ANALYSIS: 5% of GDP by 2035 — The Hague's Bet Put to the Test in Ankara

Introduction: The Mechanics of Collective Rearmament Between Promise and Reality

The Hague, June 2025: The Atlantic Alliance's Moment of Truth

On June 25, 2025, within the wood-paneled halls of the World Forum in The Hague, the 32 members of the Atlantic Alliance signed what Secretary General Mark Rutte described as the biggest strategic shift since NATO’s creation. In raw terms, the commitment is unprecedented: 5% of annual GDP devoted to defense and broader security by 2035, including 3.5% for defense spending in the strict sense — troops, equipment, ammunition — and 1.5% for everything related to military infrastructure, cybersecurity, military mobility, and societal resilience. This is more than double the old 2% target, which all allies only finally reached in 2025. Rutte sold this as a historic moment. He’s right. But a commitment on paper is not capability on the ground.

The Hague summit concluded with a joint declaration of staggering brevity: five paragraphs, 427 words. In comparison, the 2024 Washington Summit declaration was 5,341 words long. The 2023 Vilnius declaration had 90 paragraphs. This deliberate minimalism reflects the political reality of an Alliance under Trumpian pressure: conflict was avoided by stripping the text down to what everyone could agree on — spending. Everything else, the strategy on Russia, explicit support for Ukraine, mentions of China, Iran, North Korea, was sacrificed on the altar of apparent cohesion. Ankara, July 7-8, 2026, will be the first real test of what those 427 words are worth.

The Hague Declaration: An Architecture of Compromise

The The Hague 2025 declaration follows a long tradition of diplomatic compromise. Its minimalism — five paragraphs, 427 words — reflects the dominance of the Trumpian agenda, but also the allies' desire not to cause a visible fracture. For the 32 capitals, the priority was to leave the summit with a number, a commitment, a direction of travel. That is what they got. The rest — Russian strategy, support for Ukraine, Asian threats — was deferred. This postponement is not neutral: every dodged subject is a space that the West’s adversaries carefully occupy.

The question now, on the eve of Ankara, is whether this founding compromise holds under the weight of reality. Rutte himself admitted that a "clear and credible" path toward the 5% will have to be demonstrated in Ankara. The Hague declaration is not an end; it is a starting point. What the allies build upon it, summit after summit, budget after budget, will determine whether that historic moment of June 2025 remains in the annals as a real turning point or as a beautiful, evaporated promise.

The 5%: Anatomy of a Double-Barreled Objective

The Logic of 3.5% + 1.5%: Why This Architecture?

The 3.5% + 1.5% formula didn't just appear out of thin air. It is the product of a four-year process — the NATO Defense Planning Process (NDPP) — which culminated on June 5, 2025, in a unanimous agreement on the Alliance's new capability targets. Rutte’s reasoning is simple and relentless: calculate exactly what NATO needs to defend every inch of allied territory, then work out how much it costs. The answer is 3.5% of GDP for the core of defense. Added to that is 1.5% for what might be called the support foundation: roads and bridges capable of carrying heavy tanks, ports and airfields that can be militarized, digital networks resilient to cyberattacks, defense industrial chains, civil preparedness for crises. This second compartment is deliberately vague in its definition, which is both its political strength — allowing for broad national interpretations — and its major risk: some allies might count existing expenditures to artificially inflate their contribution.

In 2025, only three nations exceeded the 3.5% GDP threshold on the hard component: Poland (4.12%), Latvia, and Lithuania. The United States, meanwhile, stood at 3.19% in 2025, down slightly from 3.30% in 2024. If even the Alliance’s superpower is retreating in proportion, the question of leadership by example arises. European and Canadian allies collectively spent over $90 billion extra in 2025 compared to 2024, a nearly 20% increase in a single year. It’s spectacular on paper. It is still insufficient relative to the target goal.

Initial Implementation Figures: A Reality Still Far From the Mark

In 2025, NATO's collective military spending represented 2.77% of its members' aggregate GDP, with the United States providing about 60% of the total. European allies and Canada have certainly made spectacular progress — $574 billion in military spending in 2025, up 20% from the previous year. But the distance to 3.5% of GDP for the core defense remains abyssal for most members. In 2024, according to SIPRI, the NATO average stood at 2.2% of GDP. Closing the gap to 5% in ten years would require a financial mobilization unprecedented since the Cold War.

These figures are not abstractions. They represent concrete political choices that each allied government will have to make before its voters: fewer hospitals, fewer schools, fewer social benefits — or more debt. For Germany, reaching 5% of GDP in 2035 means spending about $329 billion on defense, compared to a national education budget of about $283 billion. These are civilizational trade-offs, not accounting adjustments. NATO must help its members sell these choices to their populations. That is not a role it is usually equipped for.

Rutte and the Key Formula: "Turning Cash into Capabilities"

Rhetoric That Says Everything About the Alliance's Central Problem

On June 18, 2026, during the press conference preceding the Ankara summit, Mark Rutte summarized with surgical precision the challenge facing the Alliance: "Cash is crucial, but you can't stop a missile or a tank with a dollar or a euro. We need to turn the cash into combat-ready capabilities, and fast." This formula — "turning cash into capabilities" — has become the mantra of the phase he calls "NATO 3.0", a rebooted Alliance for the modern era. Rutte also declared, as early as January 2026, that "the time when we comfortably let the United States carry the burden of our security is over." The transatlantic message is unequivocal: the money must flow now, and it must materialize in tanks, missiles, ammunition, satellites, and networks — not promises.

The tension between financial commitment and the industrial capacity to absorb it is one of the project's greatest vulnerabilities. Concrete data illustrates the risk: 155mm artillery shells have gone from $2,000 per unit before 2022 to over $8,000 today. A Leopard 2 tank was sold to the Netherlands in October 2024 for $23 million per unit; in Austria, in February 2025, the same model reached $30 million. If budgets increase but prices skyrocket, real capability does not increase proportionally. Defense inflation is devouring nominal gains. The real challenge is not signing a commitment in The Hague — it’s building a transatlantic industrial base in ten years capable of producing the capabilities bought by these rising budgets.

The Industrial Reality Behind the Summit Rhetoric

Rutte's formula is seductive, but it hits a reality that summit speeches often ignore: turning money into military capabilities takes time — sometimes years, sometimes a decade. A contract signed today for tanks, fighter jets, or air defense systems does not translate into delivery the following quarter. Defense industrial production cycles are long. Supply chains are complex and globalized. A semiconductor shortage can block the delivery of sophisticated weapons systems. The war in Ukraine has revealed these constraints in a brutal way: even with massive orders, Europe struggled to deliver ammunition at a pace compatible with the needs of the front.

The Unified PURL Process — which has helped supply interceptors to Ukrainian Patriot batteries — illustrates what the Alliance can do when it coordinates effectively: 70% of Ukrainian Patriot missiles since the launch of this initiative, 90% of munitions for other air defense systems. It is a model. But it is also the exception that proves the rule: the cooperation industrial across the Atlantic remains fragmented, slow, and politically sensitive. Ankara will have to accelerate this work, or growing budgets will not produce the expected capabilities within the required timeframes.

Burden-Sharing in the Trump Era: Between Pressure and Cohesion

Trump, the Unintentional Catalyst of European Rearmament

Credit where credit is due: without Donald Trump's brutal and repeated pressure, The Hague summit probably wouldn't have produced a 5% commitment. Trump was the first to demand this level of spending, during his first term. He called The Hague agreement a "monumental victory for the United States" and a "great victory for Europe and, in fact, for Western civilization." He wasn’t wrong in his diagnosis: the chronic imbalance of burden-sharing, where Washington had funded a disproportionate share of collective defense since Eisenhower, was unsustainable. The problem is that the Trump method — threats of disengagement, questioning Article 5, sycophancy toward Putin — also sowed strategic uncertainty that weakens the very deterrence it claims to strengthen.

The 2026 US National Defense Strategy explicitly cites The Hague summit as the culmination of American pressure and confirms that allies have "committed to reaching the new global standard of 5% of GDP." But specialists at the Atlantic Council remind us that "the future of American political and military commitment to Europe remains uncertain". Trump blocked a new tranche of military aid to Ukraine in The Hague; his Secretary of State Rubio refused to support new economic sanctions against Russia. The American ally is indispensable and unpredictable at the same time. This is the central paradox upon which the entire mechanism of European rearmament rests.

Article 5 Under Strain: When the Credibility of Deterrence Totters

At The Hague summit, Trump answered a question about his commitment to Article 5 with a line that chilled European capitals: "That depends on your definition. There are many definitions of Article 5." The final declaration reaffirmed the commitment "in unequivocal terms," according to Rutte. But American presidential ambiguity regarding the collective defense clause — the central pillar of transatlantic security since 1949 — has sown lasting uncertainty. Deterrence works on credibility. If the adversary doubts the collective response, deterrence erodes. Putin listens to every statement from Washington. He is calculating.

This context makes the logic of accelerated burden-sharing all the more critical. If the American commitment is conditional, Europe must be able to defend itself alone on the conventional level. This is what Rutte calls "NATO 3.0" — an Alliance where Europeans and Canadians take on more of their own conventional defense, "backed by American power." This formula is itself revealing of a shift: no longer "guaranteed by American power," but "backed by" — a nuance that says everything about the ongoing redesign of the transatlantic security architecture. Ankara will have to clarify this equation, or risk leaving a strategic vacuum that the West’s adversaries will eagerly fill.

The Spanish Case: The Crack in the Unanimous Facade

When the Exception Becomes a Precedent

No crack better illustrated the limits of The Hague’s displayed solidarity than the Spanish opt-out. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez rejected the 5% target, stating that Spain can meet its national capability goals with just 2.1% of GDP, and that the extra cost would force pension cuts or tax hikes. Rutte fired back sharply: "NATO doesn't have opt-outs, and NATO doesn't do side deals." Yet he had to accept a textual compromise, replacing "we" with "allies" in the declaration to allow Madrid to claim it wasn't bound. For experts, it is a "credibility deficit" that is worsening, especially in the eyes of allies on NATO’s eastern flank — Poland, the Baltic states — who already devote more than 4% of their GDP to defense. Slovakia followed a similar position.

Spain's economic argument isn’t without internal political basis, but it is intellectually fragile militarily. "Few allies believe Madrid’s claim that it can meet capability targets with only 2.1% of GDP", writes Andrew Bernard for the Atlantic Council. The philosophy of burden-sharing rests on equity of contributions; when a member withdraws its economy from the collective effort while benefiting from the common security umbrella, the very principle of solidarity erodes. Gregor Mitsotakis, the Greek Prime Minister, was direct: the targets "should be binding for all 32 members".

The Spanish Precedent and Its Potential Aftershocks Within the Alliance

The Spanish case is not isolated. Slovakia has adopted a similar position, arguing that its national capability targets can be met below the 3.5% threshold. Belgium, with its Prime Minister Bart De Wever, has publicly expressed doubts about the necessity of reaching the full 3.5% if capability goals can be met with less. This reasoning is economically and politically seductive — but it raises a fundamental question: who validates the coherence between capability targets and spending levels below the target? NATO capability targets are classified, inaccessible to the public and to parliaments. The lack of transparency makes any external oversight impossible.

SIPRI pointed to this problem precisely: the NDPP capability targets are classified, meaning that national budgets meant to fund them are developed and approved without the possibility of public scrutiny or democratic oversight. For allies who argue they can meet their goals with less, this opacity is a convenient cover. For the Alliance as a whole, it is a governance flaw that could worsen as members under budget pressure look for loopholes. Ankara should impose strengthened transparency mechanisms so that the 5% commitments are verifiable by everyone — including national parliaments.

Financing Rearmament: The Financial Architecture to be Built

Astronomical Figures That Demand a Redesign of Western Capital

The sums involved are dizzying. In 2024, NATO collectively spent an average of 2.2% of GDP, or about $1.5 trillion. Reaching 3.5% of GDP in 2035 will require roughly $1.4 trillion in additional annual spending in the core defense compartment alone. Reaching the full 5% represents an annual surplus of nearly $2.7 trillion, bringing the NATO total to some $4.2 trillion per year. In national equivalents: Germany would have to devote about $329 billion to defense in 2035 — more than its total spending on education. France, $221 billion. Italy, $158 billion, at a time when its public debt is nearing 135% of GDP and the IMF is calling for tax reform. Without an overhaul of the Western financial architecture, these targets will remain theoretical.

Rob Murray, an expert at the Atlantic Council, proposes a bold path: a multilateral Defense, Security, and Resilience Bank owned by the allies, capable of providing guarantees, absorbing risks, and allowing private capital — pension funds, private equity — to finance mid-sized defense industry companies. Without this, he warned, the surge in budgets will produce not capabilities but industrial inflation. The data proves him right: the price of the Leopard 2 jumped 30% in a few months. Shells cost four times more than before 2022. Spending more is not equivalent to producing more — and the European defense industry is still struggling to scale its production despite the explosive demand.

The Inflationary Risks of Too Rapid a Build-up

The surge in defense budgets carries an under-estimated systemic risk: industrial inflation. When demand increases sharply while supply cannot adjust in the short term, prices skyrocket. It is a law of economics, and the defense sector is no exception — on the contrary, its markets are even more inelastic than civilian markets due to certification delays, supplier monopolies, and security requirements. Rob Murray of the Atlantic Council quantified the risk: "without structural reform, the spending surge will generate inflation, not capability." The proof is in the data: $2,000 shells became $8,000 shells in three years. Leopard 2 tanks went up 30% in a few months.

However, there are levers to control this inflation. Pooling purchases — which Europe is experimenting with through mechanisms like the European Commission’s EDIRPA and ASAP — allows for volume negotiations and brings down unit prices. Investing in upstream industrial capacity — by funding factory expansion rather than just final orders — helps broaden supply. And the standardization of equipment between allies, long resisted by national industries, would allow for considerable economies of scale. These are not new ideas. They are ideas that national and industrial interests have long blocked. The pressure of the 5% could finally make them politically unavoidable.

Ankara 2026: First Progress Report Under the World's Gaze

A Summit That Must Turn Commitment into Tangible Proof

The Ankara summit on July 7 and 8, 2026, which will bring together the heads of state and government of the 32 members at the Beştepe Presidential Complex, will be the first grand test of the credibility of the The Hague bet. Rutte was clear during his May 2026 press conference in the pre-ministerial format: he expects allies to present "clear, concrete, and credible plans" to reach the 5% target — ideally ahead of schedule. The watchword for Ankara, according to the Secretary General, is implementation: moving out of the commitment phase and into the delivery phase. That’s no small thing. It’s the difference between a PR summit and a transformation summit.

Preliminary indicators are encouraging but insufficient. All NATO allies now devote more than 2% of GDP to defense — a target that took more than a decade to reach. European and Canadian military spending jumped by 20% in 2025. But out of 32 members, seules trois nations atteignent déjà le seuil de 3,5% du PIB — Poland, Latvia, Lithuania — those closest to the Russian border, those who viscerally understand what exposure to risk means. Turkey, the host country, is reminding everyone of its own contributions: Ankara is one of the five largest contributors of forces to the Alliance and was itself progressing toward the 5% targets. Turkish Defense Minister Yaşar Güler called Ankara an "important turning point" in the Alliance's strategic direction.

What Ankara Must Deliver to Be More Than a PR Summit

For Rutte and for the allies who take the 5% seriously, the Ankara summit must produce plans nationaux publics et vérifiables — not general commitments, but costed trajectories with annual milestones and accountability mechanisms. The June 18, 2026, defense ministers' meeting in Brussels was precisely the final preparation stage before the summit. There, Rutte heard, in his own words, "ally after ally after ally" explain how they are increasing their investments. That is positive. But hearing is different from verifying. Ankara devra institutionnaliser la vérification.

The final declaration of the Ankara summit, expected on July 8, 2026, will be scrutinized in every world chancellery — and in Moscow in particular. Zelensky will participate in the summit, which is a strong signal compared to the relative marginalization of the Ukrainian president in The Hague. Support for Ukraine — notably via the PURL mechanism — will be reaffirmed. But attentive observers will look especially to see if the words "Russia," "aggression," "sovereign territory" appear in the declaration, or if the Alliance will continue to drown its primary adversary in vague diplomatic formulas that serve more to humor Trump than to deter Putin.

The Ukrainian Dossier: The Hague's Great Absentee, Ankara's Stake

From 60 Mentions to 2: Ukraine's Symbolic Downgrading in NATO Rhetoric

One of the most striking pieces of data from The Hague summit is the quasi-disparition de l'Ukraine dans le texte final. The 2024 Washington Summit declaration mentioned Ukraine environ 60 fois. The Hague's: deux fois. The language chosen is cautious, almost bureaucratic: "Les alliés réaffirment leurs engagements souverains durables à fournir un soutien à l'Ukraine, dont la sécurité contribue à la nôtre." Zelensky was dismissed to side events, far from the official stages. Trump called him "very nice" during a meeting on the sidelines, before speaking about Putin in terms of benevolent misunderstanding — he is "someone who, in my opinion, was misguided." That is not a strategic posture. It’s court politics.

Yet, Ukraine remains at the heart of the burden-sharing machinery through a fundamental technical provision: les contributions à la défense ukrainienne comptent désormais dans le calcul des dépenses de défense des alliés au titre des 5%. This is both good news — it incentivizes countries to continue and increase their aid — and a risk of distortion: allies might prefer to count weapons deliveries to Ukraine rather than fund their own national capabilities. For Ankara, support for Ukraine is announced as an explicit priority. Zelensky will be present. Allies are expected to review and update their commitments. La question centrale sera de maintenir un soutien "substantiel, durable et prévisible", according to Rutte's formula.

The PURL Mechanism and the New Architecture of Support for Ukraine

Beyond the rhetoric, concrete support for Ukraine has been structured around a key operational mechanism: the Processus unifié de reconstitution des ressources (PURL), launched in July 2025. Its results are tangible: since its launch, PURL has provided about 70% de tous les missiles pour les batteries Patriot ukrainiennes — including PAC-3 interceptors — and 90% des munitions pour les autres systèmes de défense aérienne. The framework agreement: the United States maintains the flow of American equipment to Ukraine, while Europeans and Canadians fund that flow. Rutte hailed this arrangement as a "deal" kept, despite transatlantic tensions.

But this mechanism, however effective, reveals another weakness of Ukrainian burden-sharing: un nombre limité d'alliés assume l'essentiel du financement, while a majority contributes marginally. Rutte himself acknowledged "not enough balance" in this support and his desire to see allies share the burden more equitably. At Ankara, this question will be on the table. Zelensky is expected. The Alliance will have to decide if its support for Ukraine will remain concentrated on a few generous shoulders, or if it will become a truly collective effort — ce que l'OTAN prétend être, et doit démontrer qu'elle est.

The Industrial Challenge: Producing What Budgets Promise to Buy

The European Production Chain Faced with Explosive Demand

The budgetary ramp-up is only worth something if the defense industry can deliver. This is the most concrete challenge — and the least visible in summit speeches. Depuis 2022, l'industrie européenne de défense peine à répondre à la demande, structurally ill-suited for mass production after three decades of peace dividends. Order books are full, and lead times are growing. As a result: countries are looking to buy "off-the-shelf" from major American producers — Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon — which deepens the déficit d'autonomie stratégique européenne that Brussels is specifically trying to fix. It is a vicious circle: urgency → American purchases → persistent dependence → structural fragility.

The ministre française de la Défense Catherine Vautrin explicitly supported burden-sharing in Brussels on June 18, 2026, before the Ankara summit, invoking "la souveraineté, l'autonomie, la responsabilité" as cardinal values of the French contribution. Paris is playing both sides: a faithful ally on capabilities, and a defender of European strategic autonomy. It is a consistent position but difficult to maintain when delivery times for French weapons systems are also lengthening. Rutte acknowledged unambiguously in Brussels in June 2026 that "nous ne sommes pas là, ni côté américain ni côté européen de l'OTAN" — on industrial production. The honesty is refreshing. It is not reassuring.

Transatlantic Industrial Cooperation: An Urgent and Complicated Task

Rutte posed the industrial question with unusually direct frankness during the May 2026 pre-ministerial format: "il est vital que nous turbo-chargions la coopération industrielle de défense transatlantique." The reason is clear: without cooperation on both sides of the Atlantic, increasing European orders will feed American factories rather than strengthen European industrial autonomy. This would be both a missed opportunity for Europe and a source of increased dependence on the United States — at the exact moment Europeans are trying to reduce that dependence. The paradox is dizzying.

Industrial cooperation is also hampered by restrictions américaines à l'exportation de technologies sensibles, which experts at the Atlantic Council have called "laboriously burdensome." These restrictions, designed to protect American technological superiority, slow down the transatlantic industrial integration that Washington otherwise calls for. C'est une contradiction que l'administration Trump devra trancher, between technological protectionism and the strategic need for better-armed allies. Ankara could be the place where these tensions are openly expressed. The outcome of this discussion will have industrial consequences for the entire coming decade.

Putin's Russia: The Adversary Hardly Named

An Alarming Rhetorical Withdrawal in The Hague Declaration

The Hague declaration mentions Russia une seule fois, in general terms: allies are "united in the face of profound security threats and challenges, including the long-term threat posed by Russia to Euro-Atlantic security." In 2024, in Washington, Russia was named, analyzed, and designated as the central aggressor. In 2025, under American diplomatic pressure, les États-Unis ont bloqué une initiative d'Alliance pour élaborer une nouvelle stratégie face à la Russie. Rubio opposed new economic sanctions. Trump said Putin "would like to settle" the Ukrainian situation and attributed to him misguided motivations rather than criminal ones. It is a rhetorical regression that has real strategic consequences.

To be precise: Poutine n'a pas stoppé son agression. He has shown no sign of withdrawal. He observes Western divisions with clinical patience and has recalibrated his military operations, information campaigns, and political influence attempts in Europe. La dissuasion OTAN repose sur trois piliers : la volonté, la capacité, et la crédibilité. The first pillar erodes when one refuses to name the adversary. The 5% of GDP strengthens the second pillar. But if the enemy is no longer clearly designated, the credibility of the overall commitment remains fragile. Ankara must correct this rhetorical slip — or risk financing a rearmament whose target remains vague.

What the Russian Strategy Reveals About the Weaknesses of the Western Model

While NATO debates budgets and definitions of the 1.5%, la Russie de Poutine a militarisé son économie à marche forcée. According to several estimates, Moscow now devotes between 7 and 8% of its GDP to the war effort, all expenses included. Arms factories are running in three shifts. The production of drones, shells, missiles, and armored equipment has been massively accelerated since 2022. Putin has gambled that the West will tire before he does. So far, despite the commitments, despite the summits, la trajectoire ukrainienne et la réalité des fronts ne lui donnent pas encore tort. This is what the 5% of GDP debates must counter: not an abstract threat, but a military reality expressed every day.

The Russian strategy also integrates a political dimension that the 5% alone cannot solve: les opérations d'influence, de désinformation et de déstabilisation politique au sein des démocraties occidentales. These operations aim precisely to erode public support for rearmament, to fuel political forces that oppose aid to Ukraine, and to fragment Atlantic cohesion. Money spent on F-35s does not protect against a disinformation algorithm on social media. 21st-century burden-sharing includes an informational and democratic component that NATO is only beginning to integrate into its doctrine. Ankara devrait tracer une feuille de route sur ce front aussi.

The 2029 Revision: The Safeguard That Might Not Be One

A Monitoring Mechanism with Uncertain Credibility

The Hague summit included a revision provision: en 2029, les alliés évalueront la trajectoire des dépenses et adapteront éventuellement les objectifs capacitaires based on the geopolitical situation. This date is not random — it occurs just after the American elections scheduled for 2028, at a time when a new administration could reshape the American posture in the Alliance. Proponents of the revision see it as a realistic safeguard: if the situation has worsened, it can be corrected upward; if a lasting ceasefire occurs in Ukraine, it can be re-evaluated. Sceptics see it as a sortie de secours politique for governments that fail to meet the target — a way to institutionalize the excuse for delays.

The date de 2035 pour la pleine réalisation was itself the subject of a compromise. Rutte had initially proposed 2032. The Baltic states and Poland, living with the Russian threat on their border, pushed for a shorter timeline. Most allies negotiated for 2035. According to several analysts, les pays du flanc est — Pologne, pays baltes, probablement Allemagne et Royaume-Uni — atteindront l'objectif d'ici 2032, well before the official deadline. Other members of the Alliance risk never actually reaching it, settling for a "credible" trajectory without a guaranteed destination. Le test véritable n'est pas 2035, c'est la revue de 2029. That is when we will know if the The Hague bet was a strategic decision or a grand-scale act of political communication.

Lessons from the 2% Goal to Anticipate Drifts in the 5% Goal

It is useful to remember the history of the 2% goal. Adopted at the Wales Summit in 2014 after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, this goal took plus d'une décennie à être universellement atteint — and it was only met in 2025, under the combined pressure of the war in Ukraine and Trump's threats. For ten years, governments presented "credible trajectories," "multi-year plans," and "progressive commitments" — all while keeping their spending below the target. La mécanique politico-diplomatique de l'esquive est bien rodée. There is no reason to think the shift to 5% will be any different if the monitoring mechanisms are not fundamentally strengthened.

The difference between 2014 and 2025 is war. Direct threat made promises unavoidable. If the security context improves — negotiations in Ukraine, reduction of tensions in Europe — the internal political pressures in each allied country will once again take precedence over strategic commitments. C'est précisément pourquoi la revue de 2029 est à la fois indispensable et périlleuse. Indispensable for honestly assessing progress. Perilous because if the context improves, it could become the forum for a downward revision of ambitions. NATO will need to build robust institutional safeguards to avoid this scenario. Ankara is the first opportunity to do so.

Turkey’s Role: Ambiguous Host of a Crucial Summit

Ankara Between Strategic Contribution and Diplomatic Ambivalence

Hosting the Alliance summit within its walls gives Turkey a high-profile status that is difficult to ignore. It is the deuxième sommet OTAN en sol turc depuis Istanbul 2004. Some 6 000 participants are expected at the Beştepe Presidential Complex. Turkey presents itself as one of the five most important contributors of forces to NATO, with a seasoned professional army and real operational experience — from the Balkans to Syria to Mediterranean waters. Güler briefed his counterparts on Ankara’s progress toward the 5% target, on support for Ukraine, and on the stabilizing role Turkey intends to play. Erdoğan seeks to use this summit to project an image of a credible power and mediator — a role he has cultivated since the start of the war in Ukraine.

But the Turkish paradox is obvious to anyone looking without blinders: Ankara bought the Russian S-400 russe system, which led to its exclusion from the F-35 program. It maintains significant trade relations with Moscow. It oscillates between the Western bloc and a "autonomie stratégique" turque that sometimes looks more like calculated equidistance. Experts from Istanbul reminded a June 2026 conference that the debate over burden-sharing within NATO "is not new" but that "current conditions are pushing Europe more strongly toward strategic autonomy." The central question for Ankara 2026 is whether Turkey will be a driver or a brake in the transformation de l'Alliance vers une Europe plus forte et plus autonome.

Turkey-NATO: A Strategic Relationship of Variable Geometry Against the 5% Backdrop

Regarding defense spending, Turkey is not lagging. Minister Güler explicitly briefed his counterparts in Brussels on "progrès d'Ankara vers l'engagement de dépenses de défense de 5%" — which suggests that Turkey is positioning itself among the most advanced countries in their trajectory toward the new goals. This is a powerful argument that the summit host will not fail to use to strengthen its image as a contributing ally. The implicit message is clear: when you invest, you have the right to speak loudly. And Erdoğan has never missed an opportunity to remind others of his country's strategic weight in the Alliance.

But the discussions in Ankara will inevitably raise questions that Turkey would prefer to avoid: sa position sur les sanctions contre la Russie, ses relations économiques avec Moscou malgré l'invasion, sa gestion des passages navals en mer Noire. The international maritime law of the Montreux Convention gives Ankara considerable power over military naval flow to the Black Sea — a power it has used to block warships from non-riparian countries, including some NATO allies seeking to strengthen naval presence in support of Ukraine. This is not a detail. It is a demonstration of what "Turkish strategic autonomy" means in practice — even within the Alliance.

The Legacy of The Hague Summit Faced with the Ankara Trial

From Declaration to Implementation: The Conditions for Success

For The Hague's bet to succeed — and for NATO to be truly stronger by 2035 — several conditions must be met simultaneously. Premièrement, allies must present clear, costed national plans for ramping up toward the 5% in Ankara, with verifiable interim milestones. Deuxièmement, the definition of the 1.5% must be precise enough to avoid accounting window-dressing. Troisièmement, the transatlantic industrial base must accelerate its production capacity — which requires unprecedented commercial-strategic cooperation between governments, industrialists, and financial markets. Quatrièmement, support for Ukraine must be maintained, strengthened, and not serve as an alibi to delay national capability investments. These four conditions are interconnected. Failure on one weakens the other three.

Rutte has stated clearly that he wants to see in Ankara an "Alliance reboottée pour l'ère moderne" — and that on this point, "everyone is in agreement." The agreement on the goal is real. The agreement on the means remains fragile. The déclaration d'Ankara, expected on July 8, 2026, will be the political barometer of this fragile unity. If it is substantive — if it names Russia, if it strengthens commitments to Ukraine, if it sets precise milestones for the 5% — it means the Alliance has stayed the course. If it resembles the 427 words of The Hague, reduced to the essentials by internal dissension, it will be a red flag that the West’s adversaries will be quick to decode.

The Alliance Faced with the Choice: Performative Cohesion or Structural Transformation

NATO has a long history of performative cohesion — the art of maintaining a facade of unity despite deep divergences. This cohesion has real value: it sends a signal to the adversary, it maintains cooperation mechanisms, and it preserves diplomatic channels. But at a time when threats are existential and capability deficits are measurable, la cohésion performative ne suffit plus. Structural transformation is needed: industries that produce, budgets that deliver, plans that come to fruition. The vrai indicateur du succès d'Ankara ne sera pas le communiqué final — it is the state of allied forces in 2028, in 2030, in 2032.

This transformation requires something that Western democracies always struggle to sustain over time: la rigueur stratégique dans l'adversité silencieuse. It is easier to commit after an invasion than to maintain the effort five years later, when fronts stabilize, when weariness sets in, and when voters question the cost. Yet that is exactly what NATO must do. Ankara est le test de cette rigueur. If the summit produces credible commitments, verifiable plans, and clear language on Russia, it will have demonstrated that the Alliance can hold its bet beyond moments of intense crisis. That would, in itself, be a strategic signal of considerable power.

Conclusion: From Accounting to Power — NATO’s Real Challenge

The Promised Figure is Not Enough: It Takes the Will to Embody It

The 5% of GDP commitment, made in The Hague in June 2025 and assessed in Ankara in July 2026, is the most ambitious marker of Western collective defense policy since the end of the Cold War. It is both necessary and insufficient. Necessary, because trois décennies de sous-investissement dans la défense ont laissé l'Europe structurellement vulnérable to a Russia that has continued to militarize its economy and society. Insufficient, because a GDP figure does not guarantee operational capabilities, a resilient supply chain, a productive defense industry, or lasting political cohesion among 32 democracies with diverging interests. La mécanique du burden-sharing ne se réduit pas à une calculatrice.

A West That Must Remain the Center of the World — Provided It Deserves It

What the analysis of the dynamic between The Hague and Ankara reveals is that the West is still capable of mobilizing against existential threats — but only when the pressure is at its peak, when peace dividends have vanished, and when an adversary like Putin demonstrates his brutality every day. Le vrai test de la civilisation atlantique n'est pas le sommet d'Ankara. C'est ce que les 32 capitales feront, budget après budget, ligne par ligne, industrie après industrie, dans les dix années qui suivent. Rutte is right: "you can't stop a missile with a dollar." But a dollar spent with discernment, in a solid industrial chain, in the service of a clear strategy against a clearly named adversary, is worth more than a thousand dollars scattered in summit promises. The Atlantic Alliance carries within it the capacity to meet this challenge. The question is whether it will have the collective rigor.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Sources

Primary Sources

NATO — Defence Ministers make good progress ahead of the Ankara Summit, with key quotes from Rutte on capabilities — June 18, 2026

NATO — Press conference by Secretary General Mark Rutte, announcement of the 3.5% + 1.5% GDP target — June 5, 2025

NATO — Media Advisory: NATO Summit Ankara, 7-8 July 2026, Beştepe Presidential Complex — April 22, 2026

Secondary Sources

Atlantic Council — Experts react: NATO 5% of GDP, The Hague summit and its aftermath — June 25, 2025

Euronews — 5% of GDP, Ukraine, Russia: key takeaways from the NATO The Hague summit — June 25, 2025

SIPRI — NATO’s new spending target: challenges, risks and political signal — June 27, 2025

Anadolu Agency — French defense minister backs NATO burden-sharing ahead of Ankara summit — June 18, 2026

Daily Sabah — NATO summit in Ankara expected to shape Alliance’s next chapter — June 10, 2026