Sentry,  a mission or an activity, we should say, in the Baltic Sea, to fight off the Russians who are getting at our critical undersea infrastructure. We are using sea drone technology there, next to the more traditional technology with ships, etc, and aircraft. But also this drone technology here, and obviously, AI will also be transformative in the terms of how we fight our wars. Of course, the question I'm getting a lot is that I'm really pleading for more money to be spent on defence. And then people are worried that we will spend that in the same way as we did the last 100 years. But that is not the case. Yes, we have to spend more. We are spending now, on average here in Europe, 2%. That has to be much more. I think Donald Trump is right here that we are spending not enough. And anyway, we have to get it into a balance with what the US is spending. But particularly here, we have to look out for the industry base. So, what our defence industry is producing. And they are not producing enough. But also, in terms of innovation, we are too slow in innovating.

One of the problems here is that the ‘better’ is the enemy of ‘good’. It has to be perfect, but it doesn't have to be perfect. When Ukraine is fighting this war on a one to ten scale, they can set for a six or a seven. But in NATO, we can only bring something out if it is a nine or a 10. We don't have that luxury anymore. So, speed is of the essence, not perfection, to get these new technologies in. And if we don't, then we have to spend even more. So, joint procurement, yes, we have to get the big contracts in. But also, in terms of the innovation, if do not innovate faster, at a higher speed, not achieving perfection, but getting speed and enough quality done in the right conjunction, then we have to spend even more. And it is already a big drain, of course, on society, defence spending, and we need more of that. So, in that sense, technology is a crucial factor. Is a crucial factor.

Mr Nicholas Thompson:
Secretary General, do you want to jump in here?

Mr Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary General:
Building on this, what I'm seeing in my work and my job now is that what is holding us back, in terms of speed, of applying AI, exactly as you were saying, is a traditional structure. The bureaucracies and basically three types. One, of course, if there is no war, then the only way to leverage these new technologies to make sure that you work with small, medium sized enterprises, with startups who are really leading edge here. So, in NATO, we have all this system, DIANA and investment funds, etc, to make sure that you work with Academia and with the startup sector. But it's not easy, because the system was used to building these huge tanks, use fire, jets, etc, and not ships, and not implementing necessarily this latest technology. A second level is these, what we call hybrid threats, which can be quite scary. These hybrid threats, it can be an assassination attempt on the boss of Rheinmetall, it can be a cyber-attack on the NHS in the United Kingdom, it can be the jamming of commercial flights in the Baltics, and of course, getting at the critical undersea cables like between Estonia and Finland.

And then there is a need to apply the latest technology fast. And I was happy to see that at least within the NATO system, we were able to do this. But then, of course, leading edge here, cutting edge is Ukraine. What they have to do is to implement, every two weeks, the newest technologies to stay in front of, technology wise, the Russians. But the Russians are copying what the Ukrainians are doing also in two weeks. So, these technologies, including the use of AI, and how we can speed up the bureaucracies to do this is really key, and I'm absolutely optimistic. But the question is, what is holding us back to do it even faster?

Mr Nicholas Thompson:
All right, we're out of time, but Mark, I want you to give one final thought to wrap up how we're going to save Western democracy here.

Mr Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary General:
I would say that AI on balance is very good news for the Western democracy, because it gives you access to a huge fund of wisdom and information. And many of my friends have shut off Google and are just using AI tools, even as a search engine, to get to the latest insights, etc. So, I do believe we can be generally optimistic. The reason why voters are not any longer voting for the centrist parties in the flocking to the extreme right and extreme left wing is because the centrist parties, the liberals and the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, have not given answers to the two biggest issues of this time, and that is migration one and two, how to rebalance climate change with making sure that our economies stay competitive. And if we don't do that, and the centrist parties are not allowing for answers to these questions, then it is not a vote turning in the wrong way. It is the centrist parties delivering a bad deal. And this has nothing to do with AI. This is just basic politics. You have to deal with the issues that voters want you to deal with.