The Future of NATO Depends on U.S. Elections

Despite all the pomp and celebration, NATO’s seventy-fifth anniversary summit in Washington, DC, was overshadowed by the upcoming U.S. presidential elections and the possibility of Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

The summit focused on two issues. First, explaining to Americans why NATO is still a good deal for the United States—stressing that the Europeans are finally contributing their fair share, with twenty-three of the thirty-two NATO allies reaching the goal of spending 2 percent or more of gross domestic product (GDP) on defense; and second, institutionalizing support for Ukraine, which means bringing the support structures for Ukraine—from coordinating weapon deliveries to training and building its future force—under a NATO umbrella, with a new command in Germany and a civilian representative in Ukraine.

Both summit outcomes can be explained as an attempt to Trump-proof both the alliance and future support for Ukraine. Trump-proofing also explains why the summit remained unambitious on defining criteria and terms for Ukraine’s ascension to NATO because the focus was on securing, not advancing, policies.

To make things worse, while diplomats were in discussions, questions about U.S. President Joe Biden grew sharply and threatened the future of his campaign. The discussions about Biden’s candidacy unambiguously highlighted once again that the future of NATO depends to a large extent on the outcome of the U.S. elections, even if Europeans wished this were not the case.

NATO under a second-term U.S. President Trump would look different than NATO today—less a value-based alliance, and more a pay-for-service business deal. And this transformation would come at a time when NATO’s challenges and scope are expanding like never before: although it is a North Atlantic alliance, China’s support for Russia’s war and its hegemonic ambition in the Indo-Pacific increasingly interlink the two theaters. The presence of Indo-Pacific allies at the NATO summit underlines this new reality.

A Celebratory Occasion Marred by Uncertainty

NATO had good reasons to celebrate its seventy-fifth anniversary in Washington. The alliance decisively contributed to one of the longest periods of peace for its European members since the fall of the Roman Empire, and has nearly tripled its membership since its founding.

Having said that, the benefits of this summit were limited given the uncertainty of the upcoming U.S. elections and mostly based on recent achievements in defense spending. Such uncertainty fuelled the effort to embed the allies’ military support for Ukraine into the NATO architecture, so as to mitigate the effect of any domestic political changes. The summit announced a Pledge of Long-Term Security Assistance for Ukraine—with $43 billion promised for 2025—and created a dedicated unit within NATO to coordinate the provision of military equipment and training for Ukraine by Allies and partners.

As for the recent achievements, the spike in European defense budgets that occurred from 2022 to 2024 earned praise for the twenty-three of thirty-two allies that succeeded in reaching the 2 percent GDP target. This is an important achievement first and foremost for collective deterrence and defense against Russia, but also to better profile NATO in the eyes of both U.S. Democrats and Republicans, thus making U.S. contributions to Euro-Atlantic security more sustainable politically beyond 2024.

The summit also reaffirmed the decision taken in 2023 to not invite Ukraine to join NATO. While the path to membership is labeled as irreversible, this wording does not alter the compromise reached in Vilnius in 2023: “We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met.” Allies are unlikely to invite Ukraine while part of its territory is occupied by the Russian Federation, because that would inevitably trigger a NATO-Russia war that neither the United States nor others want. Supporting Ukraine without inviting the country to join NATO is a likely scenario, and not the worst case considering that a possible future Trump administration could well seek a deal with Moscow at the expense of Kyiv.

An important novelty this year was the condemnation of China as a decisive enabler of the Russian war in Europe, which was coupled with a call to engage in strategic risk reduction discussions on nuclear arsenals. A containment approach toward China appears to be emerging in NATO, including strengthening partnerships with Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea, whose heads of government were in Washington (as at the previous NATO summits in Vilnius and Madrid). A clear pattern of prioritizing Europe’s defense first and Indo-Pacific partners second over the Middle East and North Africa has also emerged. Indeed, only one of the thirty-eight points in the communiqué, toward the end of the document, dedicates a few lines to the alliance’s southern neighbors. The decisions to appoint a special representative to coordinate NATO efforts in its southern neighborhood and to open a liaison office in Jordan were the only tangible results of this dossier that Italy obtained from the summit.

A Much Needed Strategic Approach Toward Russia and the War in Ukraine

The decisions taken at the summit will increase the chances of maintaining current support for Ukraine—at least for another year, but probably longer. They could also be a step toward developing a broader strategy toward Russia, which will not only take into account defense and deterrence but also goals related to ending the war in Ukraine and a new, postwar European security architecture.

The alliance agreed to establish the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), which will assume responsibility for military assistance and training for Ukrainian troops. So far, arms and ammunition deliveries have been coordinated through the Ukrainian Defence Contact Group (the so called Ramstein format) under U.S. leadership. The change was made because Trump’s possible victory in the upcoming U.S. presidential election could undermine the previous U.S.-led format.

NATO also announced just over $43 billion in security assistance within the next year and approved rules for evaluating the assistance provided by individual countries. The reference point for assessing fair burden-sharing should be the share of each member's economic output as a percentage of the entire alliance’s output. Since the U.S. economy exceeds half of NATO’s economic output, this will make it easier to put pressure on the United States to maintain its support at the current level, as it amounted to just over 50 percent of Western security assistance. Such actions, combined with the signing of bilateral security agreements with Ukraine, increase the chances that support will be maintained for as long as necessary.

Equally important, NATO prepared the ground for a more strategic approach to Russia and the war in Ukraine. Members agreed that Russia will remain a threat to NATO in the long term and that allies should prepare recommendations on NATO’s strategic approach to Russia for the next NATO summit in The Hague.

The United States and Germany announced that from 2026 on, the U.S. multi-domain task force stationed in Germany will be armed with conventional long-range missiles—SM6, Tomahawk, and hypersonic weapons. Long-range weapons (beyond 500 kilometers or about 300 miles) are also to be developed jointly by France, Germany, Italy, and Poland. A lot may happen before 2026, but such announcements will broaden the room for political maneuvers for the United States and NATO in response to Russia’s increasingly aggressive behavior. They will constitute an element of military pressure on Russia as they imply the possibility of attacking targets on Russian and Belarusian territory—for example, to destroy missile systems that threaten the alliance. They will also show that the United States and NATO can at least partially neutralize Russian nuclear threats, which include the announcement of Russia’s deployment of nuclear weapons to Belarus. Such pressure is necessary after Moscow’s violation and ultimate collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty prohibiting missiles with ranges from 500 to 5,500 kilometers, or about 300 to 3,400 miles. The United States and NATO will be better prepared to negotiate new arms control agreements from the position of strength.

Those decisions, if implemented, will help maintain NATO’s political cohesion, which is threatened by Russian threats and U.S. and NATO reluctance to change the alliance’s nuclear policy. They can also stimulate a debate in NATO on the need for a more active approach to Russia, which is hampered by concerns of escalation. But they may also have broader consequences. With strengthened deterrence and political cohesion, it could be easier for the allies to agree that Ukraine should be allowed to use Western weapons to attack military targets on Russian territory. More countries could be ready to accept that Russia can and should be defeated.

As a result, if there is no fundamental change in the United States toward Ukraine and Europe, a broader strategy on Russia could begin to take shape in the coming years. Threatening Russia with defeat will incentivize negotiations on the conditions acceptable for Ukraine. Broader strategy is also a precondition for a stable security architecture after the war, which will be augmented with credible defence and deterrence, supported by new arms control agreements.

NATO’s Security Dilemma

NATO faces two difficult dilemmas. The first is a choice between a closed and an open bloc. The second, which follows from the first, is a choice between being a global player acting for the sake of universal security and an armed group of countries that are united by similar ideas and interests but make up a clear minority on the planet. The summit in Washington makes it appear that NATO is trending toward the latter of both choices. That would recreate a classical Cold War style framework. At the same time, NATO keeps the clear intention to operate beyond its formal zone of responsibility.

After the Cold War, NATO de facto proclaimed itself the source of European security (the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and then Russia were unhappy, but did not strongly oppose it). This implied that the bigger NATO was, the stronger the security, hence the maximum openness to expansion. But enlargement reached its limit when a major player in this part of the world—Russia—went to arms to protect itself from what it perceived was a growing threat from encirclement by NATO, which was supposed to include neighboring Ukraine. One can agree with the Russian argument or not, but the fact is that the expansion of the alliance did not lead to increased stability, but to a violent military conflict. On the eve of the Russia-Ukraine war, Russia’s main demand was the following: let NATO officially refuse further expansion and close its doors. The demand was unequivocally rejected. The alliance still proclaims openness, although the consequences are now clearer.

After the end of the Cold War, NATO claimed to be a global, not regional, player capable of carrying out security tasks in the interests of all. Now, NATO is extending its activities beyond its original area of responsibility, not as a universal guarantor, but as an instrument of a standoff. NATO’s value-based rationale automatically encourages conflict with countries of a different political and strategic culture inspired by other sets of values. Accordingly, NATO reproduces the original structure of the Cold War—the bloc confrontation based on ideological opposition. But contrary to that period, NATO’s adversary is not an opposing bloc, but a large number of completely different states with diverging goals and interests. Basically, they do not seek confrontation, but their own security and development over the value barriers. The NATO approach doesn’t serve this goal.

NATO will remain an organization of the political West, aimed at its protection. But unanswered remains the question of the nature of this protection—whether it is unlimited expansion, as in the last thirty years, or a method of fixing its clear zone of responsibility. Depending on which option will prevail, all should primarily improve readiness for a hot or a cold war.