High readiness forces, investments, space and nuclear exercises, NATO outlines its moves
The document clarifies where to start on the rearmament front and gives an overview of the main achievements of the Atlantic Alliance over the past year
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Key points
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There are two months to go, but the topic of rearmament has long been in the news. The days to mark in your diary are 24-26 June, when the NATO 2025 summit will be staged. It will take place in The Hague, the Netherlands. The thirty-two members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation will participate. On the table is the politically slippery dossier of spending on defence, beyond the fateful threshold of 2% of gross domestic product. Defence Minister Guido Crosetto has already clarified the point. "We have not invested in defence," he recalled at the end of March, during a speech at the Action congress. "In June Trump, when he arrives at the Nato meeting, will sit at the table and say, 'because you have all fallen behind and you have to catch up and you have defended yourselves on the backs of my taxpayers, know that before you catch up you will have to invest five per cent for the next few years, otherwise you will not catch up and you will not be able to defend yourselves'. No one,' added the Defence chief, 'will get to that, but I assume Rutte (the secretary of the Atlantic Alliance, ed.) will propose 3.5 per cent and many European countries are already at that level'.
Rutte will come to that meeting with a calling card: a document, recently published (Thursday 24 April 2025). It is the Secretary General's Annual Report for 2024:, a summary report, which clarifies where we start from and gives an overview of the main achievements of the Atlantic Alliance over the past year. And it provides some clarification on strategic aspects, from high readiness forces to defence investments, the importance of the space domain and nuclear exercises.
In the preface to the document, the Secretary General emphasises that "in 2024, Nato continued to strengthen its collective deterrence and defence posture", that the Alliance increased its high readiness forces, and that "allies continued to deploy robust, in-position and combat-capable forces along the Alliance's eastern flank". Rutte emphasises NATO's continued support for Ukraine and the Alliance's work to increase the resilience of critical infrastructure and critical defence supply chains. While defence investment grew significantly across the Alliance in 2024, the Secretary-General also notes the need to "accelerate our work to support a stronger, more resilient and innovative transatlantic defence industrial base". Rutte writes that his "priority as Secretary General is to turbocharge this adaptation so that NATO can become even stronger, more agile and ready to credibly deter and defend against all threats to our security."
Royal Air Force Typhoons intercept Russian aircraft
Since its invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Federation is even more the focus of the Atlantic Alliance. Before Easter, Royal Air Force (RAF) Typhoons operating as part of the Atlantic Alliance's 'Enhanced Air Policing' mission were scrambled from Malbork airbase in Poland to intercept aircraft operating in the vicinity of NATO airspace. On 15 April 2025, the fighter jets made two interventions: the first to identify and intercept a Russian Coot-A (Il-20M) aircraft departing from Kaliningrad airspace. The second time, the jets were scrambled to intercept two FLANKER-H (Su-30S), also departing from Kaliningrad airspace. Finally, on 17 April, RAF Typhoons were tasked to intercept an unknown aircraft flying near the Atlantic Alliance airspace over the Baltic Sea. This aircraft was later identified as a Coot-A.
High Readiness Forces
.NATO, the report made clear, increased its high readiness forces to 500,000 combat-capable troops, operating in all domains - air, land, sea, cyberspace and space - and equipped to respond to any threat, even with little or no warning. The Allies continued to deploy robust, in-position and combat capable forces along NATO's eastern flank, with eight multinational Forward Land Forces. Steadfast Defender 2024, the largest Alliance exercise in decades, tested Alliance members' defence plans, with over 90,000 troops deployed in the High North and Central and Eastern Europe.
