The NATO summit held in Ankara, Turkey, revealed that the alliance is "not in a great state" but could be in worse shape, according to Ivo Daalder, who served as U.S. ambassador to NATO during the Obama administration and now serves as a senior fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Speaking with PBS NewsHour's Geoff Bennett, Daalder said that while President Trump left the summit claiming unity among allies, the gathering was more focused on preventing catastrophic outcomes than achieving substantive progress. "The 32 leaders came with their large entourages to Ankara, and all they tried to do is make sure that nothing bad happened, that nothing would blow up, that we could manage the president of the United States in a way that he wouldn't withdraw from NATO or do anything else that would undermine NATO," Daalder said. "And, in that, they succeeded."
What the Right Is Saying
Conservative Republicans argue that President Trump's approach to NATO has produced tangible results that previous administrations failed to achieve. They point to significant increases in European defense spending as evidence that his pressure tactics are working.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said at a hearing earlier this year that "for too long, European allies have relied on American taxpayer-funded security guarantees while failing to meet their own defense commitments." He credited the Trump administration with creating "the most significant shift in allied defense spending we have seen in decades."
Conservative commentators have echoed these views. The Heritage Foundation's defense policy team wrote that NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte was right to give Trump credit for increased European spending, calling it a necessary correction to decades of perceived free-riding by allies who benefited from U.S. military protection without proportionate contributions.
What the Left Is Saying
Progressive Democrats and their allies have long argued that NATO's strength depends on consistent American leadership and multilateral cooperation rather than transactional pressure tactics. They point to decades of alliance-building under both Democratic and Republican administrations as foundational to transatlantic security.
Critics from this perspective warn that viewing NATO through a bilateral trade lens undermines the collective defense principle enshrined in Article 5, which holds that an attack on one member is an attack on all. House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gregory Meeks said in a statement earlier this year that "NATO is not a business partnership where we demand profit margins from our closest allies."
Human rights organizations aligned with progressive causes note that the summit's agenda was dominated by internal alliance management rather than addressing authoritarian threats. The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank with generally center-left leanings, has argued that U.S. credibility as an alliance leader depends on consistent engagement across administrations.
What the Numbers Show
According to NATO's own statistics, 23 of the 32 alliance members now meet the organization's target of spending at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense, up from just three countries meeting that threshold in 2014. Germany has announced plans to increase its defense budget by approximately $26 billion over the next several years.
Poland leads NATO members with defense spending estimated at around 4 percent of GDP, while Estonia and Latvia also exceed the 3 percent mark. The United States continues to account for roughly 70 percent of total NATO defense spending, a share that has declined modestly as European contributions have risen.
Russia's defense budget has grown significantly since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with independent estimates placing current military spending at approximately $140 billion annually, representing nearly 7 percent of Russian GDP. This war economy produces large numbers of weapons and capabilities that Western intelligence officials say pose threats beyond Ukraine.
The Bottom Line
The Ankara summit demonstrated both the resilience and fragility of NATO's cohesion under pressure from an American president who has repeatedly questioned the alliance's value. While European allies successfully managed to prevent a breakdown in relations, critics on multiple sides argue the meeting failed to address substantive security challenges.
Daalder suggested that Europe's best path forward involves using the coming years to translate increased defense spending into actual military capabilities, creating a window of vulnerability he described as "two to three years" during which the continent could be exposed if U.S. commitment wavers. He warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin may see opportunities to exploit divisions within NATO by taking actions designed to test alliance unity.
The next scheduled summit, tentatively planned for 2027, remains uncertain after leaders declined to confirm whether it would proceed as scheduled.