Insisting the bloc is a defensive alliance, Mark Rutte has urged member states to pour more money into making it more lethal

NATO is the "most powerful alliance" in global history, Secretary General Mark Rutte has claimed, comparing the US-led bloc to the Roman Empire and Napoleon's army.

Rutte urged member states to ramp up military spending to make NATO even "more lethal" and better prepared to counter the alleged threat from Russia, which Moscow has long denied and ridiculed.

"NATO is the most powerful defense alliance in world history. It's even more powerful than the Roman Empire, and more powerful than Napoleon's empire," Rutte stated at a press conference ahead of the NATO Defense Ministers meeting in Brussels on Wednesday. "But the defense alliance needs maintenance and needs investment." He laid out priorities to strengthen NATO's military, insisting they are essential to deter potential future aggression.

"We must make NATO a stronger, fairer and more lethal alliance... We need more resources, forces, and capabilities so that we are prepared to face any threat," he added. Rutte claimed that Russia could attack NATO within several years and said the bloc would not be prepared to defend itself unless it moves beyond its long-held 2% of GDP defense spending benchmark.

Rutte said he would present member states with a new "defense investment plan" at the upcoming NATO summit in The Hague.

Russia has repeatedly rejected claims that it poses a threat to NATO, calling them "nonsense" and accusing the West of stoking fear to justify more military spending. Moscow has also warned that the West's rearmament efforts risk escalating into a broader conflict in Europe.

Russian officials have also drawn their own historical comparisons. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the West of trying to inflict a "strategic defeat" on Russia "just like in the times of Napoleon and Hitler" through its proxy war in Ukraine. He said the only way to avoid a wider conflict is for the West to abandon its militaristic path.

Rutte's imperial comparisons have sparked criticism on social media.

Media analyst Michael William Lebron, known as Lionel, wrote: "NATO's chief boasting they're 'more powerful than the Roman or Napoleonic Empires' sounds less like diplomacy and more like 1939 Berlin. This isn't defense - it's imperial arrogance... Dangerous rhetoric."

John Laughland, a historian and specialist in international affairs, pointed out on X that "The Roman and Napoleonic empires were not alliances, they were states. Or is NATO now an empire?"

"NATO 'Chief' sounds like Uncle Adolf back in 1939," Irish journalist Chay Bowes added.

READ MORE: Putin hits out at wannabe Napoleons

British journalist Afshin Rattansi also weighed in, saying it's no wonder non-NATO states view the bloc as "a hyper-militarist threat" after it "destroyed Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and so many others." Rattansi called Rutte "a puppet" of Washington and warned that NATO "is a dangerous, hyper-militarist organization that is far from defensive."

(RT.com)