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US President Donald Trump is expected in the Netherlands for the NATO summit on Tuesday as the world holds his breath to see what happens next after the US launches a direct attack on Iran’s nuclear site.
This will be Trump’s first NATO meeting since he was re-elected. In the past, he made angry comments about alliance members who were freeloaded from US security guarantees. The European allies are desperate to prove he is wrong. They want to persuade him not to draw out the troops and our abilities from the continent.
“I wasn’t sure he would come across this summit a few weeks ago, as relations with Europe have been so tense beyond trade tariffs and more since Trump returned to the White House.”
“It would have been a disaster as Russia and China are monitoring the decline in the West.”
But Moscow and Beijing may still be able to pull out popcorn.
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NATO Executive Director Mark Latte (pictured on the left) is said to have designed the summit around Trump.
NATO Executive Director Mark Latte designed the summit around Trump. He sought to ease him by agreeing to a massive hike of defence spending and show that Europeans were more responsible for their safety.
Latte also hoped that the meeting would avoid potential clashes and explosions between Trump and his allies by continuing to focus narrowly on money.
That carefully imposed plan could be broken.
In response to Iran’s next move, the US Commander-in-Chief may decide to stay in Washington’s situation room at the last minute.
When he comes to Europe as expected, how is it possible not to talk about the Middle East considering what is at stake? It poses a risk of rebellion between the US president and its European allies when it comes to Iran.
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Events in Iran could determine that the US president will remain in Washington, DC
Trump loves victory and he has very light skin. He doesn’t want to feel disapproved at the NATO meeting.
Apart from that, he was guaranteed a headline-grabbing victory at the summit. European countries have pledged to spend 5% of their GDP on defense.
“This summit is about reliability,” the way NATO US ambassador Matthew Whitaker puts it down.
However, Spain claimed on Sunday it had secured an opt-out from its new spending plan.
Other European allies are struggling to find extra cash.
The bottom line is: Europe needs to maintain large military and nuclear power. That’s how Rutte has enclosed Bar Spain, the leader he hates, to sign up for a new, big spending drive. That’s a big commitment.
But as Julian Smith, the former US ambassador at NATO, told me, Trump still has no guarantees at all.
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“Fork Moment” is how one high-level diplomat explained this week’s NATO summit. (Trump drawn in 2019)
It is unclear whether the US will sign up for a local department declaration this week identifying Russia as a major threat to the NATO alliance.
Europe’s trust in the United States as the ultimate guardian has been shaken by Trump’s seemingly soft and soft approach with Moscow and the strong pressure on Kiev to end the war in Ukraine.
Plus, on Friday night, we could almost hear European diplomats brush their teeth after Trump exempt himself and the US from his commitment from the enormous 5% defence spending targets he is demanding from his allies.
“We shouldn’t, but I think we should,” he said. “We’ve supported NATO for a long time, so I don’t think we should, but I think NATO countries should definitely do it.”
Again, European leaders should have been undoubtedly ready by now from a self-defense perspective.
He may be the dullest and most unpredictable, but Trump is not the first US president to move military attention and investment from Europe to other priority areas, particularly the Indo-Pacific. President Obama was very clear about it in 2011.
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“We’ve been supporting NATO for a long time,” Trump said. (It is depicted here at the opening ceremony of the 2018 summit)
The United States has nuclear weapons stored in Italy, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. After a full-scale invasion of Russia’s Ukraine, the Eastern European NATO countries that President Biden sent there are 200,000 ready for combat across Europe, of which 20,000 have been sent there.
The continent was able to make up for the shortfall in the number of troops, especially as Germany and Poland plan to build large ground forces in the coming years. However, he says that Europe’s dependence on the US will deepen.
It relies on Washington for intelligence newsletter, surveillance, air force capabilities, command and control. The United States played a vital leadership role at NATO, bringing its members together with the military.
These are exactly the capabilities needed and needed by the US military in Asia, Chalmers said. If removed from Europe, they will take a very long time to replicate.
Until recently, many NATO countries in Europe avoided increasing the continent’s capabilities, such as expanding the French nuclear umbrella to other allies.
But now Europe is not only trying to persuade him to stay in Washington, but is also forced to hold more security responsibility if the US president decides to withdraw from Europe.
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The US is ready to fight for 100,000 people stationed throughout Europe
No one knows what Trump’s intentions are. The leaders of NATO in Europe have been greatly relieved recently. His administration has announced that U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Alexus Grinkeivic will take on the traditional US-occupied NATO position of Europe’s highest alliance commander. It is an implicit commitment to the Defense Alliance.
However, Washington is conducting its own military spending and defense review. Announcements are expected in the fall. It is unlikely that there will be new US funds for Ukraine. And it is very likely that 20,000 extra troops from Eastern Europe will become the first US force to withdraw from the continent.
Despite this, Poland says he will be attending this week’s NATO summit in a confident mood. In stark contrast to Spain, Warsaw believes it is led by example – spending more national income (now 4.7% of GDP) than other NATO members, including the US. It aims to build Europe’s most powerful army.
During the Cold War, Poland lived under the shadow of the Soviet Union. Country neighbour Ukraine. It’s not difficult to convince Poles that defense is the number one priority.
For politicians from countries far from Russia, debate is more challenging. Spanish media is full of speculation that disagreements over defense spending could overthrow the country’s unstable coalition government.
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NATO’s executive director says Russia could potentially attack NATO’s country within five years
NATO is proposing to split the 5% target into two parts by trying to sort out Trump by agreeing to the demand for defence spending and sweetening the pill for more cash-bound European leaders. 3.5% of annual national income is 3.5% of annual defence income, and 1.5% of GDP spent on “defense-related” issues expands to freight ports where casebers are invested in cybers.
This has an additional bonus of lining Europe along with US military spending of 3.4% of GDP. This is according to Kamille Grand, former vice-general of NATO’s defense investments and now a defense expert at the European Council of Foreign Relations.
But even if you’re playing with numbers, we’re talking about how the government has to spend billions more on defense. Money has to come from somewhere.
New taxes – the way Estonia has tried – or more borrowing. This would be very expensive for a country like Italy, which already has a large amount of government debt. Another option is reducing welfare spending, known as “gun or butter” or “tank or pension” economics.
With a strategic defence review, Britain has recently highlighted the need for more military spending to the public, but Chalmers says neither Downing Street nor most other European governments have fully prepared elections for the trade-offs that entail a massive new defence investment.
A timetable to reach the 5% target is important. NATO allies called the window of seven to ten years. The NATO executive director suggests that it may be too late. He says that Russia can attack the NATO country within five years, as Moscow’s economy has a huge foothold for the war.
Protecting Europe isn’t just about how much government spends. What matters is what they spend their money.
A major weakness in Europe is the fact that there are many overlaps and incompatible features across the continent. For example, there are only 178 different weapon systems and 17 different tank tenks. Pooling European resources in the name of defense contracts, pride, and efficiency is another troubling argument that is likely to be sidelined at this week’s summit.
So, what clear results can you expect?
It is very large and depends on the man who has arrived in the Netherlands.
Trump’s NATO ambassador says the meeting could be historic.
The “fork moment” was the way another high-level diplomat put it on me, perhaps the “most important NATO summit since the Cold War”: the moment when Europe began to spend as much on national defense as the US and truly imagined its responsibility for its own safety.
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