Ankara may have been the last NATO Summit for a while—and the allies made the most of it. Following NATO’s monumental agreement on defense spending last year at The Hague, expectations were modest for this year’s gathering, amid transatlantic tensions over Greenland, Iran, and European spending pledges. But before world leaders jetted off Wednesday, they agreed to a short communiqué (that notably did not commit to a summit next year), made progress on Alliance priorities, and created a few surprises and controversies along the way.
Below, Atlantic Council experts break down eleven outcomes from the gathering.
Scroll and click to jump to a takeaway
1.
European allies showed progress toward 5 percent
Driven by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s agenda, allied leaders arrived in Ankara ready to show the real progress they have made on defense spending since The Hague summit a year ago, when they agreed to commit 5 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) to defense and defense-related spending by 2035. Pre-summit, Rutte had not been subtle in how he framed this and who he hoped to persuade, pitching additional European defense spending since US President Donald Trump first came to office as the “Trump trillion.” Last year alone, European and Canadian spending increased by 20 percent.
Translating budget increases into real, front-line capabilities takes time, and Rutte was at pains to explain that systems can’t immediately absorb new funds. But he knows that this argument has a shelf life. Through his focus on the Defence Industry Forum, Rutte highlighted how defense dollars are translating to defense deals. The deals announced in Ankara (see below) are a strong start, but Rutte will know that momentum needs to be maintained.
In this way, we are witnessing the development of a stronger Europe in a weaker NATO—a stronger Europe due to the progress Europeans are making in boosting their own defenses, and a weaker NATO due to the lack of clear commitment and leadership from the United States.
—Torrey Taussig is the director of, and a senior fellow at, the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. She previously served as director for European affairs on the White House National Security Council.
—Philippe Dickinson is a deputy director with the Transatlantic Security Initiative. He previously served as a career diplomat with the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office.
2.
Article 5 was underscored
In the first line of the Ankara declaration, allies reaffirmed their “ironclad commitment to our collective defence under Article 5 of the Washington Treaty and to the transatlantic bond.” This should not be notable. The last five summit communiqués have all used the same “ironclad” adjective in the first paragraph. It has always come first because it is the most core principle at the heart of NATO.
But its inclusion did draw attention this year. And this discourse creates something of a Rorschach test for the NATO optimist/pessimist scale.
For some, it’s confirmation that there really is nothing to see here: It’s the same language as every year, and while the areas of Alliance friction get a lot of attention, those differences are only skin deep, so stop doubting the US commitment. For others, the announced US troop withdrawals from Europe, the months of criticisms and confrontations—over Iran, over Greenland, over defense spending—and the open ambiguity of senior Trump administration officials when presented with hypothetical Article 5 scenarios, meant that this language was not a given. Celebrating its inclusion merely highlights the extent to which the principle (and therefore NATO itself) has been weakened.
How European leaders, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, interpret it will have significant bearing over the direction of NATO in the coming years.
3.
Allies committed to $50 billion in defense industry deals
The US industrial base is much stronger because of NATO’s collective investments, and that strength is increasing by billions of dollars. In Ankara, Rutte announced new deals and partnerships across allies and industrial bases, unveiling new multinational partnerships in surveillance, space, long-range fires, command and control, air platforms, submarines, and a massive drone and counter-drone marketplace, together valued at fifty billion dollars.
He also unveiled NATO’s new Front Door to Industry, NATO Engine (a network of factories), a program for critical materials and supply chains, and $217 billion in additional financing commitments from banking institutions. NATO is delivering. Fast.
Industry is indispensable to security. So are allies. As investments pave the way for faster delivery of capabilities, NATO must fight fragmentation, build and sustain integrated industrial depth, and change how it guides and executes contracting for modern, quickly advancing, scalable capabilities and services. Next on the list: a secure warfighting cloud and powerful artificial intelligence (AI) models, as made explicit in the summit declaration. But agreement may be harder to reach on these capabilities, making speed and iterating crucial. Allies should push for progress in months, not years.
—LeAnne Noelani Howard is a nonresident senior fellow with the Transatlantic Security Initiative and is the senior principal for national security at MITRE. She previously served at the White House as National Security Council special advisor for NATO.
4.
Iran was on the agenda—just not as expected
Trump entered the NATO Summit with Iran on his agenda. His intent was to browbeat allies for Europe’s perceived lack of support during the Iran war. Trump still delivered that message, but it was overshadowed by resumed fighting with Iran and Trump’s announcement that the volatile US-Iran ceasefire was over.
We should expect short-term escalation between the United States and Iran, but the factors that led to the original ceasefire in April remain. There is not a viable path to a clear military victory, and a resumed conflict risks further harming the global economy. The NATO communiqué, which included a point on Iran, is a useful message to Tehran to reengage in negotiations and a reminder of NATO members’ shared priorities on Iran—most notably a free and open Strait of Hormuz.
—Nate Swanson is a resident senior fellow and director of the Iran Strategy Project at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. He previously served as director for Iran at the National Security Council.
5.
Ukraine came away with big wins
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy emerged as a clear winner at the NATO Summit in Turkey. Putin tried to prevent this in his long phone call with Trump on July 4. But he failed, as Zelenskyy enjoyed his warmest meeting with Trump since their meeting this past September in New York City. The relevant background for the meeting was Ukraine’s successful drone offensive that began this spring. Ukraine’s clear advantage with drones has greatly reduced the supply of fuel, munitions, and other supplies to Crimea. Ukraine has also carried out successful strikes as far as two thousand kilometers into Russia on fuel installations, munitions, and communications centers that have sparked major fuel shortages throughout Russia and reduced supplies to Russian troops across much of the frontline. Putin hoped that Trump would influence Zelenskyy to end his drone offensive. Instead, Trump called it an escalation, but one that could hasten an end to the war. For good measure, he said that pressure on Putin was increasing—the only way for Trump to achieve his goal of a stable end to the war.
The headline from the meeting added to the pressure on Putin: Trump’s statement that he was ready to license Ukraine to build Patriot interceptors. This addresses Ukraine’s greatest vulnerability in the war—its limited ability to protect civilians from Russian ballistic missiles. But to make this happen, the White House must make it a priority to resolve the practical questions relating to the intellectual property rights of US producers and help expedite the actual setup of production facilities and supply chains. Trump also announced his readiness to move on the co-production of drones. This was agreed in principle in the September meeting, but talks since have moved slowly. This statement suggests a new impetus to finish the negotiations.
Bottom line: Putin hoped the NATO Summit would reduce the pressure he has faced over the past three months. He got the opposite.
—John Herbst is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former US ambassador to Ukraine.
6.
Trump moved Turkey closer to F-35s (without going all the way)
Trump left Ankara publicly undecided on whether to readmit Turkey to the F-35 fighter jet program, but signaled he’s giving it strong consideration, pointing to his relationship with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the assistance Turkey has provided in Syria and as an interlocutor in Gaza, Iran, and elsewhere. Trump’s support for F-35s to Turkey would be important but not decisive due to a legislative block on the transfer of the world’s most advanced weapons system unless the government certifies that Turkey no longer possesses the Russian-made S-400 missile system. At a minimum, this hurdle needs to be resolved.
Possible solutions include transferring the system to a third country, an overseas base, or rendering them so inoperable as to pose no threat to F-35 technology, none of which is politically easy for Turkey. But even after such a step, F-35s are far from assured. Key US allies Israel and Greece have voiced concerns about the deal and can be expected to mobilize opposition in Congress. Trump would likely need to throw his full weight and spend political capital for the deal to cross the finish line. What’s clear is that there is more will than ever on both sides to resolve this longstanding bilateral grievance, and positive statements from the bipartisan congressional delegation in Ankara suggest that a diverse constituency recognizes the strategic benefits of readmitting Turkey to the F-35 program, if the underlying issues are resolved.
—Grady Wilson is a deputy director at the Atlantic Council Turkey Program.
7.
Trump brought Greenland back into the spotlight
Trump’s renewed his threats to annex Greenland, part of the Kingdom of Denmark, at the start of the NATO Ankara summit. It’s one of his most problematic foreign policy gambits and perhaps the one for which there is the least excuse. US security interests in Greenland can be met through the 1951 Defense of Greenland Agreement and trilateral US-Denmark-Greenland talks set up earlier this year. There is no apparent US interest advanced by bullying a NATO ally, which had sent troops to fight alongside the US in Afghanistan. The pushback from Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was strong and predictable: Denmark will defend itself.
What gives? Trump’s return to threats over Greenland were coupled with a return to other familiar lines of attack against NATO and selected NATO countries, like Spain. But they were followed by Trump’s agreement to a solid Ankara Summit Declaration, a good meeting with Zelenskyy, and some praise of the summit itself. I suspect Trump was engaged in tactical positioning, keeping allies and the world off balance, the better to enjoy the soft landing of a successful and productive summit. It’s no way to be leader of the free world but, given the alternatives, it made for a good outcome. On his return home, however, returning to his practice of seeking leverage and clinging to demands, even harmful ones, Trump speculated about withdrawing US forces from Europe should he not be satisfied on Greenland. That gratuitous remark was a return to pressure against friends even after a summit intended to convey strength against adversaries.
—Daniel Fried is the Weiser family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.
8.
Spain was singled out
Despite Trump’s focused attacks on Spain at the outset of the NATO Summit, it appears Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was better prepared to weather the storm for this year’s gathering. The Trump administration continues to be exasperated with Spain, given Madrid’s reticence to fully support the 5 percent GDP pledge last year and its refusal to allow US aircraft to use airbases in Spain in support of Operation Epic Fury in Iran.
Sánchez chose a strategy of patience, restraint, and deflection entering the summit. He had plenty of opportunity to put that strategy to the test in response to allegations that Spain is a “wasted cause” and a “terrible partner” of NATO as well as renewed US economic threats. The Spanish leader stayed upbeat on the strength of the US-Spanish relationship and will likely continue to focus on tangible Spanish contributions to NATO’s collective defense in the wake of the summit, such as Spain’s decision to join the newly formed land force mission in Finland.
—Andrew Bernard is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.
9.
Indo-Pacific countries were left in limbo
In recent years, it has become well-established that European and Indo-Pacific security are connected, even if the specifics of that interconnectivity—and of the best approaches to take to address it—are still evolving and in debate within NATO and other US alliances. For example, since 2022 the Alliance has included NATO’s IP4 (Indo-Pacific four partners: Australia, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand) in the annual summit.
In 2022 and 2023, all four of the countries’ top leaders attended, but in 2024 that dropped to three and in 2025 and 2026 to just one each. Expecting that the top leaders of four countries on the other side of the world and outside of NATO would attend the NATO Summit each year might be too high a bar. Attendance at the ministerial level should not necessarily be seen as a defeat for the overall concept, since the construct is being maintained and even leveraged creatively. It’s noteworthy that an important Japan-South Korea-US agreement on small nuclear reactor development took place on the sidelines of the summit. That South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, commonly characterized as less aligned with the US on broader global security issues than his predecessor, did attend is also a meaningful positive sign.
What is problematic, however, is the continuing lack of clarity and unity in Europe about the nature of the direct and indirect threat that China poses to European security, and a faltering of what had been momentum toward aligning NATO to explicitly address China. Previous years’ summit communiqués contained very clear language about China, but that dwindled to only oblique references to China under the construct of strategic competition this year. This unwillingness to name China explicitly as a national security threat is not unique to European countries, but it is particularly problematic for NATO’s ability to remain relevant and have a realistic threat picture. China has a central role in enabling Russia’s war against Ukraine and poses a host of other security challenges to the United States and other NATO countries that should be urgently addressed.
Communiqués and leader-level summit attendance are symbolic problems. The relevant key tasks now are not symbolic. NATO needs to pragmatically adapt, alongside partners in the Pacific, to better face the China challenge with real action to: 1) reduce China’s technological and economic leverage over Europe and support to Russia’s war machine; and 2) better prepare NATO to play its role in US-led efforts to deter—and if necessary, defeat—Russia, China, and North Korea simultaneously.
—Markus Garlauskas is the director of the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He previously served as the US national intelligence officer for North Korea.
10.
Trump moved to de-list Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism
One of the most consequential developments at the NATO Summit in Ankara was Trump’s statement that his administration will remove Syria from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. Syria has been on the list since 1979, making it one of the longest-standing symbols of the country’s international isolation. The designation has remained in place for nearly half a century, spanning generations of Syrians who lived under a regime they never elected.
Removing the designation would reinforce the broader shift toward international engagement with Syria. At the same time, Washington should ensure its Syria policy remains strategically coherent. The original designation was rooted largely in Syria’s regional behavior, so any effort to encourage Damascus to play a greater military or security role beyond its borders, including in Lebanon, should be approached carefully to avoid recreating the dynamics that justified the designation in the first place.
As Syria’s diplomatic reintegration advances, the central question will increasingly shift from sanctions to governance. With many of the external barriers receding, Syria’s future will depend less on international restrictions and more on the government’s ability to govern effectively, build capable state institutions, and deliver for its citizens.
—Ibrahim Al-Assil is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Syria Project. He is a senior research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Middle East Initiative, where he leads the Syria Transition Lab.
11.
Albania’s summit next year is on hold
To the apparent relief of most NATO members, the Alliance is unlikely to hold a summit next year, with no date set for the next leaders meeting. Based on press reports, resistance had been growing in the spring to maintaining the recent pace of annual meetings, largely to avoid a potentially tense encounter with Trump later in his term. In addition, Washington was reportedly unwilling to recommit to holding the next summit in Albania—as promised in the 2025 Hague Summit Declaration—due to that country’s relatively low defense spending, which at 2.15 percent of GDP is well below the European and Canadian average of 2.53 percent, based on the most recent NATO figures.
Rutte confirmed after the leaders’ meeting that the next summit would indeed take place in Albania but said that members will have to decide on exact timing. After this week’s summit, several NATO member foreign ministers noted the contrast between the critical public comments from the US president and the positive direction in which NATO is moving—as well as the more productive approach of US officials in NATO deliberations. Avoiding the drama of annual summits will allow members to focus more attention on how to ensure that increased spending leads to increased capabilities and a stronger European pillar in NATO.
—Phyllis Berry is a nonresident senior fellow at the Transatlantic Security Initiative. She previously served as the national intelligence officer for Europe at the National Intelligence Council.