Written by Ed Arnold
The Ankara Summit has both exposed the fragility of NATO and underlined the residual strength of the Alliance.
NATO’s big budget annual summitry is risky. They put artificial pressure on allies to announce novel initiatives and deliverables. In the current transatlantic climate, they also provide the US a pulpit to pressure allies on defence spending and to give unconditional support for US interests.
The 2026 Ankara summit showed that Europeans are not only spending more but are collectively becoming more accepting of the new terms of transatlantic security. Unlike the past few summits, Ukraine was the big winner, securing €70bn in further support this year and the next (most of this sum had already been committed), and a possible licence to domestically produce Patriot air defence interceptors, demonstrating that strength on the ground can directly translate to strength at the negotiating tables. This is exactly what Europe wanted, and the continent is now providing most of the support to Ukraine rather than the US. A smorgasbord of new initiatives on defence industrial cooperation was effective in corralling allies around a unifying topic to paper over internal alliance divisions but also gave US industry some wins which will help gradual burden shifting within the alliance.
This summit allowed European allies to directly address the inherent paradox at the heart of European security. Since the Second World War, the US has wanted Europeans to do more for their own security, while also wanting to retain strategic control and oversight, which has frustrated European attempts to develop independent strategic and geopolitical ambitions. Meanwhile, Europeans have disagreed about these ambitions amid concerns that by stepping up on security, they could risk precipitating US disengagement and reprioritisation away from Europe, making the continent less safe. Under the second Trump administration, this reprioritisation is in full swing, and it is enabling Europeans to make hard choices.
Unavoidable strategic realities
Since the 2022 Russian large-scale invasion of Ukraine, NATO has used its annual summits to build unity, support Ukraine and gradually apply political and economic costs on Russia, all while managing escalation risks. Since the return of Trump, they have been consumed by internal crisis management, as seen at the July 2025 summit in The Hague where allies capitulated to US demands to spend a total of 5% of GDP on defence and security-related spending by 2035. Over the past year, the situation has got worse.
Trump’s repeated threats to absorb Greenland – and Canada – into the US were a point of no return for the Alliance. NATO was founded, in part, to eliminate intra-Alliance conflict and any major diplomatic or military engagement over Greenland would end NATO as we know it. In Ankara, Trump repeated his comments on Greenland, prompting the Danish Prime Minister Metter Frederiksen to say that her country was ‘ready to defend every inch of NATO including our own territory’.
Furthermore, the US-Israeli War against Iran has opened another front in global great power competition with profound consequences for European security. Politically, Trump has interpreted a lack of enthusiastic support for his war from European leaders as a personal affront and wants to punish non-compliance. Militarily, Operation Epic Fury has used up a significant proportion of US precision strike munitions, and the opening salvos of the war burned through approximately 40% of the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor stockpile in under a fortnight, alongside Patriot air defence systems which are in use by European allies and Ukraine, with European orders gradually slipping down the list. It could take years for the US to rebuild stockpiles to the levels to deter China from its designs on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific. This gives a new impetus and need for Europeans to develop their own deep strike and air defence capabilities, for which there was significant progress at the summit.
While these very public crises have dominated, the US has been quietly assessing its future footprint in Europe. Only 5 weeks before the Ankara summit, the US confirmed that it would be immediately redeploying a significant force package of assets from Europe, including one third of its fighter jets, heavy bombers, a carrier strike group and submarine escort. Most notably, the decision to no longer deploy the US Army’s Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF) to Germany has created a long-range strike gap in Europe, denuding Europe’s deterrence posture. Moreover, at the 18 June Defence Ministerial, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth explained that the review would continue for a further six months and would be directly influenced by allied spending plans. It is inescapable that NATO is shifting from an alliance built on values to one driven by interests. With this, alliance cohesion could become a fundamental problem.
Europe’s Plan B
NATO assesses that Russia could invade alliance territory by 2030, with some more pessimistic assessments warning as early as 2028. Therefore, Europeans must consider what can realistically be achieved in the next two years as a planning guideline - and the US has already provided the incentive and a framework.
In February 2026, US Under Secretary of War for Policy, Elbridge Colby, outlined ‘NATO 3.0’ - a strategic doctrine which called for European allies to assume primary responsibility for their own conventional deterrence and defence as the US continues to pivot to the Indo-Pacific. He described the Alliance throughout the Cold War as ‘NATO 1.0’, which demonstrated ‘a hard-nosed, realistic, clear-eyed approach to deterrence and defense’ that successfully vanquished the Soviet Union. He argued that the post-Cold War ‘NATO 2.0’, characterised by out-of-area operations, the peace dividend and the onset of a ‘liberal internationalist mindset’, has failed. Indeed, the world’s most successful military alliance has a poor record of military performance. Operations in Afghanistan, Libya and the military training mission in were failures, and stabilisation successes in Bosnia and Kosovo were only delivered after the worst of the killing had already occurred. Therefore, the change in US policy presents an unmissable opportunity for NATO to go back to basics and redefine itself for an uncertain future.
Actually, ‘NATO 3.0’ could look more like a ‘NATO 1.5’, marrying the determination of the Cold War with the strategic advantages such as new members, geographies, capabilities and doctrine that are now available. In doing so, NATO should prioritise four areas. First, creating alternate decision-making structures that can operate when the US is disengaged. Second, developing a ‘European way of war’ which can execute the three NATO regional Plans with little to no US assistance. Third, signalling to Moscow that Europe is ready for war through enhanced resilience. Fourth, respond to Russian hybrid aggressions in each domain more decisively. Developing NATO 1.5 will require a sea change in European leadership and the UK must deliver on its promise to step up.
What is the role of the UK?
The 2024 NATO Washington summit was Sir Keir Starmer’s first international engagement as Prime Minister. The 2026 Ankara summit was his last. Indeed, the run-up to Ankara could hardly have been worse for the UK with the Prime Minister, Defence Secretary and Minister for the Armed Forces all resigning, over or linked to the delayed Defence Investment Plan (DIP). It now looks certain that Andy Burnham will become Prime Minister by 20th July. With little national security and foreign policy experience what should his priorities be?
First, continuity. The UK has had seven Prime Ministers over the last decade, and given the growing bleakness of global geopolitics, wholesale changes should be avoided, and the temptation to instigate further reviews discouraged. The UK can make better use of what already exists rather than reinventing the wheel. Where Prime Ministerial focus is most needed is to pick up the ‘national conversation’ on defence that Sir Keir wanted but never started. John Healey’s resignation as Defence Secretary elevated the challenges of defending Britain to the national level and it should be the positive catalyst for instigating an honest conversation with the country over the brewing debate between ‘welfare and warfare’.
Second, spending. The DIP was supposed to put the challenge of UK defence spending to bed. Instead, it has placed intense scrutiny on the next Spending Review (SR) due in 2027 and deferred all the hard decisions for the next Parliament – and next Prime Minister. Of the £15bn extra for defence under the DIP, £4.7bn is currently uncosted and it relies on a total of £10.7bn in ‘efficiency savings’ over four years. For context, the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review also required £11bn of efficiencies across defence and the UK Intelligence Communities which was described by a former Chief of the Defence Staff as ‘collective self-delusion’. The 2019 National Audit Office report into the MOD calculated a £7bn black hole.
For Alliance credibility, the new Prime Minister must set out a realistic and costed path to 3% and then 3.5%. In the new Secretary of State’s foreword to the DIP, he stated that ‘The UK made a commitment to its allies to reach 3.5% of GDP on defence spending by 2035, and that promise will be met’. However, the Institute for Fiscal Studies assess that an additional £25 bn per year (2025 costings) – or circa a 600% increase on the DIP settlement - will be needed to meet the NATO 3.5% of GDP by 2035 goal and concludes that defence spending will ‘likely remain one of the biggest fiscal pressures facing the UK in the medium term’. Given that it took a whole one year for Starmer’s government to find less that a sixth for the DIP of what would be required each year under the next Parliament, the next government must look seriously at extraordinary options with examples like ‘war bonds’ or the Defence Security and Resilience Bank being actively explored. However, time is running out to translate intent into action.
Britain is not unique and allies face the same strategic and fiscal pressures. They are also having to have tougher national conversations. In the wake of Russia’s 2022 large-scale invasion of Ukraine, the German Bundestag voted for historic constitutional amendments to its national fiscal rules, reforming the ‘debt brake’ in its Basic Law to invest in defence, infrastructure and climate policies, allowing an exemption to exceed 1% of GDP from borrowing limits and creating a €500bn investment fund for infrastructure. This year Germany will spend approximately €86 bn on defence and by 2029 it will increase to €152 bn (the UK will increase from £60bn to £80bn in the same time frame). In contrast, the current Chancellor has been hesitant to touch the Labour Party’s own 2024 ‘non-negotiable’ fiscal rules – despite exemptions existing for capital investment – which could not be said to be more sacrosanct than Germany’s post-war Constitution. These self-imposed rules could be adapted if the new Prime Minister leans into a national conversation on defence and is willing to change the narrative and be more honest about how dangerous the world is.
Third, reinforce a NATO First strategy. The DIP reinforced the desire for ‘stepping up UK leadership’ but it has been held back in the previous year as allies waited for reassurance and clarity. A recently leaked NATO league table ranked the UK 31st of 32 on meeting agreed capability targets. Iceland – a country with a population of just 400,000 and no military - will always be last. Without substantial increases in defence expenditure, the UK must reduce its ambition and create better strategic alignment with NATO. The UK now commands Joint Forces Command Norfolk where NATO’s Regional Plan North West will be executed, is a regional heavyweight in the Arctic and High North through the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), and the north is where the direct nuclear, conventional and hybrid threats to the UK homeland originate. Specialising in the north – even at the expense of other regional theatres – best aligns UK capability to what NATO needs. Furthermore, the UK must become more comfortable of talking about nuclear. The largest capability spend profile within the DIP is the £63.6 bn investment in the Defence Nuclear Enterprise to maintain and modernise the British strategic nuclear deterrent. It is the only nuclear system assigned to the defence of NATO and is a capability that allies cannot financially or legally afford to develop. It deters Russia each and every day and is vital to keeping Europe safe.
As Burham missed the Ankara summit, and the 2027 Tirana summit might be cancelled due to US frustrations, the UK should look to host a major NATO meeting within his first year as PM. Moreover, he and his Defence and Foreign secretaries (once appointed) should reconfirm the prioritisation of bilateral relationships and ensure that engagements happen quickly.
Fourth, enhance regionalisation. Burham’s first policy speech since returning as an MP majored on regionalisation and devolution as a political philosophy. This has a direct correlation to defence and the DIP expanded on the establishment of five ‘Defence Growth Deals’ in South Yorkshire, Plymouth, Scotland, Wales and Northern Island. New military capabilities will offer new production possibilities and regional growth that is seen as a real benefit by local communities. In addition, federating the defence industrial base will increase capacity and resilience.
Time constraints
With NATO assessing war with Russia could happen in 2030 plans to enhance defences in all domains must be expedited. It is therefore vitally important that the next UK government hits the ground running and prioritises delivery on the myriad promises already made. UK credibility within NATO depends on it.
Image credit: Dragoș Asaftei - stock.adobe.com
