MAKING NATO A MORE LETHAL ALLIANCE: THE DETACHED ARGUMENTATIVE STYLE OF AN ADDRESS BY NATO’S SECRETARY GENERAL

Abstract

The current study is an introduction to the analysis of a series of discourses
and addresses made on various NATO events taking place in 2025, the purpose of which
is/was recalibrating and reconfiguring the Alliance based on the evolution of the international
context. The focus and object of the analysis is NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte’s
argumentative style. Mark Rutte addressed NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly on May 26th,
2025, to present to them the need for increased spending on the part of all Allies. This
address is approached in the study from the pragma-dialectical perspective on argumentation
by making use of the recently developed notion of argumentative style in this theoretical
and analytical framework, to distinguish the elements which are instrumental in Rutte’s
deploying a detached argumentative style (as opposed to an engaged argumentative style).
The previous theoretical developments around this pragma-dialectical notion (van Eemeren
2019, 2021a, 2021b, 2025; van Eemeren, Garssen 2023; van Eemeren, van Haaften 2024, van
Eemeren 2025) appear to be extremely useful, and the analysis shows at first level that
the detached argumentative style chosen by Mark Rutte is consistent with the delicate
context in which the Allies must be convinced of the necessity of increased spending and
of the reconfiguration of NATO’s actions through changes and investments in the
defence industry.