NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Secretary-General Mark Rutte has urged bloc members to “prepare” for war and increase defense spending. He recommended the West get into a “wartime mindset.”

Rutte said on Wednesday that NATO members have increased defense investments and conducted more frequent military exercises. However, he argued that these efforts are “not sufficient to deal with the dangers coming our way in the next four to five years.” The bloc’s “future security is at stake,” Rutte claimed in his opening remarks at a meeting of the Military Committee in Chiefs of Defense in Brussels. He accused Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran of attempting to “weaken our democracies and chip away at our freedom.”

“To prevent war, we need to prepare for it. It is time to shift to a wartime mindset,” Rutte was quoted as saying by RT. He also urged NATO states to allocate more resources toward defense and develop “more and better defense capabilities.”

On Tuesday, Rutte announced that NATO would bolster its presence in the Baltic Sea – a strategic area for Russian naval operations and energy exports – by launching a new mission under the pretext of protecting undersea infrastructure.

The NATO chief revealed that this presence will involve frigates, maritime patrol aircraft, and a “small fleet of naval drones” that are expected to provide “enhanced surveillance and deterrence.” –RT

Rutte has also stressed the importance of providing increased support to Ukraine to “change the trajectory of the war,” and called for enhanced cooperation with global partners. At the same time, Moscow has repeatedly denied assertions that it represents a threat to any NATO member states and has instead accused the United States-led bloc of waging a proxy war against Russia and encroaching on its territory.

Stop The Denial: Ukraine Is A Proxy War That Will Lead To Wider World War

The West continually prepares for wars by donating military equipment to one side while sanctioning the other. While neither seems particularly effective in the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia, the bloc continues.

Rutte took the reigns of NATO from Jens Stoltenberg in October after Stoltenberg “served” for a term of ten years.