Ankara Summit Content Series

These articles are part of a series featuring Atlantic Council experts’ analysis and recommendations on the key challenges facing allies at the NATO Summit in Ankara, Turkey, and beyond.

TRACKING NATO SPENDING


Trackers and Data Visualizations

Jun 20, 2025

NATO defense spending tracker

By
Kristen Taylor, Julia Salabert

The Transatlantic Security Initiative’s NATO defense spending tracker delves into data and figures to analyze current defense spending trends.

Europe & Eurasia
NATO

FEATURED READING

FEATURED EVENTS

TUNE IN

ARCHIVES: THE ATLANTIC COUNCIL ON THE ROAD TO THE NATO SUMMIT

Programs and initiatives

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.

Within the Atlantic Council’s longstanding commitment to strengthening the transatlantic relationship, the Atlantic Council Turkey Program conducts research, provides thought leadership, and offers a platform for strategic dialogue between the US, Turkey, and NATO allies to address the region’s toughest challenges and explore opportunities, including in the fields of energy, business & trade, technology, defense, and security.

Content

In the News

Jan 23, 2017

Brzezinski Quoted by Express on the Trump Administration’s Relationship with Europe and NATO

By Ian Brzezinski

Read the full article here.

NATO Security & Defense

Defense Industrialist

Jan 21, 2017

The high beta presidency

By Steven Grundman

What does the Trump Administration portend for defense policy? I hew to the simple refrain, “Anything could happen.” Or, as an investor put it to me, “Trump’s promises to be the ‘high-beta’ presidency.” Beta is the measure of a stock’s volatility against the market as a whole, though the analogue to molecular biology and the treatment of hypertension may be equally apt. Of one thing we do know for sure: Donald Trump is a master of the political narrative, and the story about public policy counts far more than those of us with a deductive train of mind might care to admit.

Afghanistan Defense Industry

New Atlanticist

Jan 19, 2017

Ukraine Confident US Support Will Not Waver

By Teri Schultz

‘Channeling Brussels’ with Yehor Bozhok, Ukraine’s acting head of mission at NATO While the United States’ allies in Europe have been shaken by US President-elect Donald Trump’s description of NATO as “obsolete” and his suggestion that he may consider relaxing US sanctions imposed on Russia for its actions in Ukraine, Ukraine’s top diplomat at NATO […]

NATO Russia

In the News

Jan 18, 2017

Burrows Quoted by the Sun on NATO, Russia, and Donald Trump

By Mathew J. Burrows

Read full article here.

NATO Russia

In the News

Jan 18, 2017

Vershbow Quoted by the Philadelphia Inquirer on US-Russia Relations Under the Trump Administration

By Alexander Vershbow

Read full article here.

NATO Russia
Donald Trump, James Mattis, and Mike Pence, Nov. 20, 2016

NATOSource

Jan 18, 2017

Trump’s Cabinet Knows NATO is Important, But It’s Not Clear He Agrees

By Editorial Board of the Washington Post

CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY by Donald Trump’s national security nominees last week suggested that the incoming administration would not seek to dismantle the alliances that have undergirded the West — and U.S. global leadership — since 1945.

NATO Russia

New Atlanticist

Jan 17, 2017

Transatlantic Relationship Forecast: Stormy Weather Ahead

By Ashish Kumar Sen

The transatlantic relationship is in for a rough ride over the course of Donald Trump’s presidency simply because there is no “correcting mechanism” among the incoming cabinet to counter the next US president’s rhetoric on the European Union, according to an Atlantic Council analyst. In an interview with the Times of London and Germany’s Bild […]

European Union France
Donald Trump, Feb. 10, 2011

NATOSource

Jan 16, 2017

Trump Renews His Criticism of NATO: ‘It’s Obsolete’ and ‘Very Unfair’ to the US

By Donald Trump, Michael Gove, and Kai Diekmann, Times (London)

Excerpt from Donald Trump interview with Michael Gove MP and Kai Diekmann, former chief editor of the German newspaper Bild.

Germany Intelligence
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Jan. 12, 2017

NATOSource

Jan 13, 2017

NATO Chief: We See ‘a More Assertive Russia’

By Jens Stoltenberg, NATO

We don’t see any imminent threat against any NATO ally. What we see is a more assertive Russia.

Cybersecurity NATO
Senator Kelly Ayotte, Dec. 10, 2013

NATOSource

Jan 11, 2017

America Needs a Strong NATO Alliance

By Kelly Ayotte, Real Clear Defense

Despite the shortcomings of many of our allies, in light of Russian aggression and growing transnational cyber and Islamist terrorist threats, a strong and unified NATO alliance remains vital to American national security interests….

NATO Security & Defense

Experts