ANALYSIS: Ankara July 7–8 — what NATO absolutely must get right against Putin

ANALYSIS: Ankara July 7–8 — what NATO absolutely must get right against Putin

Introduction: Ankara, the summit that cannot afford to fail

A summit in an unprecedented strategic context

On July 7 and 8, 2026, NATO heads of state and government will meet in Ankara, at the Beştepe presidential palace. This meeting takes place in a strategic context without precedent since the end of the Cold War: a high-intensity conventional war in Europe, growing hybrid threats on the eastern flank, doubts about the reliability of American engagement, and unprecedented budgetary pressure to meet defense spending targets that seemed unimaginable five years ago.

The Ankara summit's agenda is loaded: the 5% of GDP defense spending target proposed by Mark Rutte, NATO's Secretary General; continued support for Ukraine; managing growing tensions in the Middle East; and reinforcing the alliance's eastern and northern flanks. Every file is explosive. The success of this summit is a strategic imperative for the West.

What Rutte prepared before heading to Ankara

On June 25, 2026, during an interview at the Atlantic Council, Mark Rutte announced that "tens of billions" in new defense contracts would be announced at the Ankara summit. He also stressed that European and Canadian allies' defense spending had increased by 20% in 2025, and that $1.2 trillion in additional spending had been made by those allies between 2016 and 2026. These figures matter: they form Rutte's argument against American pressure.

The 5% of GDP target: revolution or realism?

How 5% became the central figure

The threshold of 2% of GDP in defense spending — long the official NATO standard that the majority of members failed to meet — is now a floor, not a target. Mark Rutte is pushing for 5%, a figure that reflects the pessimistic threat calculations of the alliance's most exposed members and the necessity of rearming Europe at a pace not seen since the 1980s. This figure is dizzying for economies accustomed to peace for decades.

For France, reaching 5% of GDP would mean more than doubling its defense budget. For Germany, already making considerable efforts since Russia's 2022 invasion, it would represent a further near-doubling. For Italy or Spain, it is a leap of a magnitude that their economies and fiscal policies would find difficult to absorb quickly. And yet, the Gdansk Declaration of June 25, 2026 reaffirmed the commitment to this target.

Resistance and European budgetary realities

Not all European capitals experience the Russian threat with the same intensity. The eastern flank countries — Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland — already spend more than 3% of GDP and are pushing toward 5% with a conviction that their geographic experience makes understandable. But Western and Southern European countries face budget constraints, significant public debts, and populations less directly exposed to the Russian threat.

The Ankara summit will need to find a formula that allows the alliance to display a collective commitment toward 5% while permitting differentiated trajectories based on national capacities. That is the art of multilateral diplomacy: building a façade of unity over divergent realities — and hoping the façade holds long enough for the realities to converge.

The Ukrainian question at the summit's heart

Support for Ukraine: how far, for how long

NATO's support for Ukraine is on the Ankara agenda from several angles: arms deliveries, financing for reconstruction, long-term security guarantees, and the question of Ukraine's potential accession to the alliance — still too delicate a subject to resolve at this summit. What allies can do at Ankara is reaffirm the continuity of support and announce new deliveries.

Zelensky's 40-day operation — unfolding at the very moment summit preparations are accelerating — reinforces Ukraine's position. Every strike on a Russian refinery is an argument for continued support: Ukraine uses resources effectively, it hits where it hurts, and it needs its allies to keep accompanying it.

Security guarantees: the great absent?

What Ukraine truly wants — and what the Ankara summit may not yet deliver — is legally binding security guarantees. A formal invitation to join NATO, or at least an equivalent collective security mechanism, remains a long-term objective. Trump's United States is reluctant. Some European allies hesitate. And Putin threatens.

The summit could announce "enhanced" bilateral or multilateral security "commitments" that fall just short of NATO's Article 5. That would be more than what currently exists, but less than what Zelensky is asking for. And in a conflict where security guarantees have already been violated once — the 1994 Budapest Memorandum — toothless guarantees are worth very little.

American pressure: Hegseth and the threat of disengagement

Hegseth's 6-month review: a sword of Damocles

Pete Hegseth, the American Secretary of Defense, announced a 6-month review of the United States' presence and contributions in Europe. This review, reported by The Guardian on June 27, 2026, creates a background threat hanging over the Ankara summit: the United States could reduce its contributions if European allies do not increase their spending fast enough. This is the stick being brandished while the carrot of "tens of billions" in defense contracts is on offer.

The Trump/Hegseth strategy is coherent: use the threat of American disengagement to force Europeans to spend more. That pressure has worked — European defense spending has increased significantly since 2022. But the method creates distrust and erodes the alliance's political coherence. Allies on the eastern flank, in particular, need certainties, not conditional threats.

Trump: necessary evil or systemic risk for NATO?

The relationship between the Trump administration and NATO is structurally ambivalent. On one hand, American pressure has pushed Europeans to spend more — which is objectively necessary. On the other, Trump's unpredictability, his sudden geopolitical maneuvers, and Hegseth's rhetoric on disengagement create instability that benefits Putin.

The Guardian reported on June 27, 2026 that several NATO leaders fear they can no longer count on American help if Russia attacks. This fear is the real subject of the Ankara summit — not defense contracts, not GDP percentages, but the fundamental question: who protects Europe if the United States withdraws?

The eastern flank: the real fault line

The Baltics and Poland: between maximum alert and legitimate demands

NATO's eastern flank countries — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland — experience the Ankara summit with an urgency that Western European countries struggle to fully share. For them, the Russian threat is not hypothetical: it is daily, concrete, and documented. Latvia alerted as early as June 22, 2026 (according to Fox News) that Russia is preparing hybrid attacks on the eastern flank. The Guardian of June 26 reported fears of a possible Russian "provocation" in the Baltic states or Poland.

These alerts are not paranoia. Russia is conducting strike exercises from Kaliningrad with Su-24M bombers and Su-30SM2 fighters — documented on June 21, 2026 by Army Recognition. It is testing NATO responses, mapping intervention timelines, probing for gaps. The Ankara summit must respond to these provocations with a reinforcement of the alliance's forward presence on the eastern flank.

Quadrupling shell production: an industrial priority

NATO's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander, General Stringer, declared his desire for the Ankara summit to push for an acceleration in defense spending, notably to achieve a quadrupling of 155mm shell production. That figure illustrates the scale of the needs: artillery consumption in the war in Ukraine has exceeded all projections, exposing the inadequacy of NATO's stockpiles.

For the eastern flank, the question is not only who pays, but who produces and on what timelines. European defense industries need massive investment to scale up their production capacity. The "tens of billions" in contracts announced by Rutte are partly destined to finance this industrial scale-up.

The industrial stakes: Ankara as an arms fair

Tens of billions in contracts: who benefits

Secretary General Mark Rutte announced that the Ankara summit would see the announcement of "tens of billions" in new defense contracts. These contracts represent a windfall for European and American defense industries: air defense systems, ammunition, armored vehicles, command and communication systems. The war in Ukraine has transformed defense into a priority economic sector — and the companies operating in it into strategic actors.

This transformation has geopolitical implications: countries whose defense industries receive the most contracts have an economic interest in maintaining high military spending. That is not necessarily bad — it is even desirable that the West builds robust defense industrial capabilities. But it also creates interest dynamics that deserve to be named.

Turkey as host: the Ankara paradox

Turkey is a NATO member whose relationship with the alliance is complex. It has maintained economic and diplomatic ties with Russia while being a member of the alliance. It sold Bayraktar drones to Ukraine — a decisive contribution in the early phases of the war. And it now hosts the most important summit the alliance has held in years.

The choice of Ankara as the summit venue is itself loaded with meaning: it acknowledges Turkey's geopolitical centrality and attempts to anchor Erdoğan more firmly to the common cause. It is a diplomatic gamble — Turkey as a bridge between NATO and Russia can be useful in certain scenarios, but this position of ambiguity can also weaken alliance coherence.

Ukraine at the summit: what Zelensky expects from Ankara

The structural dimension of the current stakes

Beyond the immediate decisions of the Ankara summit, there is a structural dimension in the current stakes that military analysts regularly highlight: Western collective security rests on a combination of political will, real military capabilities, and strategic coherence. These three elements are currently under simultaneous tension — which makes this moment more critical than usual.

Decisions taken at Ankara in July 2026 will be made in a context where every signal sent to Moscow, to Beijing, and to allies carries double weight. The credibility of the alliance is a public good that builds over time and is destroyed quickly. The responsibility of those gathering at Beştepe is therefore considerable.

The actors who will shape the decisions

The outcome of the Ankara summit will depend on a few key actors: Rutte to maintain the coherence of the alliance's agenda, the leaders of the eastern flank to impose the urgency of their concerns, and the Trump administration to define how far it pushes its demands without breaking what it claims to want to reinforce. Each has distinct interests — and the negotiation between those interests will define the outcome.

Ukraine is not directly at the table — but it is present in every conversation. Its 40 days of strikes, its enemy's refineries in flames, its soldiers holding the front: all of this forms the invisible backdrop to every decision made at Ankara.

The global threats framing the Ankara summit

External pressure forcing decisions

Beyond the alliance's internal dynamics, the Ankara summit takes place in a global geopolitical context that extends beyond the European theater. China watches NATO and calibrates its own behavior toward Taiwan based on what it observes. Iran negotiates with the United States while maintaining its partnerships with Moscow. North Korea supplies ammunition to Russia and develops its military capabilities.

This multi-threat context is precisely what justifies the 5% of GDP target: NATO does not face a single localized threat, but an arc of instability stretching from Moscow to Pyongyang via Tehran. The alliance must therefore prepare for a more dangerous world on several simultaneous fronts — which makes budgetary under-preparation all the more serious.

The long-term consequences of Ankara's decisions

Future historians will look at the Ankara summit as a moment of choice. In one scenario, the alliance decided there to rearm seriously, support Ukraine through to a just peace, and build robust deterrence against the accumulating threats. In another, it produced communiqués and deferred difficult decisions to a later date.

These two scenarios have very different consequences for European security in the coming decades. The first builds peace through strength. The second invites predators to test the limits. And the choice between them will be made at Ankara, in July 2026, by political men and women bearing a historical responsibility.

Conclusion: Ankara must produce clarity, not communiqués

The conditions for a successful summit

A successful Ankara summit must produce several concrete results: a commitment toward 5% of GDP with credible national trajectories; defense contracts that fund industrial scale-up; reinforced commitments of support for Ukraine; and a firm response to Russian provocations on the eastern flank. If the summit produces only communiqués and vague diplomatic formulas, it will be read as weakness — and Putin will know how to exploit that.

NATO has proven since 2022 that it can respond to a military crisis with remarkable coherence. What is harder is maintaining that coherence over time, against internal pressures — American hesitation, European budget constraints — and a Russian threat that combines conventional war, hybrid warfare, and sustained psychological pressure.

What history will remember about Ankara

In ten or twenty years, historians will look at the Ankara summit and seek its significance. Either it will have been the summit where NATO decided to rearm seriously and stand firm against Russia — and it will be celebrated as a turning point. Or it will have been the summit of fine declarations without follow-through — and it will be analyzed as a missed opportunity.

The difference between these two destinies will not be decided in Ankara's speeches, but in what happens in the months that follow: budgets voted, contracts actually signed, troops deployed on the eastern flank, weapons delivered to Ukraine. Summits are only as good as what they trigger. And Ankara cannot afford to fail.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Limits of my analysis

I am writing before the Ankara summit takes place (July 7–8, 2026). This analysis is therefore prospective — I do not know what will actually be decided. I am drawing on preparatory materials and declarations available up to June 27, 2026. Quotations from Rutte and Hegseth come from published and verifiable sources. My analysis of NATO's internal dynamics is that of an outside observer, not a participant.

My positioning

I am in favor of NATO, in favor of supporting Ukraine, and critical of any position that weakens the alliance or creates space for Russian aggression. This positioning influences my analysis. I name it so that the reader can factor it in.

Sources

Primary sources

NATO — Rutte Atlantic Council: tens of billions in defense contracts for Ankara — June 25, 2026

The Guardian — NATO leaders fear they can no longer rely on US — June 27, 2026

European Parliament — Briefing on the NATO Ankara summit — June 26, 2026

Gdansk Declaration — 5% GDP reaffirmation — June 25, 2026

Secondary sources

US News/Reuters — Rutte says billions in new defense contracts at summit — June 25, 2026

Post-Gazette/AP — NATO summit Turkey defense spending — June 26, 2026

Brookings — A rebalancing NATO gathers in Ankara — June 24, 2026