In the shadows cast by the protracted conflict in the Middle East, the 32 member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) gathered in Ankara, Türkiye, for its annual summit during the second week of July. The turbulence of the current geopolitical landscape reverberated throughout the summit, establishing new strategic arrangements, troop mobilization, and the alliance’s biggest rearmament in decades, accelerating the trends of NATO rearmament that began with the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The biggest threat since the Cold War
The alliance declared the Russian aggressions in Ukraine and the Eastern European border, coupled with hybrid warfare like cyberattacks, information warfare and sabotage against critical infrastructure across the continent, to be the ‘gravest threat to Euro-Atlantic security in decades.’ This followed a declaration by Russia a few weeks prior that Europe is embroiling itself into a ‘war’ with Russia through its military assistance to Ukraine. Thus, several European security analysts predict that a full-scale war between NATO and Russia in Europe may break out by 2029, based on Russian plans of mass mobilization along its European border, including the deployment of 115,000 troops in the Baltic.
Unprecedented military spending
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In line with this geopolitical assessment, the members gathered in Ankara pledged a €50 billion investment in joint military procurement and 40 billion dollars over the next five years in aerial and drone technology—technologies that have proven key in the battlefields of Ukraine and the Middle East. In addition, member states reiterated their commitment to the 2025 objective of increasing their military spending to 5% of GDP by 2035. However, while military spending is increasing, it remains lagging, with only 5 of the alliance’s 32 member states projected to reach the milestone of increasing core military spending to 3.5% of GDP in 2026. In comparison, Russia currently spends 7.5-10% of its GDP on defense, and vastly outpaces Europe in crucial drone production.
Scaling up engagements on the Eastern flank
In addition, NATO launched a new, €70-billion aid package to Ukraine while scaling up its troop deployments in countries close to the Russian border, including Hungary, Poland, Finland and the Baltic countries, to secure NATO’s eastern flank. Besides expanding existing deployments, the Ankara summit led to an expansion in the number of NATO battle groups in Eastern Europe from 4 to 9, and established the Eastern and Arctic Sentries to safeguard NATO presence in these geopolitically cultural regions. Furthermore, two entirely new forces, the Allied Reaction Force and the NATO force model, were launched to enhance the alliance’s ability to respond rapidly and deploy a wider variety of defense and deterrence missions, while developing what has been described as the alliance’s most detailed defense plans since the Cold War.
The changing role of the US
However, these impressive declarations mask ongoing tensions and divisions within the alliance. Most prominently, US President Donald Trump’s announcement of disengaging from NATO commitments in 2025, by cutting down its troop deployments in Europe by 1/3 and withdrawing up to 50% of its strategic bombing technology, on occasion even threatening to withdraw from the alliance altogether, accusing its allies of parasitizing on US military spending. These tensions were brought to the fore earlier this year when NATO members like Spain refused US requests of aid in its war against Iran, with US President Trump renewing its threats of withdrawing from the alliance and denouncing NATO as a ‘paper tiger.’ Even so, President Trump relaxed his previously hostile tone toward continued assistance to Ukraine and appeasing attitude toward Russian territorial demands during the Ankara Summit, promising Ukraine access to the top-range US air-defence system Patriot, while declaring his ‘tremendous love’ and praising the alliance for being more united than ever. Nonetheless, harm may already have been done; arguably, the very fluctuations and unilateralism of US foreign policy toward NATO and Ukraine creates uncertainty that undermines the credibility of NATO’s deterrence capacity, which may egg on Russian territorial ambitions in Europe and exace
Internal tensions
In a similar vein, the relationship between European NATO members and Türkiye has been strained in recent years over migration, the authoritarian tendencies of the Turkish government and Türkiye’s ongoing trade links with Russia, in effect undermining the economic sanctions imposed on Russia by the EU following the invasion of Ukraine. Moreover, amidst skyrocketing energy costs caused by the ongoing instability and conflict in the Middle East, threatening the world economy with recession and inflation, other NATO member states may find it difficult to domestically justify increasing military spending in alignment with NATO objectives.
Thus, while NATO has made an impressive and for the alliance well-needed display of unity and powerful action toward enhanced military presence, deterrence and defence capabilities, only time will tell if this yields a sustainable, long-term war strategy, and if such a strategy will brought to implementation in warred conflict, as these ambitions and objectives encounter the hurdles, tensions and unpredictability of contemporary geopolitical reality.
