The new NATO secretary general, former Dutch prime-minister Mark Rutte, has been preoccupied with 'Project Ukraine' from the get-go. A 'buddy' of the present King during his years as a student at Leiden university, protestant, single, 'workaholic', and long-time leader of the VVD, formerly a conservative party which received a 'make-over' to give it a more populist appeal.
The party has been 'all over the place', opening the flood-gates to immigration in the seventies and eighties, as demanded by industrialists seeking lower wages in order to compete on export. But with a large number of people from Muslim countries, which were preferred by the industrialists since they were more docile than the Italians and the Greeks, the party developed a strong anti-Muslim sentiment under Bolkestein and Rutte, who had been coached by the outspoken populist politician Geert Wilders in his early years as a member of parliament. Back then Wilders was also a member of the VVD, and even as he split to form an outspoken anti-Muslim party, he and Rutte worked in tandem to erase the obvious expressions of the Muslim faith in Holland going against the grain of our liberal culture.
Very much like NATO, which promoted their 'War on Terror' in those years, with Wilders and Rutte pushing that agenda in a broader sense, much to the dismay of 'Left Wing' parties, which had been anti-immigration in the seventies to protect the workers, switching to embrace the immigrants after de-industrialisation became unstoppable. But just like NATO Rutte reinvented himself as a proponent of using Muslim-extremists to fight our fight in Libya, Syria, Russia, China and Iran, while Wilders radicalised under the influence of his Jewish sponsors from the US and Israel to sound outwardly more like Trump and Le Pen in France.
In other words, Rutte is not someone driven by principles. He is seeking power. Not merely for himself, but also for the organisations which hire him, or recognise him as someone they can use. NATO and the WEF. Using Ukraine to topple Putin, in order to get to China, is not something he would lose any sleep over. Right after the coup in Ukraine he came out as an unashamed supporter of undemocratic revolutionary change. When flight MH-17 came down over the Eastern part of Ukraine, he didn't need to be convinced about who was responsible. Even though his own government had been informed about Air-Defence systems being operational, and used already, which were capable of shooting down high-flying targets. Nobody within his government moved a finger to stop traffic from overflying the area, begging for an accident, or a 'false flag' provocation.
Ever the obedient servant of NATO and the WEF, he simply ignored a Dutch referendum which said that the people rejected an 'Association-Treaty' with Ukraine, and signed it anyway, for which he found support among all the obedient parties in the Dutch parliament. All the major parties, including the Social Democrats and the 'Greens' gave him their blessing. F.ck the people! Wilders' PVV and the Socialist Party felt that was wrong, and that stress added to the divorce between Wilders' PVV and Rutte's VVD, maturing into a mud-fight over the years. Since Rutte was close to Merkel, who brokered the 'Minsk-Accord' after NATO's proxy-force in Ukraine found itself trapped in a cauldron at Debaltseve, he had to be aware of the fact that the 'Accord' was a lie, only meant to buy time so as to prepare Ukraine for its future as bait, on this path to regime changing Russia. Something Merkel openly admitted when war broke out in 2022.
It is unlikely that Rutte was one of the architects of this plan to use Ukraine as bait, lure the Russians into war with Ukraine, allowing them to conquer all of it, only to overextend and unbalance Russia from 'Advantageous Ground', as the 'Rand' document put it, but he had to be aware of it. Over the years Holland developed into a fortress of anti-Russian sentiment, with truckloads of subsidies for all kinds of organisations looking for a way to topple Putin. The Dutch secret service hacked, invaded and recorded what was going on inside a university in Moscow, providing 'stuff' to support the attempts to unseat Trump on accusations of being Putin's puppet. None of that stuck, and likewise a report from a European watchdog published this week concluded that all the warnings of Russian interference in the recent European elections were baseless.
Personally I'm always looking for an 'angle', to find out why someone hates Putin. In Rutte's case I can't find a trace to a clear 'fishhook'-moment, or a residu of hatred handed from father to son, or family lore, although it may be present. The two of them had some clashes over 'Lifestyle' subjects, where Putin was critical of the Netherlands allowing a political party catering to pedophiles to exist, and Rutte lectured Putin on homosexuals and transsexuals during their meeting in Sochi. Since Rutte is single there could be a hidden 'fishhook' there, although it is unfair to speculate, but I can't think of anything else. In a debate in the Dutch parliament Rutte revealed that he felt that Putin was actually a very weak leader, and that it was necessary for us to teach him a lesson. This was after Russia abandoned its 'Special Military Operation', trying to pressure Zelensky into accepting the 'Minsk Accord', and withdrew behind the Surovikin line. Yet, like most Western observers, Rutte never understood what was about to come down.
Note that in Holland Rutte is seen as a strong leader, because of his ability to create a unity among people who do not get along very well. Which he does by smiling a lot, and creating policies which satisfy everybody, because they solve nothing. He moves with the ebb and flow, picking his moments to catch people unaware to make something like that 'Association Treaty' stick, by letting them think it is merely a piece of paper with no consequences. Save for an obligation to go to war with Russia……..
Clearly Putin is not that kind of leader. I never met the man, nor Rutte, but in my perception Putin is not even interested in many issues Rutte considers vitally important. Like 'Gay Rights' and other fads that come and go with changing sentiments. Putin, and his government, is nowhere near as shortsighted as Rutte, and far more principled. They needed to be cautious, as the 'underdog', while the leader of a country which operates from 'Advantageous Ground' is likely far more relaxed about such things, assuming that there always will be a way to force your way through if shit comes to shove. If you are thinking of yourself as the leader of an 'Indispensable' organisation, you don't worry about any existential threats. You represent the existential threat to others. A Dutch journalist wrote admiringly about a German CDU-politician who had demanded that NATO would drop this 'hesitant' approach, and find a way to let the Russians know who is Boss. My fear is that way too many politicians and 'pundits' have no clue what, or who they are dealing with, and why NATO and its proxy are losing.
Rutte announced that he will centralise everything that has to do with the war with Russia on Ukrainian and Russian soil in one new NATO-command, confirming what everybody who has been paying attention already knew: NATO is controlling this war. The assumption there is that NATO is losing because it prepared for the wrong war, but will emerge victorious after making amends. Like I stated from before the 'SMO', NATO anticipated on a short 'blitzkrieg', 'Desert Storm' kind of war with Russia conquering all of Ukraine, exposing them to the 'Stay Behind Military' that had been trained for exactly such a scenario, aided by 'Sanctions from Hell', to overextend and unbalance Russia, with no more than a few months before NATO could dictate its conditions for a Russian surrender. Since that didn't happen, because Putin is not such a dumb ass after all (right Mark?), NATO had to improvise, discovering to its shock that they have no way to fight a traditional war lasting for years. Less so if the enemy takes its time to exhaust the proxy in our employ and its 'friendly' NATO-suppliers, who are saturating the zone with junk without a strategy.
Now then, is this change in the command-structure going to save the day for NATO? Is it true what the New York Times wrote recently about Ukraine retreating steadily while causing enormous losses on the Russian side? And that once Rutte has restructured NATO, the Russians are going to be soundly defeated once and for all? I'm not asking you to enlighten me. These are rhetorical questions, really. I do not see any sign of such a development, at all. It is true that an attacking force is bound to lose more men than the defending force under normal circumstances. But not if the attacking force is effectively chasing a fleeing force, which is more like it. I'm afraid that Rutte won't even notice, until the day Putin steps into his office to have a little chat. Because that is the kind of leader Rutte is to me. He can't see the problem, until it is right under his nose, staring him in the eye.