For now, Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte can still be spotted around The Hague mopping up his own coffee spills, teaching a weekly social studies class at a mostly immigrant high school, or puttering about in his battered Saab (bought in 2009, a year before his premiership began). But this spring he will probably be given a rather more consequential job. The US, UK, France and Germany have backed him to succeed Jens Stoltenberg as Nato’s secretary-general. How would Rutte manage a military alliance that might face simultaneous attacks from Vladimir Putin and a re-elected Donald Trump? I asked some of his Dutch intimates.
現在，荷蘭首相馬克•呂特(Mark Rutte)仍然可以在海牙的日常中被看到，不論是自己動手清理潑灑的咖啡，每週在一所主要是移民學生的高中教授社會學課，還是駕駛著他那輛買於2009年的破舊薩博車四處閒逛。但進入今年春天，他可能將面臨一個更爲重大的職責。美國、英國、法國和德國都支持他繼任延斯•史托騰伯格(Jens Stoltenberg)成爲北約的下一任祕書長。面臨弗拉迪米爾•普丁(Vladimir Putin)以及可能再次當選的唐納•川普(Donald Trump)帶來的雙重威脅，呂特將如何領導這個可能遭受同時攻擊的軍事聯盟呢？我向他的幾位荷蘭密友提出了這個問題。