It seems conventional wisdom by now that the public can only be convinced by hyperbole. As Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte implies that Britain faces a choice between the NHS and Russian conquest, it is worth asking how much this actually damages democracy – and helps Vladimir Putin?
The real threat Russia poses is less of direct military action but through its ‘hybrid war’ instruments of subversion and division
Rutte is on tour in a bid to sell the new orthodoxy that Nato member states – many of whom barely, if at all, hit the previous target of spending 2 per cent of GDP on defence – must commit to spending 3.5 per cent directly on defence and 1.5 per cent on defence-related spending (such as resilience, R&D and support for Ukraine). At Chatham House in London this week, he was blunt about the spending priorities this entailed:
“If you do not go to the 5 per cent, including the 3.5
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