LOOK BACK ON THE WASHINGTON SUMMIT


Atlantic Council at the NATO Summit in Washington

Live commentary, authoritative analysis, and high-level events covering NATO’s Washington summit, courtesy of our experts.

Essays on the Alliance’s future

NATO’s seventy-fifth anniversary is a milestone in a remarkable story of reinvention, adaptation, and unity. However, as the Alliance seeks to secure its future for the next seventy-five years, it faces revanchist old rivals, escalating strategic competition, and uncertainties over the future of the rules-based international order. 

With partners and allies turning attention from celebrations to challenges, the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative invited contributors to engage with the most pressing concerns ahead of the historic Washington summit and chart a path for the Alliance’s future. This series features seven essays focused on concrete issues that NATO must address at the Washington summit and five essays that examine longer-term challenges the Alliance must confront to ensure transatlantic security. 

Related program

The Transatlantic Security Initiative, in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, shapes and influences the debate on the greatest security challenges facing the North Atlantic Alliance and its key partners.

Content

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Donald Trump, March 17, 2017 (photo: White House)

NATOSource

Jul 2, 2018

Trump Sends Disturbing Letters to Nine NATO Leaders Before Key Summit

By Foreign Policy, New York Times, and AFP

From Foreign Policy: In a sharply worded message to at least some countries in the 29-member alliance that didn’t meet defense spending thresholds

Germany NATO

New Atlanticist

Jul 2, 2018

NATO Must Adopt Readiness Initiative to Deter Russia

By Hans Binnendijk

NATO defense ministers agreed on June 7 to support a new “Four Thirties” military readiness plan designed to enhance deterrence by creating a new “culture of readiness” in the Alliance. It is one of four related initiatives suggested by the United States to ensure that Moscow does not believe it can exploit the Alliance’s slow […]

NATO Security & Defense

New Atlanticist

Jul 2, 2018

Europe’s Season of Anxiety

By Stephen Blank

Two summits this month—NATO’s in Brussels and US President Donald J. Trump’s first one with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki—are causing much anxiety in Europe. While in public, NATO and European officials are at pains to put on the best possible face, in private they have abundant and good reasons to be apprehensive about […]

NATO Russia

In the News

Jul 1, 2018

Vershbow in The Hill: Who is the leader of the free world?

By Alexander Vershbow

Read the full article here.

NATO Security & Defense
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, September 8, 2016 (photo: NATO)

NATOSource

Jul 1, 2018

Turkey Prepares for More Roles in NATO

By Murat Yetkin, Hurriyet Daily News

Amid claims that it no longer has a place in the Western defense alliance, Turkey is preparing for a greater role in the new NATO strategy expected to be approved in the NATO summit

NATO Russia

Inflection Points

Jun 30, 2018

Destroy or reform? The transatlantic triple threat

By Frederick Kempe

If Trump’s approach is indeed more to reform than destroy, this would be a good month to begin to demonstrate that at NATO and with Putin.

European Union International Organizations
Soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division deployed in Europe, October 14, 2014 (photo: US Army/Sgt. Daniel Cole)

NATOSource

Jun 30, 2018

US Assessing Cost of Keeping Troops in Germany as Trump Battles with Europe

By John Hudson, Paul Sonne, Karen DeYoung, and Josh Dawsey, Washington Post

The Pentagon is analyzing the cost and impact of a large-scale withdrawal or transfer of American troops stationed in Germany,

Germany NATO

In the News

Jun 29, 2018

Vershbow Quoted in Axios on the NATO Summit and the Trump-Putin Summit

By Alexander Vershbow

Read the full article here.

NATO Russia
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at a meeting of the European Council, June 28, 2018 (photo: NATO)

NATOSource

Jun 29, 2018

NATO Secretary General: North America and Europe ‘Have to Stand Together’

By Jens Stoltenberg, NATO

We should have no illusions, Europe and North America need each other especially now when we see security threats, challenges we haven’t seen for many decades.

NATO Russia
G7 leaders meeting in Canada, June 8, 2018 (photo: White House)

NATOSource

Jun 29, 2018

Trump Trashed NATO at G7, Officials Confirm

By Jonathan Swan, AXIOS

AXIOS: In one extraordinary riff during his meeting with the G7 heads of state earlier this month in Quebec, [President Donald] Trump told the other leaders: “NATO is as bad as NAFTA.”

NATO Russia

Experts

Events