NATO heads of state and government will meet at their upcoming summit on June 24-25 in The Hague, at a time when they face complex external challenges to their security and hold seemingly irreconcilable views on how to respond to and deter critical threats. Due to a lack of consensus on central issues and the fear that U.S. President Donald Trump could blow up a normal-length meeting, the summit agenda and published declaration are being kept extremely short. Setting a new target for allied defense spending will be the primary discussion item. If proceedings conclude without public disputes between allied leaders, and countries adopt the new defense spending goals, the summit in The Hague may present an opportunity for the alliance to demonstrate a credible commitment to collective security in an era of shifting balances of power and geopolitical uncertainty. Nevertheless, Trump\u2019s ambivalence toward NATO and America\u2019s allies will loom over the aftermath of even an uneventful summit.<\/p>\n
Key issues at recent summits<\/p>\n
Since Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it has been relatively easy for NATO leaders to agree to condemn Russia and support Ukraine\u2014even if the latter was unable to get a concrete invitation to join the alliance. NATO has also in recent years taken an increasingly strong stance against the threat China poses. Since the 2022 NATO summit, the leaders of the so-called Indo-Pacific Four (IP-4)\u2014Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea\u2014have joined each year, reflecting the growing overlapping interests and interconnection between the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions.<\/p>\n
The 2024 Washington Summit Declaration<\/a> emphasized the need to deter Russian aggression; articulated programs to support Ukraine, including through the NATO-Ukraine Council<\/a> established at the 2023 Vilnius Summit; recognized the growing military-technological cooperation among Russia, Iran, and North Korea, while calling China a \u201cdecisive enabler\u201d of Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine; and set out to further strengthen ties between NATO and the IP-4. It\u2019s difficult to see the alliance reaching consensus today on any of those issues given the increasingly divergent outlook between the United States and its NATO allies. The development<\/a> of a \u201cstrategic approach to Russia,\u201d as agreed at last year\u2019s summit, has reportedly been paused<\/a> due to U.S. efforts to engage the Kremlin in negotiations.<\/p>\n Recent summit communiques have reiterated the goal of spending 2% of GDP, as agreed at the 2014 gathering in Wales (in the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s first invasion of Ukraine). A decade later, two-thirds of the NATO countries<\/a> have achieved this goal. Trump has made clear, however, that 2% is insufficient and proposed a new target of spending 5% of GDP on defense. Europeans seem to be coalescing around the position that reaching 5% is feasible over the next decade, if split up between 3.5% core defense spending and 1.5% infrastructure spending, but many of them will struggle to meet that target.<\/p>\n The current geopolitical backdrop\u00a0<\/p>\n Europe faces momentous threats emanating from both east and west. Looking to the eastern flank, Russia continues to wage its brutal war of aggression in Ukraine and is escalating its hybrid activity<\/a> on NATO territory, including arson attacks<\/a>, sabotage operations<\/a>, and (attempted) targeted assassinations<\/a>. Leaders of the intelligence communities in major allied states have started to publicly warn<\/a> about the destabilizing effects of asymmetric Russian activity and express concern about the possibility of a \u201cdirect military confrontation\u201d<\/a> with the alliance and \u201clarge-scale war<\/a>\u201d in Europe by the end of this decade.<\/p>\n At the same time, Trump and members of his administration have repeatedly questioned NATO\u2019s value and accused allies of free-riding. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump invited Russia to \u201cdo whatever the hell they want<\/a>\u201d to countries not meeting the 2% of GDP defense spending target. Upon his return to the presidency, he maintained<\/a> in an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte that the United States would not aid underspending allies in the case of an attack. The public questioning and conditioning of America\u2019s security commitment inherently undermine the alliance\u2019s foundational principles of collective defense and credible deterrence.<\/p>\n Despite Trump\u2019s messaging, U.S. officials continue to affirm the American commitment to defending European NATO allies, as U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO Matthew Whitaker<\/a> did at a security conference in Estonia in May. U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich\u2019s nomination<\/a> as NATO\u2019s new supreme allied commander Europe, or SACEUR, which oversees all NATO military operations, further signals that America\u2019s extended nuclear deterrence still holds. At the same time, a new concept of a \u201cdormant NATO<\/a>\u201d has arisen on the American right, which foresees a minimal American presence in Europe and a shift of U.S. equipment and personnel to the Indo-Pacific. Advocates of this idea view China as the greatest strategic threat to U.S. national security and contend that Europeans should assume primary responsibility for deterring Russia. Whitaker, among others, has indicated that a reassessment of the U.S. force posture in Europe and troop reductions are likely forthcoming<\/a> after the summit.<\/p>\n Europeans have understood that they must shoulder primary responsibility<\/a> for their own security and defense in the future. This recognition will only strengthen NATO and should have occurred long ago. As Europe develops and improves the necessary capabilities to do so, however, it will continue to rely on the United States\u2014certainly in the short term, and very likely in the medium term too\u2014for leadership in the alliance and the provision of critical strategic enablers. Above all, Europe will hope for an orderly transition<\/a> process of shifting the burden rather than a sudden, uncoordinated U.S. retreat. As Europe rebuilds its defense industry, however, the extent of U.S. access to investment opportunities and joint procurement projects has emerged as a point of contention.<\/p>\n Beyond statements that undermine confidence in the U.S. extended deterrent in Europe, the Trump administration has threatened the sovereignty of two of its own allies\u2014Canada and Denmark, both founding members of NATO. Combined with coercive economic pressure in the form of tariffs, Trump\u2019s insistence that Canada one day become the 51st U.S. state<\/a> and his unwillingness<\/a> to reject military force as an option to acquire control of Greenland (an autonomous territory under the Kingdom of Denmark) raise unprecedented questions for allies. Meanwhile, the administration continues to attack centrist European governments for actions taken against right-wing extremists. A recent State Department post on Substack<\/a> declared, \u201cFar from strengthening democratic principles, Europe has devolved into a hotbed of digital censorship, mass migration, restrictions on religious freedom, and numerous other assaults on democratic self-governance.\u201d<\/p>\n Transatlanticists may hope the upcoming summit in The Hague can steady the Euro-Atlantic community in a geopolitical storm. But they should remain prepared for the possibility that Trump will continue to question NATO\u2019s utility to America over the course of his presidency, raising concerns about the alliance\u2019s future as he did in his first term. Another risk is the emergence<\/a> of a different kind of transatlanticism; once a term used as shorthand for shared liberal values, transatlanticism now includes revisionists with overlapping agendas on both sides of the Atlantic who are establishing ever closer ties that could upend the European project and multilateral institutions\u2014chief among them the European Union and NATO.\u00a0<\/p>\n What to watch in The Hague<\/p>\n With a very short meeting planned, no news out of The Hague will mean good news for NATO, though attention will focus on the following issues:<\/p>\n Donald Trump. The spotlight on June 24-25 will be on the U.S. president. He is expected to travel to The Hague for the summit, though he may decide to depart early, as he did in the recent Group of Seven (G7) leaders meeting<\/a> in Canada. In the run-up to the meetings, U.S. officials will maintain that America\u2019s commitment to protect and defend its NATO allies is solid. Yet Trump could say something to undermine that sentiment among allies\u2014as he has done several times, including at previous NATO summits<\/a> during his first term. The Danes and Canadians will hope that he doesn\u2019t raise his territorial ambitions toward them while he is in Europe.<\/p>\n New defense spending targets. Expect leaders to agree to the proposed defense investment plan, through which allies commit to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP over the next 10 years. Rutte and leaders of several European NATO countries have proposed <\/a>a two-tiered plan in support of this effort consisting of 3.5% \u201chard military\u201d spending and 1.5% spending on \u201cdefense-related\u201d projects, including infrastructure and cyber which could help address emerging hybrid threats.<\/p>\n Ukraine. Ukraine has received tremendous support from the United States and NATO since Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion. Yet the recent summit communique from the meeting of G7 finance ministers and central bank governors softened its rhetoric on Russia\u2019s war, condemning <\/a>that country\u2019s aggression but dropping the language<\/a> the G7 used in 2024 <\/a>regarding the Kremlin\u2019s \u201cillegal, unjustifiable, and unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine.\u201d Ukraine and its supporters will hope this year\u2019s NATO summit declaration will continue to condemn Russian aggression, though it is unlikely to offer full-throated commitment to Ukraine\u2019s defense given the current U.S. ambivalence toward providing support. At the previous three NATO summits, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was invited to join the main discussions; he is going to have a much smaller role<\/a> this time due to allied fears of alienating Trump.<\/p>\n NATO allies are hoping to get through the summit without any discord. Even so, Trump\u2019s on-again, off-again tariff threats loom in the background, as do the litany of disparaging comments from the administration about European efforts to uphold democracy in the face of extremist threats. NATO will struggle to hold together during Trump\u2019s second term\u2014the June summit will be a good opportunity to learn how difficult this might prove to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NATO heads of state and government will meet at their upcoming summit on June 24-25 in The Hague,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[707,1391,1392,1385,1333,1386,1387,1388,1389,1390,1098,42],"class_list":{"0":"post-1314","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-hague","8":"tag-article","9":"tag-center-on-the-united-states-and-europe","10":"tag-commentary","11":"tag-diplomacy-multilateralism","12":"tag-foreign-policy","13":"tag-foreign-politics-elections","14":"tag-geopolitics","15":"tag-global-economy-development","16":"tag-international-affairs","17":"tag-multilateral-development-organizations","18":"tag-nato","19":"tag-the-hague"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}