{"id":7384,"date":"2026-07-08T19:48:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T19:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/7384\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T19:48:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T19:48:11","slug":"was-the-nato-summit-a-success-it-depends-on-how-you-define-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/7384\/","title":{"rendered":"Was the NATO summit a success? It depends on how you define it"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

NATO leaders pose for a group picture during the NATO summit in Ankara, on Wednesday.LUDOVIC MARIN\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Kerry Buck is Canada\u2019s former ambassador to NATO and a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa.<\/p>\n

Some might dismiss the NATO<\/a> summit that just concluded in Ankara as another example of what has become the annual ritualistic drubbing of the Alliance\u2019s members by U.S. President Donald Trump. Others are declaring it a success because NATO held together.<\/p>\n

Both would be wrong. <\/p>\n

Mr. Trump did go to Ankara swinging. But the real story was about how NATO members continue to work to rebalance the Alliance toward Europe and Canada, and away from the United States.<\/p>\n

Trump has \u2018won the argument\u2019 on NATO defence spending, Carney says at summit<\/a><\/p>\n

Since 1949, NATO has been built around an unhealthy, asymmetric dependency on U.S. military and political leadership by the other Allies, including Canada. The U.S., beginning as early as 1952, has been pressing NATO members to take on more responsibility. <\/p>\n

At this year\u2019s summit, the Allies no longer had a choice. Washington announced in May that it would shrink the military capabilities available to NATO in a crisis and review American troop numbers in Europe. Even with more defence spending, NATO wouldn\u2019t be able to adequately respond to an attack until 2035 at current readiness levels,<\/a> with Russia estimated to be able to launch a full-scale attack on an ally as early as 2029.<\/a> All agree that Moscow is already in a sub-threshold war with NATO, disrupting communications infrastructure, systematically sending drones over Allied nuclear facilities and military bases and mounting disinformation campaigns aimed at destabilizing democracy and paralyzing political decision-making. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear that more defence spending is now a national imperative for the Allies. And because the U.S. has military capabilities that the Alliance cannot do without, like strategic bombers and the nuclear umbrella, it is in all NATO members\u2019 interests to keep the U.S. inside the tent. This includes the U.S. itself; a withdrawal from NATO would leave America more exposed and with greater defence burdens, eroding the U.S.\u2019s strategic leverage, shifting its defence perimeter westward and exposing North Atlantic sea lanes and the Arctic to greater Russian and Chinese probing. <\/p>\n

NATO unveils arms deals worth billions even as Trump expresses disappointment<\/a><\/p>\n

The Ankara summit was structured around showing how Europe and Canada have stepped up, announcing a generational increase in defence spending and billions in new contracts. The summit also resulted in an agreement around significant support for Ukraine, with the final declaration reaffirming that an \u201cattack on one is an attack on all.\u201d And reportedly<\/a>, in the closed-door leaders\u2019 meeting, Mr. Trump said he wanted to keep the U.S. in NATO. <\/p>\n

If we measure success by whether Allies were able to keep Mr. Trump committed to NATO by offering him \u201cbig beautiful numbers\u201d on defence spending, then the Ankara summit was a success. But this measure means NATO is falling into what I call the Trump transactional trap, managing a relationship but papering over some of the broader seismic changes underway inside the Alliance. <\/p>\n

Canada put forward the idea of NATO in the 1940s to forestall America\u2019s isolationist and unilateral tendencies, and to give us a voice and a veto at the world\u2019s premiere international security table. Until Mr. Trump, the U.S. push to get other allies to spend more on defence was about burden-sharing \u2013 that is, \u201cwe will all do more\u201d in the worsening threat environment. In Ankara, this became burden-shifting: \u201cThe rest of you do more, so the U.S. can do less.\u201d The question for Canada will be how that plays out over time; if more Europe means more EU, could Canada wind up with less leverage? Given the interconnected nature of today\u2019s threat environment, Canada needs allies more than ever.<\/p>\n

Opinion: Why NATO needs to build a defence market<\/a><\/p>\n

The Alliance\u2019s deterrent effect has also been undermined. Mr. Trump\u2019s past invitations to Vladimir Putin to attack Allies that underspend on defence, as well as the thinning of U.S. arms and troops in Europe, are gifts to Moscow. Recent polling shows that the majority in 15 European allied states do not believe America would come to their aid if they were attacked.<\/a><\/p>\n

Finally, instead of reaffirming the transatlantic bond, the summit effectively widened the transatlantic divide. When Mr. Trump berated NATO for failing to support America\u2019s war of choice against Iran, he was fundamentally misstating the Alliance\u2019s purpose, obligations and history. NATO was never intended to be a blanket guarantee for support in wars initiated by a single ally. Iran wasn\u2019t a loyalty test the Allies failed, as Mr. Trump claimed; NATO wasn\u2019t asked. And Mr. Trump\u2019s renewed calls for Greenland to become part of the U.S. undercut the Alliance\u2019s raison d\u2019\u00eatre. <\/p>\n

Many of the Allies will head home feeling good that they have managed their relationship with the United States. This was pragmatic and needed. But a transatlantic trust deficit has been created that poses a cost to NATO, and will take a long time to repair. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: NATO leaders pose for a group picture during the NATO summit in Ankara,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[107,90,108,80,78,109,46,77,97,98,93,79,76,103,105,102,96,88,120,81,82,95,91,92,85,110,86,115,116,118,113,117,111,114,83,100,101,50,99,112,89,104,106,94,87,84,119],"class_list":["post-7384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}