The annual NATO Summit has just concluded in Ankara, Türkiye. Following one year of the Trump administration in full swing, the 2026 Summit has attracted considerable attention from policymakers and scholars seeking to understand what has become of the longest-standing and arguably most successful military alliance in history. While the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague marked a decisive break with the Alliance's previous trajectory, this blog examines the three principal dimensions of continuity and discontinuity between the Ankara and The Hague summit.

In continuity with the 2025 Summit, the Ankara meeting confirmed a more narrowly focused Alliance, reflected in the final communiqué, which comprises only six clauses—a stark contrast with the nearly forty-point declaration adopted at the 2024 Washington Summit, which now appears a relic of a different era. First, Article 5, enshrining NATO's core principle of collective defence—an attack against one is an attack against all—remains the Alliance's defining mission. At the same time, NATO appears to have definitively abandoned the expeditionary posture that had been exemplified by its previous operations in Serbia, Libya, and Iraq. The Alliance's near silence regarding the US Epic Fury operation against Iran, apart from brief references to ‘nuclear weapon[s]’ and ‘freedom of navigation’ in the communiqué, provides compelling evidence of this strategic retrenchment. 

Second, collective defence has increasingly been framed as an economic subject, reflecting the (mistaken) logic that greater defence spending translates into greater security. Certainly, the Ankara Summit represented a notable shift from ‘planning’ to ‘delivery’. Progress since 2024 has been staggering: NATO members invested an additional $139 billion in defence during 2025, with a further $250 billion expected in 2026. Allies now spend an average of 2.31% of GDP on core defence expenditure and 3.76% when broader security-related investments are included, moving closer to the Alliance's 5% target under an accelerated timetable. The Summit also unveiled an unprecedented series of initiatives, including the €40 billion NATO Drone Edge programme—designed to train five times as many drone operators by 2027—as well as NATO Front Door for Industry and NATO Engine, both intended to strengthen transatlantic defence industrial cooperation. Notably, NATO's aggregate annual ammunition production capacity is expected to reach four million rounds by the end of 2026. 

Third, the US and President Trump dominated the political agenda. From his declaration that the agreement with Iran was ‘over’ after describing the country as ‘scum’ and ‘sick’, to his criticism of Spain as a ‘terrible partner’, accusations that European allies remain ‘unwilling’ to shoulder Epic Fury in Iran, and renewed claims that Greenland ‘should be controlled by the US, not Denmark’, Trump's remarks rapidly overshadowed the Summit's official outcomes. Nevertheless, his administration has arguably achieved what once appeared politically impossible: equalising the transatlantic burden-sharing while simultaneously redirecting a significant share of increased European defence spending towards the US defence industry, reportedly generating more than 200,000 new jobs and stimulating the construction of several new production facilities to meet European demand.

In discontinuity with the 2025 Summit, however, the Ankara meeting reintroduced two marginalised issues while also signalling an important new development. First, Ukraine returned to the centre of NATO's agenda. Unlike the largely rhetorical support expressed in 2025, the Ankara communiqué formalises a €70 billion package of military equipment, assistance, and training covering both 2026 and 2027, thereby providing greater predictability as battlefield conditions have increasingly shifted in Ukraine's favour. The US has also adopted a more supportive position, with President Trump endorsing the domestic production of Patriot air-defence missiles in Ukraine, supporting enhanced air-defence guarantees as part of future post-war security guarantees, and expressing interest in purchasing Ukrainian-produced drones. Nevertheless, these developments should not be overstated. The €70 billion commitment does not consist entirely of new fresh funding, as it incorporates the €28.3 billion already provided by EU Member States through the Ukraine Support Loan—meaning that approximately 40% of the pledge had effectively already been committed. Equally notable was the radio silence on Ukraine's accession to NATO: both the communiqué and the leaders' statements avoided any reference to membership, despite Ukraine possessing Europe's most capable armed forces. 

Second, EU-NATO cooperation gained renewed prominence. The EU has become the indispensable vehicle through which Europe's strengthened role within NATO is being realised. This process is underpinned by the ReArm Europe Plan—which foresees up to €800 billion in defence investment by 2028, including the €150 billion Security Action for Europe (SAFE) instrument for joint procurement—alongside the forthcoming Multiannual Financial Framework—which is expected to allocate almost €150 billion to military capabilities and military mobility. 

Finally, the Ankara Summit signals the embryonic emergence of a more distinctly European NATO, sustained increasingly by European financial resources and conventional military capabilities. European allies have accepted greater responsibility for NATO's conventional deterrence while the US continues to provide its indispensable nuclear umbrella. Likewise, European governments have assumed a larger share of responsibility for supporting Ukraine, notably through the procurement of US-produced weapons transferred under the PURL programme.

The 2026 Summit therefore marks the emergence of a ‘NATO 3.0’ The Alliance has demonstrated remarkable resilience in weathering President Trump's confrontational rhetoric, thanks in no small part to the Secretary General's conciliatory leadership and Europe's effort to rearm and rebalance transatlantic burden-sharing. Yet, when viewed from the broader perspective of transatlantic security, the transformation of NATO inevitably raises the question of the price at which this adaptation has occurred.

Despite the progress achieved in Ankara, the Alliance remains mired in a profound strategic crisis. Its military credibility as a deterrent appears irremediably broken, while transatlantic political unity resembles a vestige of the past. This deterioration is driven by two mutually reinforcing existential challenges.

Internally, NATO's principal guarantor—the United States—has adopted an increasingly confrontational posture towards its European and Canadian allies while simultaneously employing markedly more conciliatory rhetoric towards both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Externally, NATO's principal long-term threat, Russia, continues its illegal war of aggression against Ukraine, intensifying attacks on civilian infrastructure while simultaneously conducting persistent hybrid operations against Eastern European NATO members to test the Alliance's cohesion and resolve. These internal and external challenges, which are existential for the future of NATO, remained unresolved as the 2026 Summit came to an end.