Nato survived the Ankara summit - but it still lacks a second fist
Submitted by
Omar Ashour
on
Mon, 07/13/2026 - 20:24
The alliance's future depends on turning European spending into combat power, while Washington remains politically unpredictable
US President Donald Trump and Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte attend the Nato summit in Ankara, Turkey, on 8 July 2026 (Saul Loeb/AFP)
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In November 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron declared: “What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of Nato.”
Seven years later, the largest and most successful defensive alliance in modern history is still standing. The harder question is whether it can fight with two equally capable fists: an American one and a European-Canadian one.
The imbalance remains severe. Nato’s latest estimates put US core defence expenditures at roughly $1.03 trillion in 2026, around 57 percent of the allies’ total. Yet Washington’s share of Nato’s common-funded budgets is only 14.9 percent, equal to Germany’s.
The deeper dependence is operational: Europe still relies heavily on the US for strategic intelligence functions, air-to-air refuelling, ballistic-missile defence and airborne electronic warfare. The wider dependency extends into cyber, maritime surveillance, space awareness, logistics for large-scale operations, and secure communications.
Most of Nato’s recovery was produced by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategic blunder in Ukraine. Moscow appears to have expected another Crimea-style fait accompli: limited sanctions, hesitant diplomacy and a frozen-war framework resembling the Minsk years.
Instead, the full-scale invasion enlarged Nato, reinforced its eastern flank, and turned Ukraine into the operational centre of European security.
The road to the Ankara summit nevertheless looked more like crisis containment than alliance management. US President Donald Trump again argued that Greenland should come under American control, pressuring the territory of Denmark, a smaller founding ally.
Earlier reporting suggested that Danish contingency planning included explosives to deny key runways in the event of an American attack. What once sounded preposterous had become a live alliance-security problem.
Continuity over rupture
The war on Iran exposed another fault line. Trump was angered when European allies did not join the Israeli-American offensive campaign.
But Nato is not the Warsaw Pact. Article 5 commits to collective self-defence in the event of an armed attack; it is not an obligation to join every discretionary, out-of-area war of aggression launched by the strongest member’s unpredictable president.
Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte’s approach has also raised questions. His coalition management is interesting, but repeated flattery towards Trump - including the “daddy” comparison - has blurred the line between tactical diplomacy and institutional abasement.
There is irony here: the Netherlands remained below Nato’s defence spending target of two percent of GDP for most of Rutte’s 2010-24 premiership, reaching it only at the end.
This was also the country that lost 196 citizens in 2014 on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, downed by a Buk system that investigators traced to Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade. It was a war crime committed by Russian regular forces and its proxies, and most of the victims were Dutch - yet Rutte’s defence budget still did not budge back then.
Turkey helped prevent these contradictions from dominating the summit. Trump said he might have stayed away were it not for his relationship with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
As host, Ankara used bilateral diplomacy and defence-industrial bargaining to keep the meeting on track. Turkey also brings material weight: Nato calls it the alliance’s second-largest army, while Erdogan pressed for the removal of allies’ defence-trade restrictions, and promoted his country’s $24bn “Steel Dome” programme.
The result was continuity rather than rupture. The Ankara declaration reaffirmed Article 5, and governments announced more than $50bn in procurement commitments; a $40bn, five-year counter-drone initiative; and €27bn ($31bn) for fuel infrastructure.
European allies and Canada have increased their core defence investments by more than $139bn since the 2025 Hague pledge. These are serious numbers, but certainly not yet proof of combat effectiveness.
Ukraine at the forefront
The clearest winner of the Nato summit was Ukraine. The declaration states that “Ukraine contributes to transatlantic security”, and allies pledged €70bn ($80bn) in military equipment, assistance and training for 2026 and at least an equivalent level for 2027.
This should not, however, be presented as €70bn in entirely new assistance: the figure probably consolidates, reaffirms and gives collective political weight to a mixture of previously announced national commitments and additional support.
Post-summit reporting also noted that Trump authorised Ukraine to manufacture Patriot interceptors. This would be strategically significant if implemented, but it remains more of a long-term political and industrial signal than an immediate answer to Ukraine’s urgent air-defence requirements.
Still, the shift is clear: Ukraine is not merely a recipient of western assistance. It is a provider of security, operational learning and defence innovation. At the official “Allies in Ankara” hub, I joined Ukrainian military and drone-industry practitioners and civilian-protection specialists to examine how Kyiv’s adaptations could help protect Gulf civilians and critical infrastructure.
Could Gulf states learn from Ukraine's drone revolution?
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Ukraine was not the summit’s only winner. Syria also secured a potentially consequential diplomatic breakthrough, with Trump announcing his intention to remove it from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. Subject to a 45-day congressional review, the move could ease restrictions on aid, investment and financial transactions, accelerating Syria’s international reintegration and reconstruction.
Ankara produced an alliance that is adapting, but not yet strategically autonomous. Replacing the conventional capabilities supplied by the US could cost Europe about $1 trillion over a 25-year lifecycle. The challenge is converting money into formations, munitions depth, air defence, resilient command systems and industrial surge.
Nato’s endurance also rests on ethical and political foundations that distinguish it from other alliances. The Warsaw Pact was used to crush the Prague Spring in 1968. The Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation failed Armenia so visibly that Yerevan froze participation.
Nato’s record outside of territorial defence and humanitarian interventions is far from unblemished, but its enlargement framework did tie membership to democracy, individual liberty, elected civilian control and institutional military and civilian reforms.
Ankara did not prove Nato is immortal. But it showed that the alliance can still absorb a political shock, bargain and regenerate. Its future now turns on three tests: whether European spending becomes combat power, whether Ukraine wins and remains integrated as a security provider, and whether the remaining Trump years irreversibly corrode the transatlantic bargain.
Communiques will not save Nato. Europe needs to build the second, American-free fist; Ukraine must remain at the operational core; and Washington must remember that alliance leadership is not ownership.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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