Five ideas to make the upcoming NATO Summit in Ankara a success

By Atlantic Council experts
US President Donald Trump during the press conference at the NATO Summit in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 25, 2025. (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect)

Fewer than a hundred days remain until the 2026 NATO Summit in Ankara, Turkey, and allies’ attention is turning to perhaps the most important question: What will make the gathering a success?  

In part, this question reflects a sense of opportunity. Last year at The Hague, US President Donald Trump pressed allies to spend 5 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defense and defense-related expenditures by 2030. With the right agenda in Ankara, NATO could solidify and build on this achievement, further strengthening the world’s most powerful alliance in the years ahead. 

At the same time, a sense of unease is in the air. In the past week, Trump has criticized NATO allies for their reluctance to join the war against Iran and questioned the Alliance’s value to the United States. US officials are reportedly considering ways to punish some European allies.  

What would success in Ankara look like? While the summit is unlikely to produce anything as singularly significant as the 5 percent pledge, a package of agenda items could be assembled that together would mark a legacy-enhancing achievement and address several of the most pressing US concerns about the Alliance. Below, Atlantic Council experts share five ideas that could help make the upcoming NATO Summit a success.

1. Find constructive ways forward on Greenland and the Strait of Hormuz

Alliance unity has been challenged by two episodes in 2026. First, Trump’s proposal for the United States to take control of Greenland; and second, the reluctance of European allies to support US-Israeli strikes against Iran. The NATO Summit in Ankara in July could be a moment for European leaders to offer olive branch proposals on both of those issues to smooth over relations with the US president. This does not mean acquiescing to his demands; it means offering constructive proposals that would serve European allies’ own national interests while preserving allied unity. 

First, on Greenland. There is widespread acknowledgement that the Arctic has been a theater of geopolitical contestation that allies have neglected for too long. That vulnerability was part of the rationale for Trump’s insistence on acquiring the Danish territory. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s intervention at Davos was seen as one of the keys to diffusing the immediate tensions around Greenland in January. Shortly after, NATO announced the establishment of Arctic Sentry, a multi-domain activity intended to strengthen allied posture in the High North. 

So far, there have been few additional details on what Arctic Sentry will do in practice. The summit could be the moment to start putting flesh on the bones of this idea and announce concrete plans for Greenland-centered troop deployments, allied training exercises, and investments in Arctic capabilities, all under a NATO umbrella. This would show that Arctic Sentry is more than just a headline in response to the latest political crisis facing the Alliance. 

Second, on Iran. The Iranian weaponization of the chokepoint at the Strait of Hormuz has become the focus of Trump’s calls for increased allied involvement. There are nascent proposals by the United Kingdom and France to advance a multinational plan to safeguard international shipping when the conflict ends. 

Depending on the state of the conflict come July, at the summit, allies could agree to transition any such maritime security initiative escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz to a longer-term, (non-Article 5) NATO-led operation. Operational leadership would transfer to Allied Joint Force Command Naples, drawing on NATO standing maritime forces, including minesweeping capabilities, which is a relative strength of European allies. NATO leadership of this operation could provide greater political cover, both for the leading participating countries in alleviating the burden on them and for other countries that may be reluctant to join a specific Franco-British operation. It could also reassure markets that there is a long-term, institutionalized commitment to a permanent solution to this security issue.

Summit announcements on both these fronts should demonstrate to the White House that European allies are responsive to US concerns and taking operational responsibility for shared challenges. This would give Trump something he could claim as a win without compromising any ally’s own red lines on either issue.

—James J. Townsend Jr. is a senior advisor in the Scowcroft Center’s Transatlantic Security Initiative. He previously served as the US deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO Policy.

—Philippe Dickinson is a deputy director with the Transatlantic Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He previously served as a career diplomat with the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. 

2. Create a NATO Transition Planning Group

In Washington, DC, on April 9, Rutte called for a mindset shift to implement a historic rebalancing of the Alliance from an “unhealthy co-dependence to a healthy partnership.” One way to help guide this shift would be to create a “NATO Transition Planning Group” to coordinate national and industry efforts and to sustain the needed US capabilities in Europe during this transition. 

Several pieces of this rebalancing transition are already in development. The mindset shift is rapidly taking place in Europe. A new NATO defense plan instructs individual allied nations on what their wartime roles and responsibilities would be. NATO nations have pledged to spend 5 percent of their GDP on direct and indirect defense expenditures by 2030, which would enable the new defense plan and should be accelerated. Defense industries are expanding production accordingly, but without any central guidance. 

As Rutte noted in his speech at the Ronald Reagan Institute, there may be a precarious period between the mindset shift and full implementation of the new rebalanced defense posture. Many US contributions to allied defense are enablers, such as strategic lift, missile defenses, air refueling, operational intelligence, and satellite technology, which will take time to replace. Some should remain US contributions. But the United States is now considering withdrawing some of its troops deployed in Europe. If that happens without regard to the pace of the European buildup, critical gaps could significantly weaken NATO deterrence. 

The normal NATO defense planning process is too bureaucratic to handle this task, hence the need for a NATO Transition Planning Group with US, European, and Canadian participation. 

Without this level of leadership, the process could be slow, chaotic, duplicative, and dangerous. The Transition Planning Group would set realistic timetables for when the capabilities now dominated by the United States should transition to European responsibility. It would also help answer several important questions: Which of these enablers should remain a US responsibility? What should be the order of priorities? Which European nation or nations should take the lead for each transitioned function? How should European defense industries adjust? What does this mean for European defense procurement from the United States? How should the NATO command structure adjust? How might this impact where forces are deployed and who deploys them? 

Properly designed, this initiative would not accelerate US withdrawal from Europe. It would simply bring greater order to a process that is already underway. It might also set an agreed floor below which US deployments in Europe would not fall. 

Trump should see this initiative as progress toward his and Rutte’s goal to rebalance the Alliance.  

—Hans Binnendijk, PhD, is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former director of the Institute for National Security Studies at the National Defense University. He has served twice on the National Security Council staff. 

3. Press Western Europeans to step up in Central and Eastern Europe

In the realm of transatlantic burden-sharing, Western Europe’s contributions to NATO Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) in Central and Eastern Europe have long been sorely lacking in comparison to US contributions.  

EFP consists of eight NATO multinational battle groups deployed to Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. These battle groups, comprised of rotational forces, total some 25,000 personnel.  

Across this region of eight countries, the United States has deployed some 15,000 troops, with the highest concentration in Poland at 10,000. In all, well more than half of NATO’s reinforcement of this eastern frontier are Americans. Moreover, many elements of these multinational battle groups are from Central Europe and Eastern Europe. For example, Poland has elements in Latvia and Romania. Romania contributes forces to the battle group in Poland. Slovenia has deployed forces to Latvia. 

Some 68,000 US military personnel are permanently stationed in Europe. That force surged to around 100,000 personnel in 2022 in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Today, there are more than 80,000 US troops in Europe, with that increase over the base presence deployed predominantly to reinforce NATO’s eastern frontier, directly or indirectly.  

Clearly, if the United States is willing to deploy such forces across the Atlantic to defend NATO’s east, Western Europe can and should do more. Toward that end, NATO’s Western European member states should expand their military presence in each of the EFP countries to the equivalent of a fully operational combat brigade—a level that would match or exceed US deployments to the region. 

—Ian Brzezinski is a resident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, and he is a member of the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Advisors Group.

4. Showcase what “5 percent” looks like in practice—with a parade

Last summer’s agreement among allies to spend the equivalent of 5 percent of GDP on defense was precedent-setting. Instead of trying to replicate it or even top it, this year’s NATO Summit in Ankara ought to focus on implementation of that commitment, including a special emphasis on the US military equipment purchased by European allies. Doing so could do much to ensure the summit runs smoothly. 

The Alliance could accomplish an implementation update with charts, tables, and press releases. But this bookish approach lacks the impact and appeal of a far more tangible depiction of burden-shifting and capability development—namely, a parade of military hardware. And since Trump’s election in 2024, Europeans are buying a lot of it from the United States:  

A parade of military equipment through Ankara, followed by a static display of the same, could form a central part of what should in any case be a very short official summit program. Such a parade would send a deterrent signal to Russia and reassure allied publics. Just as importantly, a military parade of US kit through Ankara would allow Trump—who is known to enjoy such events—to see the results of his burden-shifting efforts, promote the US defense industry, and associate himself with a vivid display of US military strength. 

—John R. Deni, PhD, is a nonresident senior fellow with the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Previously, he worked for eight years as a political advisor for senior US military commanders in Europe.

5. Scale back NATO summitry

NATO held only eight heads of state and government summits during the entire Cold War, but since then these meetings have become annual events. They now dominate the NATO calendar and work at NATO headquarters, as members clamor for high-profile deliverables that they can present as political wins at home. While US President Bill Clinton was in office for a year before his first NATO Summit, recent presidents have had only a few months to prepare, and the range of issues has increased from the Cold War–era focus on Moscow.  

Trump’s first NATO Summit was in May 2017, and his first three summits were contentious events, dominated by his complaints about low allied defense spending. By the last NATO Summit of his first term, the agenda was simplified and the final communiqué was pared down to just nine paragraphs. During the Biden presidency, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine prompted two extraordinary meetings in addition to annual summits. With each meeting, the Alliance strained to show forward movement on support for Ukraine, even as the United States and some other allies blocked a clear path for Kyiv to NATO membership. With Trump’s return in 2025, the summit centered on his successful demand for 5 percent of GDP defense spending while dropping the 2024 agreement to present recommendations for a new strategic approach toward Russia. Members committed to this year’s Ankara summit along with a succeeding meeting in Albania at an unspecified date. 

This ambiguity raises the question of whether the Alliance should consider returning to less frequent summitry. The search for new “deliverables” is unlikely to satisfy Trump’s longstanding antipathy to the organization or provide greater strategic direction, particularly as members avoid such crucial but contentious issues as a new Russia strategy. Rather, members should get on with the task of fulfilling their pledges to increase their capabilities while continuing the tempo of NATO exercises and building out the eight battle groups along the eastern flank. Most of these efforts, as well as the need to adjust NATO regional plans and capability goals in light of battlefield experiences in Ukraine and Iran, can be addressed below the level of heads of state and government. Reducing high-profile summitry would allow NATO to get on with its business and dial down the drama that has marked many recent transatlantic encounters.  

—Phyllis Berry is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and the Transatlantic Security Initiative. She most recently served as the national intelligence officer for Europe at the National Intelligence Council from June 2021 to March 2025.