The summit reflects a longer-term strategic transition
The upcoming NATO Summit in Ankara comes at a time when the Alliance is undergoing one of its most significant strategic adjustments since the end of the Cold War. Public attention will understandably focus on defence spending commitments and on the national implementation of targets agreed at previous summits. These discussions remain politically important. However, they risk obscuring a broader transformation that extends well beyond annual budget commitments.
The more consequential issue is whether NATO is entering a new phase in which Europe’s contribution shifts from burden-sharing to greater strategic responsibility. This distinction matters because the drivers of change are structural rather than cyclical.
The United States is progressively shifting strategic attention towards the Indo-Pacific, emerging technologies, and global competition with China.
At the same time, Russia’s long-term military adaptation since its invasion of Ukraine has fundamentally altered Europe’s security environment.
These developments suggest that the distribution of responsibilities within NATO is being reshaped by enduring geopolitical trends rather than by the policy preferences of any one administration.
The Ankara Summit should therefore be understood less as an isolated political event and more as another stage in the Alliance’s institutional adaptation to a changing international security order.
Defence expenditure should be viewed as an input rather than an outcome
One measure of progress will inevitably be whether allies continue to implement the defence spending commitments agreed at the 2025 Hague Summit. Financial commitments remain important because they provide a visible indicator of political resolve and create the resources necessary for military modernisation. However, expenditure alone offers only a partial assessment of defence readiness.
The policy question facing European governments is increasingly not whether additional resources can be mobilised, but whether existing institutions can convert higher expenditure into deployable military capability within an acceptable timeframe.
Capability generation depends on procurement systems, defence industrial capacity, workforce development, innovation ecosystems, interoperability, logistics, and institutional coordination across government and industry. Without corresponding reforms in these areas, increasing defence budgets may yield diminishing returns.
For this reason, future assessments of NATO’s adaptation should place greater emphasis on implementation capacity rather than on expenditure targets alone.
The strategic environment is changing on both sides of the deterrence equation
European defence planning is increasingly shaped by two parallel developments.
The first is the gradual adjustment of the American military posture in Europe.
While considerable uncertainty remains about the scale and sequencing of future force reductions, successive U.S. administrations have consistently signalled that Europe should assume greater responsibility for regional security as American strategic priorities become more global.
The second is Russia’s ongoing military transformation.
Despite operational difficulties in Ukraine, Russia has expanded defence production, increased military expenditure, reorganised its force structures, and accelerated the transition to a wartime economy. Current modernisation efforts indicate that Moscow continues to prepare for sustained strategic competition with NATO rather than for a rapid return to pre-war security dynamics. These developments should not be considered in isolation. Together, they create a strategic environment in which Europe faces growing security demands while the distribution of responsibilities within the Alliance gradually evolves.
The resulting policy challenge is institutional adaptation rather than crisis response.
Public confidence has become a component of strategic resilience
Military capabilities ultimately depend on political sustainability.
Public opinion surveys across Europe indicate growing uncertainty about the long-term reliability of American security guarantees. Although governments continue to regard the United States as NATO’s indispensable ally, public confidence has become more variable, reflecting broader uncertainty surrounding the future direction of transatlantic relations. This development has practical implications for defence policy.
Large-scale military modernisation requires sustained political support across multiple electoral cycles.
Investments in defence industrial capacity, procurement reform, technological innovation, and force expansion extend well beyond annual budget negotiations. Consequently, maintaining public confidence is increasingly part of national security policy itself.
European governments, therefore, face a dual responsibility: preserving confidence in the transatlantic alliance while explaining why greater European responsibility strengthens rather than weakens collective deterrence.
Strategic autonomy should be understood as complementary to NATO
Debates about European strategic autonomy often present a false policy choice between dependence on the United States and institutional independence from Washington. A more useful framework treats these objectives as complementary.
Greater European capability does not necessarily imply reduced American engagement. On the contrary, a stronger European military capacity may enhance the long-term sustainability of American strategic commitments by creating a more balanced distribution of responsibilities within the Alliance. This perspective shifts attention from political symbolism to practical capability development. Priority areas include defence industrial integration, cross-border procurement, regulatory harmonisation, innovation financing, digital transformation, and enhanced cooperation between governments and industry.
Recent developments in Nordic defence cooperation illustrate that institutional integration can improve efficiency while strengthening operational readiness.
Similarly, advances in artificial intelligence may contribute to procurement optimisation, logistics, predictive maintenance, and operational planning, provided that technological adoption is accompanied by appropriate institutional reform.
Economic resilience is becoming a core component of deterrence
The distinction between economic and security policy has become increasingly difficult to maintain.
Critical supply chains, advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, energy security, and digital infrastructure are now essential to national resilience. Europe’s economic scale, technological capabilities, and regulatory influence are therefore strategic assets that complement conventional military capabilities. Future transatlantic cooperation will increasingly depend on integrating economic security into defence planning, rather than treating these policy domains separately.
This suggests that strengthening Europe’s competitiveness should be seen not only as an economic objective but also as a long-term investment in collective security.
Policy implications
The Ankara Summit should therefore not be evaluated solely on whether allies meet agreed expenditure targets.
A more meaningful assessment concerns whether NATO continues to adapt its institutional architecture to a security environment characterised by prolonged strategic competition, technological transformation, and evolving transatlantic responsibilities.
Three policy priorities emerge.
First, European governments should shift attention from defence spending targets to implementation capacity, ensuring that additional financial resources translate into deployable military capability.
Second, defence industrial integration should be a central objective of European security policy, reducing fragmentation and accelerating innovation and procurement.
Third, political leaders should strengthen public understanding that greater European responsibility is not an alternative to NATO but a necessary condition for preserving the Alliance’s long-term credibility.
The future effectiveness of NATO is therefore unlikely to depend solely on defence spending levels. It will increasingly depend on the capacity of Allied institutions to adapt to a strategic environment in which military capability, technological innovation, economic resilience, and political legitimacy have become mutually reinforcing components of collective security.