Disaster was avoided again at this year’s NATO Summit in Ankara, where Allies gathered last week to deliver on the commitments made a year earlier in The Hague. Despite US President Donald Trump’s declared dissatisfaction with several NATO Allies, particularly Spain, and his suggestion that he might have skipped the Summit had it been held elsewhere, the meeting of Heads of State and Government concluded without any major setbacks. 

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte went out of his way to show President Trump that Europe is taking much more responsibility for its conventional defence. While the United States remains indispensable to European security through its nuclear deterrent and conventional presence, Ankara reflected a NATO in transition, one in which Europe is becoming a stronger partner rather than merely a beneficiary of American protection. Rutte credited Trump with helping 'equalise' defence spending between Europe and the US, something successive American administrations had sought ever since the Eisenhower era. Indeed, only a year after Allies agreed to a new 5% defence spending target to be reached by 2035, Rutte announced that European Allies and Canada are already investing around 4% on core defence spending and defence-related spending combined, with an additional $258 billion spent in 2025 and 2026. 

However, the significance of Ankara was not only financial. The Alliance is moving beyond spending commitments towards building the industrial capacity required to sustain deterrence over the long term. Last year alone, $37 billion was invested in boosting the defence industrial base. At the Defence Industry Forum, Allies highlighted this shift through the release of NATO’s first consolidated, unclassified, aggregated demand signal, outlining key innovation priorities and capability requirements for the coming years. Several high-visibility projects were also announced, including the Hybrid Alliance Layered Operations in Space (HALO) project, involving eight Allies in the development of a mega-constellation of satellites for high-speed communication, intelligence and missile tracking, as well as the Ground-Based Precision Strike Capabilities (GBPSC) project, through which six Allies will seek to deliver low-cost long-range strike capabilities at scale.

The Summit’s most important achievement was, however, the reaffirmation of the Allies’ commitment to collective defence. The Ankara Summit Declaration clearly states in its very first paragraph ‘We, the Heads of State and Government of the North Atlantic Alliance, have gathered in Ankara to reaffirm our ironclad commitment to our collective defence under Article 5 of the Washington Treaty and to the transatlantic bond. An attack on one is an attack on all.’ This reaffirmation matters because the credibility of Article 5 depends not only on military capabilities, but also on the political certainty that Allies will come to each other’s defence. 

Article 5 NAT has been the bedrock of European security for almost eight decades, but President Trump has repeatedly questioned the US commitment to this collective defence clause, including by raising the possibility of a US withdrawal from NATO and suggesting that the US could seek control of Greenland, a territory belonging to a fellow NATO Ally. This has prompted renewed questions about the credibility of America’s commitment to collective defence. As pointed out by John Deni, this reaffirmation on paper might not be enough to reassure all Allies, but its inclusion in the declaration was politically significant, particularly amid Trump’s remarks on Greenland during the Summit. The language was intended to reinforce deterrence by signalling to Russia and other potential adversaries that divisions within the Alliance would not undermine its collective response. To reinforce this message, on Monday, Allies also issued a statement condemning Russia’s malicious cyber activities, targeting Allies and Ukraine, reaffirming NATO’s readiness to employ the full range of capabilities to deter, defend against and counter cyber threats. 

Another important aspect of the Summit was the confirmation from NATO Secretary General and Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, that Europe’s era of outsourcing much of its defence is over. As a result, a new division of labour is emerging between NATO and the EU, where NATO focuses on command and control, capabilities, and standards, while the EU provides many of the financial and industrial tools required to support defence, including funding, military mobility initiatives, resilience and defence industrial development. However, despite ongoing work on a new European Security Strategy, as well as on a blueprint for a possible invocation of the EU’s mutual assistance clause, Article 42(7) TEU, no clarification was made on how the latter would interact with Article 5 NAT. The emerging bargain is, therefore, not a Europe independent from US, but a Europe capable of contributing more effectively within a stronger transatlantic partnership.

Ukraine secured one of the Summit’s most tangible outcomes. President Trump announced that the US will grant Ukraine a license to produce Patriot interceptor missiles, potentially strengthening Kyiv’s ability to defend itself against Russia’s ballistic missile attacks. This followed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s repeated calls for greater access to air defence capabilities, warning that Europe needed affordable, mass-produced anti-ballistic systems and that waiting until 2030 was not an option. A few days later, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that Ukraine has been granted license to produce cruise missiles, glide bombs, and air defence interceptors. In addition, Allies announced a $70 billion military assistance package for Ukraine and launched a new Drone Edge initiative, which aims to invest $40 billion in counter-drone capabilities over the next five years. And on Ukrainian Statehood Day, President Zelenskyy also signed an agreement – the Drone Deal – with von der Leyen to boost joint drone and counter-drone production.

Ukraine was not the only country to emerge strengthened from the Summit. Its host nation, Türkiye, also secured important gains, underlining its continued strategic value for the Alliance. President Trump announced that Washington would lift sanctions imposed since Türkiye’s acquisition of the Russian S-400 system in 2019 and move towards the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Ankara. For Türkiye this represented a significant diplomatic and defence-industrial breakthrough after years of strained relations with Washington. 

To conclude, the Ankara Summit succeeded not because it transformed NATO, but because it prevented existing political tensions from escalating into an institutional crisis. That outcome owed much to Secretary General Mark Rutte's ability to broker consensus among Allies at a politically fraught moment. It demonstrated both the Alliance's resilience and the continuing importance of the Secretary General's office in preserving Allied unity. With uncertainty surrounding when Allied leaders will meet again at Summit level, the significance of the Ankara Summit may prove even greater in hindsight.

NATO lives to see another day – not because internal challenges have disappeared, but because once again it has proven capable of managing them.