It seems just yesterday I was writing up a piece regarding the G7 summit taking place in southern France. In truth, it was a few weeks ago, but now that the NATO summit has wrapped up, I can\u2019t be the only one with deja vu; world leaders meeting amid the continuing US-led war with Iran. I think I\u2019ve seen this film before.<\/p>\n
Welcome to Faultline. Last week, heads of NATO member states convened in Turkey for their yearly summit. Many issues were on the table for the summit, and the one expected to take center stage was the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, considering that the Iran war was supposed to be done, as had been announced weeks ago. However, less than 30 days into the alleged 60-day ceasefire, President Trump has announced that negotiations with Iran are over, and not because they reached an agreement.<\/p>\n
So the dominant question remains, if the war in Iran isn\u2019t over, is the rest of NATO expected to intervene? The short answer coming out of Ankara appears to be no \u2014 and, notably, almost no one at the summit was willing to press the question.<\/p>\n
Some background first. NATO stands apart from the United Nations, the European Union, and the Group of 7 in that it is not only a codified alliance, but it has the clear capacity to militarily intervene. Unlike the UN, which typically relies on making resolutions that encourage (read: rely) on other countries to intervene to complete its goals, NATO can act as a unilateral entity on its own.<\/p>\n
Article 5 of the NATO charter states \u201cthat an armed attack against one NATO member shall be considered an attack against all members, and triggers an obligation for each member to come to its assistance.\u201d In practice, this means that there is an automatic military obligation for every country involved in NATO.<\/p>\n
The only example of its explicit use is the fallout of 9\/11, an obvious terrorist attack against the United States that triggered military intervention from NATO in Afghanistan. However, the coalition can also offer help to non-member states informally, and has stepped in on external conflicts, such as bthe 1995 bombing campaign against Bosnian Serb forces amid genocide allegations during the Bosnian War as well as offering military aid to Ukraine amid the Russian invasion as of 2022.<\/p>\n
In recent years, however, NATO has been a major point of contention in US politics. Most notably, President Trump has expressed his frustration with the relative contributions of other Western nations in the alliance. The United States leads in individual spending on the military and on NATO by several miles, and is responsible for most contributions during interventions.<\/p>\n
As the conflict with Iran continues, Trump has insisted that NATO must play a role in reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and has complained extensively about the lack of help so far. At the summit, US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker pushed a \u201cNATO 3.0\u201d framing, calling for allies to boost defense spending and reduce their dependency on the United States militarily \u2014 a message that landed squarely on the burden-sharing complaints Trump has voiced since April.<\/p>\n
Another point of tension that world leaders have tiptoed around is President Trump\u2019s unique relationship with Russian President Putin, who is currently carrying out the very invasion against Ukraine that NATO has mobilized against. Before Trump left the US for Turkey, he reportedly <\/a>had a 90-minute phone call with Putin. Last year, he rolled out the red carpet<\/a> for Putin\u2019s arrival at an Alaska<\/a> meeting. One of his campaign promises in 2024 was a decisive end to the war in Ukraine \u201cwithin 24 hours<\/a>,\u201d which has now exceeded World War I\u2019s length.<\/p>\n That said, Trump said the US would give Ukraine a license to manufacture Patriot air defense systems<\/a>, which would help defend against Russian missile attacks. His tone was much more amicable with Ukrainian President Zelensky, who he infamously ripped into for not wearing a suit in the White House.<\/p>\n