• Geopolitics
• Military
• NATO
• Russia
• Europe
• Ukraine
• C. Raja Mohan

To that end, and to cater to U.S. President Donald Trump’s aversion to long meetings, the heads of state and government will meet for only a single, two-and-a-half-hour session on June 25, rather than the usual multiple events over two or more days. With the United States and Europe increasingly divergent in their view of Russia and its war in Ukraine, those topics may be largely avoided as well. And allies are expected to hand Trump a coveted win: a pledge to spend at least 5 percent of GDP on defense and defense-relevant infrastructure, a key White House demand for the bloc.

Will that be enough to keep NATO together? And what happens afterwards, with U.S. military support for Europe—and against Russia—no longer certain? Foreign Policy asked nine experts for their views on what’s next for the alliance. Read on below for their responses, or click on a name for the individual author.—Stefan Theil, deputy editor

Is NATO Dead?

By Kori Schake, head of foreign and defense policy at the American Enterprise Institute

U.S. soldiers take part in a NATO exercise in Frecatei, Romania, on June 13. Daniel Mihailescu/AFP via Getty Images

Two months ago, I suggested that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte fake a heart attack and postpone next week’s summit in The Hague. I genuinely feared that the Trump team’s animus toward the United States’ closest friends had become so intense that it would lead to a disastrous meeting. The list of evidence, after all, is long: U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to abandon any ally that did not meet defense spending targets; called for the annexation of Canada and Greenland; humiliated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office; and constricted the provision of intelligence and weapons to Kyiv. The evidence further includes Vice President J.D. Vance’s nasty Munich speech, his explicit support for European political extremists, Washington’s hesitance to appoint a U.S. officer to command NATO, the administration’s refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and its parroting of actual Russian talking points. I feared that Trump might use the summit to announce the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Europe, which would be an open invitation for Russia to expand its sphere of influence and possibly attack a NATO ally.

But I underestimated a core strategic asset of the alliance: its ability to find ways to finesse deep disagreement among members. After all, this is the alliance that came up with the 1967 Harmel Report, which advocated both threatening the Soviet bloc through deterrence and reducing tensions through détente. It is also the alliance that took the 1979 Double-Track Decision to deploy new nuclear weapons while simultaneously advocating for their withdrawal. NATO members have been geniuses at finding ways for opposing things to be simultaneously true in order to accommodate the problems of the moment. And the problem of the moment is Washington threatening to abandon U.S. commitments when Europe fears that it cannot be secure without the United States.

Going into next week’s summit, NATO appear to have found a way to prevent the worst outcome, as they always have before. Trump will probably still announce U.S. troop reductions at the summit, but the headline news will be all 32 allies agreeing to increase defense spending to 5 percent of GDP. Reading the fine print, only 3.5 percent will go to weapons and troops; the remaining 1.5 percent will be for infrastructure. But infrastructure is both important and popular. And incidentally: For the United States to reach merely the new 3.5 percent target, it would require adding $380 billion to the annual U.S. defense budget.

So the NATO allies will sail these choppy waters and placate Trump demands while downplaying the new strategic risk that another U.S. troop reduction now injects. This is what good allies do. It’s also what free societies do, which is find compromises that keep governments voluntarily cooperating. Trump’s threats that the United States would not defend any NATO allies spending insufficiently on defense may yet prove a lethal blow to the bloc that has protected its members for more than 70 years. But as of now, NATO remains alive.

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Don’t Talk About Russia

By Angela Stent, author of Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a news conference at the Kremlin in Moscow on March 17. Yuri Kochetkov/AFP via Getty Images

The communique from the 2024 NATO summit in Washington condemned Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and clearly stated that “Russia remains the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security.” The allies also agreed to prepare a new Russia strategy for their next summit in 2025, to take account of the new security threats. After Donald Trump’s election, however, work on this new strategy was abandoned, because top NATO officials understood that it would now be impossible to reach consensus between Washington and Europe on how to deal with Russia.

Trump is determined to reset relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and achieve what none of his predecessors since 1991 have been able to do—create a productive relationship with the Kremlin. Unlike previous U.S. presidents, whether Republican or Democratic, Trump’s understanding of the drivers of world politics is similar to Putin’s: The world is divided into spheres of influence, each dominated by a great power with absolute sovereignty, while smaller powers only enjoy limited sovereignty. The negotiations on ending Russia’s war with Ukraine have faltered because Putin has no intention of ending the war any time soon. But the White House continues to seek better ties with the Kremlin regardless of whether or not Russian aggression continues.

During the upcoming truncated NATO summit, the main goal is to avoid any major trans-Atlantic blow-ups. There will only be one leaders’ meeting instead of the usual several. Russia and Ukraine will apparently hardly be a subject of discussion, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will not attend the main summit meeting.

Were Trump’s reset with Putin to succeed and the U.S isolation of Russia to end while the war continues, NATO would be seriously challenged. With the exception of a handful of NATO members such as Hungary and Slovakia, who argue for ending support for Ukraine and reengaging Russia, European NATO members remain united in their condemnation of Russia’s war and support for assisting Ukraine. They view Russia as a major threat to European security because of Putin’s determination to revise the post-Cold War settlement and reestablish Moscow’s dominance over both the former Soviet states and the former members of the Warsaw Pact. If the Trump administration were to end its military, economic, and intelligence support for Ukraine and fully reengage Russia, it would be the first time since NATO’s founding that European and U.S. threat perceptions about Russia have diverged so dramatically.

Going forward, then, the main challenge for NATO’s European members (and Canada and Turkey) will be devising an effective strategy for deterring future Russian aggression even if the most powerful member of the alliance disagrees that Russia has to be contained. NATO’s non-U.S. members have, in the past few months, demonstrated their determination both to spend more on defense and to take over more responsibility for defending Ukraine. Nevertheless, maintaining these commitments in the face of U.S. reluctance to punish Russia will remain an uphill struggle for at least the next three years.

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Europe Is Still Defenseless Without America

By Franz-Stefan Gady, associate fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies

Dutch soldiers simulate urban combat during a military exercise near Gardelegen, Germany, on April 9. Tamir Kalifa/Getty Images

Europe’s enduring dependency on U.S. military capabilities is not an accidental flaw but a fundamental feature of the trans-Atlantic security architecture. Since the inception of NATO in the late 1940s, the United States has served as the primary integrator—the strategic glue that sustains the cohesion of Europe’s collective defense. This U.S. role as NATO’s strategic, operational, and technological backbone has created a deep and intricate dependency, making European efforts to bolster their own defenses inherently limited unless this core support is addressed.

The debate over defense budgets, which will feature prominently at next week’s NATO summit, suggests that Europe can defend itself simply by recruiting more soldiers and accumulating aircraft, tanks, artillery, drones, and other hardware. However, counting troops and weapons is a flawed exercise. The real challenge is that Europe lacks the critical capabilities necessary for integrating and sustaining combat operations over a long time—the so-called “strategic enablers” that are almost entirely provided by the United States.

These enablers include intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, including satellites and radar; precision strike capabilities to hit high-value targets; long-range air defense systems to intercept and neutralize sophisticated threats; and robust infrastructure for command, control, and communications, which is vital for coordination and decision-making. What’s more, most of the European military leadership lacks extensive experience in commanding large ground formations, a skill that is critical for rapid deployment and operational effectiveness in crisis scenarios.

The list of military deficits goes on: European air forces are generally incapable of executing complex operations such as the suppression of enemy air defenses or deep strikes against high-value or hardened targets in the enemy’s rear, like we have seen Israel conduct in Iran. European navies, despite some recent improvements, remain limited in anti-submarine warfare, a crucial component when facing an adversary like Russia. The inability to conduct these missions underscores Europe’s reliance on U.S. assets and the gaps that need urgent addressing.

These deficiencies—compounded by an equally grave deficit of strategic seriousness and political will—were on stark display during the debate over a possible deployment of European ground forces to secure a hypothetical ceasefire in Ukraine. The inability of the countries involved in the discussions to collectively deploy even two or three mechanized brigades—each comprising roughly 3,000 to 5,000 troops—illustrates Europe’s systemic limitations, notwithstanding the large quantities of hardware and troops on the continent. These shortcomings directly undermine the credibility of NATO’s regional defense plans and deterrence, especially in the Baltic states, where larger NATO countries like Germany are expected to field credible forces capable of deterring Russian aggression.

If Europe cannot independently project and sustain forces without U.S. support, then the alliance’s deterrence is severely compromised as U.S. disengagement looks increasingly real. The next couple of years could, therefore, open up a phase of dangerous vulnerability. For European allies to ensure that they can field combat-capable forces if needed, it is absolutely essential that they accelerate investments—right now, not tomorrow—in precisely those critical enablers that have been largely provided by the United States.

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Europe’s Promises Are Not Enough

By Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former NATO secretary-general

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte speaks to journalists outside the White House in Washington on April 24. Win McNamee/Getty Images

Europe built its post-Cold War prosperity on cheap energy from Russia, cheap goods from China, and cheap security from the United States. As we know by now, that model no longer works.

As U.S. President Donald Trump seeks to reduce Washington’s role in European security, intelligence agencies are repeatedly telling us that Russia may be preparing to attack a NATO country by the end of this decade. Even as it continues to fight in Ukraine, Russia has lately been upgrading its military bases on the NATO frontier. Last year, Russia spent more on defense than all of Europe combined.

Against this backdrop, Europe’s longstanding intransigence on rearmament and military readiness is no longer just an embarrassment. It is an emergency.

At next week’s NATO summit, the allies will likely agree to increase their target for annual defense spending to 3.5 percent of GDP, with an additional 1.5 percent to be spent on infrastructure, cybersecurity, and other militarily relevant expenditures. Taken together, this will give Trump the win he sought when he demanded that the allies spend a minimum of 5 percent of their GDP on defense.

At face value, this increase could start to address some of Europe’s gaps in defense production and capabilities. The European allies must massively scale up their fragmented and underfunded defense industry. European militaries have an urgent need for traditional technologies like transport aircraft and long-range strike systems, and they must be retooled with new technologies like the drones, artificial intelligence systems, and space-based assets that have shaped the battlefield in Ukraine.

But promises are not enough. Last year—a full decade after NATO committed to spending at least 2 percent at my final summit as secretary general—only 23 of 32 allies met the threshold. Ten years from now, we must not look back at a European commitment to 3.5 percent as a hollow promise made just to mollify a volatile and transactional U.S. president.

Amid the inevitable odes to European solidarity and purpose in The Hague, I will be looking for clear and detailed plans: concrete spending schedules and lists of the new capabilities to be procured. Without them, NATO’s renewed resolve will count for little.

Dictators like Russian President Vladimir Putin respect only strength. Given the very real risk of being left alone by the United States, Europe must ensure that it is strong enough to deter Putin today—so that we do not need to fight him tomorrow.

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The German Question

By Liana Fix, fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Rutte take part in a press conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels on May 9. John Thys/AFP via Getty Images

European leaders are cautiously optimistic heading into the NATO summit in The Hague. In contrast to the Brussels summit in 2018, when first-time U.S. President Donald Trump berated Europeans over their meager defense spending, allies now have something to bring to the table: a plan to reach a minimum of 5 percent of GDP in defense spending, as Trump demanded, even if 1.5 percent may go to defense-relevant infrastructure, not necessarily their militaries.

European allies have finally recognized that to secure NATO’s future, a new trans-Atlantic deal on burden sharing is needed. European countries have to take on the lion’s share of NATO’s conventional defense.

Germany will play a major role in the success of the summit and this broader mission, because it is one of the few countries in the European Union with the fiscal flexibility to spend almost unlimited amounts on defense. New Chancellor Friedrich Merz has not only streamlined Berlin’s foreign-policy decision-making and reestablished good working relations with Paris, Warsaw, and London, he also appeared to have struck a constructive tone with Trump in the Oval Office, which should help at the summit. Even before he took office, Merz paved the way for a constitutional change to allow sharply higher defense spending.

But however much European intransigence on military spending was a cause of friction in NATO in the past, it is far from certain that these positive developments will be enough to contain Trump’s personal volatility and disruptive instincts. Rather than a gradual shift towards a greater European role in the alliance, we could just as easily see a sudden U.S. abandonment of the alliance (like Trump allegedly considered at the 2018 summit). Although U.S. officials have reassured Europeans that any U.S. troop withdrawals Trump may announce at the summit will not leave gaps in NATO’s deterrence and credibility, disagreements with Trump over Russia and Ukraine—or trade and tariffs—could escalate any time and result in unexpected U.S. decisions.

There is also a threat to NATO within Europe: Although European publics accept the need for greater defense spending, a new target of 5 percent of GDP, even if it is broadly defined, will require most European countries to make painful trade-offs, including cuts to social welfare. This will provide fertile ground for pro-Russian populists on the right and left to make a tempting offer to voters: If the U.S. might not come to Europe’s defense anyway, why spend all that money on the military instead of giving in to some of Moscow’s demands? The specter of appeasement looms.

In the worst-case scenario of U.S. abandonment, Germany would be particularly vulnerable to extreme strategic and political shifts. Eastern front-line states with experiences of Russian and Soviet occupation would resist even without NATO, and Britain and France have nuclear arsenals and a long, unbroken tradition as European great powers, which would lead them through any period of strategic upheaval. Germany’s post-1945 national identity, however, is intricately connected with the concept of the West under U.S. leadership. What would Germany’s role in Europe be when there is no longer a coherent West united in NATO? Right-wing populists like the anti-U.S. Alternative for Germany have an answer: They want to see a remilitarized Germany that is much closer to Russia. This is an outcome that not even Trump could want.

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How Russia Might Attack

By Fabian Hoffmann, research fellow at the Oslo Nuclear Project at the University of Oslo

Pedestrians walk past a market following a Russian missile attack in Kyiv on April 6. Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images

Every leader attending next week’s NATO summit should be perfectly clear on one thing: Russia is preparing for war with the alliance. Several NATO intelligence services have noted that Russia is not only replacing vast amounts of manpower and materiel lost in Ukraine but also stockpiling weapons, expanding its overall force, and upgrading and building military infrastructure near NATO’s eastern frontier. Although Russia may wait for its war in Ukraine to conclude in one fashion or another before opening a new front, it could also choose to act earlier.

Europe must therefore prepare for war—precisely to deter Russia from starting one in the first place. For many decades, NATO’s deterrence has worked, but two critical factors have changed. First, NATO’s military capabilities—particularly those of the European allies—are not commensurate with the growing threat the bloc faces. Russia is now operating under a fully mobilized war economy with a society that seems prepared to bear any costs imposed by its leadership, but Europe’s armed forces, defense industries, and societies are only beginning to respond. Second, NATO’s cohesion as an alliance has been fraying: Donald Trump’s verbal attacks on European allies have cast serious doubts about the credibility of U.S. security guarantees, and key Western European states have repeatedly demonstrated fear and hesitation in confronting Russia over Ukraine. All this pushes the perceived balance of resolve dangerously in Moscow’s favor.

Russia’s theory of victory likely involves an attack that aims to split or paralyze the alliance. One scenario is a ground attack on a small front-line NATO state, with Russia confident in its larger pool of readily available manpower and well aware of the casualty intolerance of Western societies. Russian planners assume that a combination of heavy Western front-line losses, deep missile strikes against NATO’s rear (including on critical civilian infrastructure), and escalating nuclear threats from the Kremlin would pressure Western policymakers and publics to seek a rapid settlement—on Moscow’s terms, of course—rather than endure a prolonged war.

How should NATO prepare?

First, support for Ukraine is key: As long as Russia is forced to use most of its resources on the war in Ukraine, an attack on NATO territory remains unlikely—even if it cannot be entirely ruled out.

Second, NATO must move toward a credible forward defense posture, which it still lacks. The most effective way to counter the type of short, high-intensity campaign that Russian decision-makers likely envision is to deny a Russian incursion at the border. A substantial increase in forward-deployed forces also requires European NATO states to finally shift their defense industries to a wartime footing.

Third, NATO must invest in a credible capability to counterstrike, making clear that any conventional missile attack on European critical infrastructure will be met in kind. NATO states must also signal unequivocally that, while they do not seek nuclear escalation, they will not yield to nuclear threats or the use of nuclear weapons—and back these words with capabilities. Given rising doubts over the U.S. nuclear umbrella, Europe’s nuclear-armed states must bolster the credibility of their nuclear deterrents.

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Front-Line States Prepare to Fight Alone

By Minna Alander, associate fellow at Chatham House

Finnish reservists take part in a military exercise at a shooting range in Helsinki on March 7, 2023. Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP via Getty Images

Given the uncertainty about future U.S. commitment to the trans-Atlantic alliance and Russia’s military buildup along NATO’s northeastern frontier, the Nordic countries, Baltic states, and Poland are preparing for the worst: potentially having to defend against Russia without U.S. support.

Over the past three years of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, these countries have not been sitting on their hands. Since the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, military cooperation—especially among the Nordic countries—has intensified to a level of integration rarely seen between sovereign states. At the same time, Poland has accelerated its military buildup to fend off a projected invasion, including plans to increase its forces to half a million active soldiers and reservists, bringing it close to Finland’s total reserve of 870,000.

The Nordic air forces are now operating together across the region. Estonia and Finland have intensified their naval cooperation to better respond to Russia’s intensified hybrid warfare in the Baltic Sea. While the alliance still struggles to deal with undersea cable cutting, GPS jamming, and other aggressive acts short of war, these countries are taking a more active stance, such as impounding Russian and Chinese ships suspected of sabotage.

This intensified regional cooperation comes on top of NATO efforts to set up new forward-positioned forces, such as a new Forward Land Force in northern Finland and the German armored brigade inaugurated in Lithuania last month.

At the same time, the front-line states are heavily supporting Ukraine. Four Nordic countries, the three Baltic states, and Poland comprise eight of the top nine donors of military and other aid by share of GDP. The Nordic countries are jointly procuring artillery ammunition and other equipment for Ukraine, and Copenhagen is leading the way in financing Ukraine’s domestic weapons production. Front-line countries are also surging their own ammunition production. Finland is turning into one of Europe’s largest ammunition producers securing capacity to support Ukraine into the 2030s. The Czech Republic is working on becoming the first European country to have a full artillery shell supply chain in Europe.

NATO’s most exposed members are also ahead of the rest of Europe in terms of investing in their own defense, one of the main topics at next week’s summit. Poland is on track to spend close to 5 percent of its GDP on defense this year. All three Baltic states have committed to reaching that threshold by 2026. Denmark has doubled its military budget since 2022, and Sweden has lifted its strict debt rules to generate an additional $31 billion for defense.

While the front-line states will want to avoid a decisive rift in the alliance that might invite Russian adventurism, they are making sure that they are ready—with or without the United States at their side.

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Moscow Is Already Testing NATO

By Gabrielius Landsbergis, former Lithuanian foreign minister

A Russian border marker stands behind barbed wire on the border between Lithuania and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad near Vistytis, Lithuania, on Oct. 28, 2022.Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Not all that long ago, conventional wisdom held that it would be suicide for Russia to attack NATO. Today, the Kremlin knows perfectly well that Europe lacks sufficient air defense, tanks, and artillery to fight a sustained war—and that it will take many years and substantial funding for Europe to rearm as much as it needs to. Add in the uncertainty over whether the United States will come to the aid of an ally attacked by Russia, and Europe faces its most dangerous phase in many decades.

Russia may not even need to test NATO’s capabilities in a conventional war. What if, as Sun Tzu advised, Russia is already trying to “win first and then go to war”? Moscow has normalized the idea that shadowy attacks are just part of life in Europe. Ten years ago, a single incident—like the Skripal poisoning—caused a major uproar and led to the expulsion of Russian diplomats across the West. Today, when an undersea cable is cut, civilian airliners are jammed, or explosives almost made it onto a German cargo plane, the incident is met with a weary sigh: It’s happening again.

Russia might indeed dare to test NATO further—not with tanks, but with a so-called hybrid operation from Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave tucked between Poland and Lithuania. For context, that’s the same Kaliningrad that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently drew a blank on when questioned in Congress.

Imagine a train traveling from Kaliningrad to Moscow through Lithuania. It malfunctions. Passengers are stranded in what Russians consider a hostile country. Russian police from Kaliningrad enter Lithuania to “assist.” Then a few soldiers join them. Then more. And suddenly, part of Lithuania is no longer under the country’s control.

Yes, a NATO member like Lithuania can invoke Article 5 at any time. But it’s never clear how allies will react. What happens during a fake rescue mission like the plausible scenario I just described? What would the United States do if its president appears to listen to the Russian leader more than his own allies? What would Europe do, as it’s still five to 10 years away from being ready to act without Washington? Would there be a response at all, or would the Western alliance dissolve with little more than a whimper?

An enemy rarely attacks in the way its victims prepare for. It strikes when and where its opponents are weakest, least prepared, and least expecting it. That’s why Europe’s preparations must be turbocharged now, not slowly phased in as they have been, inexplicably, since the start of Russia’s latest invasion. Anything else is wildly irresponsible and will get us closer to war.

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Post-NATO Europe Should Turn to Asia

By C. Raja Mohan, columnist at Foreign Policy and visiting research professor at the National University of Singapore

NATO forces led by Romania take part in a multinational military exercise in the Black Sea on on April 8.Andrei Pungovschi/Getty Images

As Washington’s long-standing alliances take a back seat in Trump’s world, there is a strong incentive for U.S. allies in Europe and Asia to do more with each other. Until now, the United States was expected to have two different approaches to its alliances in Europe and Asia, focusing U.S. military energies on Asia and pushing Europe to relieve Washington’s burden on the old continent. While there might be a section of the Trump coalition that articulates this approach, the president has been consistent in signaling his skepticism of alliances, period. His focus on trade above all else has great consequences for allies and partners, mainly in Asia, that are deeply tied to U.S. market access. Trump’s emphasis on slashing U.S. burdens abroad will also hit Asian allies hard. They are staring at a far greater military asymmetry with China than Europe’s with Russia.

On top of that, Trump has made no secret of his desire for grand geopolitical bargains with Russia and China. At the G-7 summit that ended on June 17, Trump reiterated his desire to bring Russia back into the group and expressed support for the idea of China joining as well. Whether or not Trump moves decisively towards strategic retrenchment from Europe and Asia and settles for regional hegemony in the Western Hemisphere, there is more than enough uncertainty in U.S. policies for America’s Eurasian allies to come together for greater security cooperation across their shared region.

The Biden administration built on the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to bring European powers into the Indo-Pacific framework. These efforts emphasized the importance of seeing the European and Asian theaters as an interconnected geopolitical space and called on Europeans to contribute to Asian security and vice versa. The presence of the so-called AP4—Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea—at the last three NATO summits is part of that initiative, and leaders of all four countries will hopefully show up at the summit in The Hague. Beyond the AP4, India has also been turning to Europe as insurance against U.S. unpredictability and Russia’s deepening ties with China. It is building out from its traditional security ties with France to widen the circle of defense cooperation in Europe, both bilaterally as well as collectively with the European Union.

It is reasonable to see this as a return to normal—the dynamic interaction, both negative and positive, between Europe and Asia that shaped the Eurasian and global order for over four centuries. The two world wars resulted in the United States become the dominant security actor in both Europe and Asia. Rather than wring their hands at Washington’s departure, Europe and Asia should join arms to stabilize the Eurasian balance of power. Some of those conversations could start in The Hague.

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