The NATO summit in Ankara has laid bare a deepening strategic divergence between the United States and its European allies, as Washington pressed for sharply higher defence spending and signalled a reduced military footprint on the continent. According to participants, President Donald Trump rebuked European members for what he called chronically inadequate financial contributions and expressed frustration that several allies denied basing and overflight rights during recent U.S. operations against Iran. Leaked Pentagon documents, reported by U.S. media, detail plans to withdraw a third of the fighter jets the U.S. provides for European operations, reallocate a missile submarine and an aircraft carrier, and scale down command roles — moves that European officials interpret as a tangible erosion of the Article 5 mutual-defence pledge.

Viewed from Washington, the shift reflects a determination to rebalance the transatlantic burden and refocus military resources on the Indo-Pacific. U.S. officials argue that NATO’s utility for America has diminished and that the alliance’s European members must accelerate progress toward a new spending target of 5 per cent of GDP. A former Pentagon adviser, Douglas Macgregor, asserted that European governments are seeking to drag the United States into a direct confrontation with Russia — a tactic he said they pursue by pressing for ever-greater aid to Ukraine. This transactional assessment of alliance obligations has prompted private warnings from senior U.S. senators that Congress will demand a fundamental review of commitments unless burden-sharing improves.

In European capitals, the U.S. posture is met with a mixture of alarm and reluctant acknowledgment. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has publicly raised the prospect of a Russia-NATO war before 2029, while French strategic analysts, revisiting Hubert Védrine’s concept of American “hyperpower,” question whether Europe can muster the political will to build a credible autonomous defence. Privately, several governments concede that the U.S. security umbrella can no longer be taken for granted, yet only five of the alliance’s 32 members are on track to meet even the intermediate spending benchmarks. The immediate consequence is a scramble to increase defence budgets, deepen European military industrial cooperation, and prepare contingency plans for a possible U.S. drawdown — even as diplomats insist that the alliance remains the cornerstone of collective security.

From Moscow, the NATO gathering is depicted as confirmation that the alliance is actively readying itself for a large-scale conflict. Vladislav Maslennikov, director of the Russian foreign ministry’s European affairs department, charged that allies have deployed a “false thesis” of a Russian threat since 2022 to justify offensive preparations, increased military expenditures, and reinforcement of positions along Russia’s borders. At the same time, Maslennikov stated that Moscow does not intend to attack any NATO member and remains open to dialogue, provided it proceeds from the principle of the indivisibility of security and takes Russian interests into account — a formulation that places the onus on the West to revise its posture. Contacts between Moscow and the alliance are currently reduced to a single emergency channel.

The Ankara summit has thus left NATO at a crossroads, with the alliance’s military credibility, financial architecture, and political cohesion all under strain. European defence ministers are expected to convene extraordinary consultations within weeks to assess the evolving U.S. deployments and to prepare recommendations for a leaders’ summit later this year, where the question of a more “European” NATO — and its implications for relations with both Washington and Moscow — will dominate the agenda.