Will Trump Take the Win at NATO’s Ankara Summit?

(Daniel Fried – Just Security) At NATO’s July 7-8 Ankara Summit, President Donald Trump can land a big success: advancing a NATO alliance with greater European military contributions, able to handle Russia’s ongoing aggression and support Ukraine’s defense and future security. But will Trump take the win? For decades, U.S. presidents have pushed European allies to build up their military capabilities. Thanks to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threats and Trump’s pressure, the United States is finally winning the argument. Key allies – especially Poland and Germany – are building up their militaries. Germany and others are deploying more forces to help defend NATO’s most endangered members – especially the Baltic states. The Trump administration calls the new, effective alliance that it seeks “NATO 3.0.” In that narrative, “NATO 1.0” was the Cold War-era NATO that kept the peace and contained the Soviet threat in Europe; “NATO 2.0” was more globally engaged (e.g., in Afghanistan) but also less focused and weaker, with European countries letting their militaries shrink. NATO 3.0 would return the alliance to its original purpose of defending Europe from Kremlin aggression, but with European forces more front and center. The Trump administration has succeeded in framing the NATO Summit in these terms: NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has accepted that delivering on “NATO 3.0” – meaning greater European military contributions – is the goal for the Ankara Summit. Privately, senior civilian and military officials at NATO headquarters and countries on Europe’s exposed Eastern tier say that they accept and even welcome NATO 3.0, with its call for greater European defense capability, including from their own countries. But their caveat is that the United States must do its part: maintain critical military capacity in Europe, be ready to fight if the Russians attack a NATO ally, and, critically, plan the transition to greater European military contributions so there are no gaps in defense coverage. This is where concerns arise: the Trump administration risks blowing up the emerging deal through chaotic troop withdrawals from Europe, suggestions that the United States will reduce its NATO military contributions to nuclear backup and not much else, and quiet but alarming ambivalence about whether it will honor its obligations to help defend all NATO allies. The larger question being posed by officials in some of the countries doing the most to put meat on the bones of NATO 3.0 is whether the Trump administration seeks in good faith to rebalance the alliance or instead wants the United States to disengage from European security at a time when the threat from the Kremlin is greater than at any point since the early 1980s. The answer so far seems to be that the administration includes senior people in both camps: those who seek a better alliance (with greater European military contributions) and those whose objective is to pull the United States largely out of Europe regardless of the threat. – Will Trump Take the Win at NATO’s Ankara Summit?