ANALYSIS: Ankara Summit: NATO moves from promises to delivery

ANALYSIS: Ankara Summit: NATO moves from promises to delivery

Introduction: Ankara, crossroads of an alliance reinventing itself

The summit with everything at stake

On July 7 and 8, 2026, the leaders of NATO's 32 member nations will convene at the Beştepe Presidential Complex in Ankara. This 36th Alliance Summit — the second hosted by Turkey after Istanbul in 2004 — comes at a pivotal moment. One year after the landmark promises of the The Hague Summit (5% of GDP on defense by 2035, strengthened support for Ukraine), the time has come for concrete delivery.

Secretary General Mark Rutte set the tone during an appearance at the Atlantic Council in Washington on June 25, 2026: "tens of billions of dollars in new" defense contracts would be announced in Ankara. This is no longer a summit of political declarations — it is an industrial and military summit, where the alliance wants to demonstrate its capacity to translate its financial commitments into tangible military capabilities.

Zelensky present: Ukraine at the center of the game

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will attend the Ankara summit, Rutte confirmed. "I invited him, he will be there," he declared at a meeting of foreign ministers in Sweden in May 2026. Zelensky's presence is not symbolic — it marks the centrality of Ukraine in the alliance's strategic discussions, even as negotiations over its potential NATO membership move at their own pace.

The Ukrainian delegation expected in Ankara will bring several urgent dossiers: continued support in munitions and air defense systems, formulation of post-conflict security guarantees, and a strong political signal toward Moscow on allied determination to hold firm over time. Every decision taken in the deliberation room will translate directly into lives on the front.

Tens of billions in contracts: the defense industrial revolution

"Tens of billions": Rutte's figure

Mark Rutte was precise on June 25: "You will see a massive volume of new contracts," he promised from the Atlantic Council. These tens of billions of dollars represent a strong signal sent to defense industries across the alliance. The first day of the summit will be entirely dedicated to the defense industry — a significant organizational innovation demonstrating the priority given to the industrial and technological base.

The content of these contracts should include signed agreements, memoranda of understanding and letters of intent in areas such as munitions, air defense systems, drones, armored vehicles and secure communications. Rutte's explicit objective: to demonstrate that the defense industrial revolution is underway — a phrase he has been using for months to describe the acceleration of allied military spending.

The numbers reality: +20% in spending in 2025

Data published by NATO ahead of the summit is encouraging: European allies and Canada increased their defense spending by 20% in 2025 compared to the previous year — the fastest rate of increase since the Cold War. For the first time in Alliance history, a European ally — Norway — surpassed the United States in defense spending per capita.

All allies now exceed the former 2% of GDP threshold. But the target is now 5%, structured in two tranches: at least 3.5% for core military spending (personnel, operations, equipment) and up to 1.5% for security-related investments (cyber defense, critical infrastructure resilience, logistics). The road remains long for many allies.

Turkey as host: a symbolic and strategic presence

Erdoğan between Moscow and Washington

The choice of Ankara as the summit venue is not incidental. Turkey is a NATO ally with sometimes ambivalent postures: it purchased Russian S-400 missile systems, maintained commercial relations with Russia despite sanctions, and played a mediating role in negotiations over Ukrainian grain. Yet it remains a fully integrated member of the alliance, with NATO's second-largest army.

Hosting this summit reinforces Erdoğan's role on the international stage and offers him major diplomatic visibility. Turkey has deployed an unprecedented security operation: 40,000 police and gendarmerie officers, red zones around official sites and a ban on demonstrations in Ankara from July 1 to 15. The defense industry forum alongside the summit should give Turkish companies such as Baykar (manufacturer of the Bayraktar drone) the opportunity to seal strategic partnerships.

Finland, Sweden and the Northern Flank

The Ankara summit will also be an opportunity to measure the integration progress of new Nordic members — Finland and Sweden — into NATO's command structure. Finland has been hosting NATO's advanced battlegroup (Forward Land Forces) since June 2026, including a Swedish battlegroup based in Boden. These concrete deployments on the Northern Flank illustrate the rapid transformation of the alliance's defensive posture in the face of the Russian threat.

The BALTOPS 2026 exercises brought together 20 NATO vessels and 6,000 personnel from 15 nations in the Baltic Sea — a clear signal of allied determination to defend this strategic space. These exercises took place in a context of heightened tensions following Latvian intelligence warnings about a possible Russian provocation in the Baltic states or Poland.

The trajectory toward 5%: who is advancing, who is lagging?

The leaders and the laggards

Ahead of the Ankara summit, the defense spending picture among NATO members is uneven. Several countries in Central and Eastern Europe — Poland, the Baltic states, Finland — are already close to or beyond 3.5% of GDP. Poland, in particular, with its massive arms acquisition commitments, has positioned itself as one of the most determined actors in meeting The Hague targets.

At the other end of the spectrum, some Western European members are starting from a much lower base and will need to accelerate considerably to reach 5% by 2035. Spain secured an exemption in the final text of the The Hague summit. Germany has announced a substantial budgetary effort — but its defense industrial transformation takes time. France, backed by its nuclear deterrent, is negotiating its own definition of security spending.

National roadmaps: the moment of truth

The The Hague summit had set an obligation: nations had to submit national roadmaps describing their trajectory toward 5% by mid-2026. This deadline falls precisely before the Ankara summit. Nations that have not submitted a credible plan will face public pressure from their allies — and potentially the conditionalities imposed by Hegseth on American contributions to NATO's dues.

The review of these roadmaps will be one of the summit's key moments. Rutte has clearly indicated that Ankara will be the moment to move "from commitments to implementation." The rhetoric of the "defense industrial revolution" will need to materialize in figures, timelines and measurable capabilities. That is the benchmark by which history will judge the summit.

Ukraine, ceasefire and the question of post-war security

Zelensky in Ankara: what status for Ukraine?

Zelensky's presence at the Ankara summit raises the central question of the NATO-Ukraine relationship. Ukraine is not a member of the alliance, but it receives massive military support from virtually all allies. The summit should reaffirm support for Ukraine and include contributions to Ukrainian defense in the calculation of allied defense spending — a provision confirmed in the final declaration of the The Hague summit.

The question of Ukraine's eventual NATO membership remains in suspension. Rutte spoke of the "negotiating window" open through winter 2026, and Zelensky himself stated that Ukraine was ready for meetings but that Russia had to make the first move. The Ankara summit could consolidate security guarantees for Ukraine without going as far as a formal membership invitation — a line that the United States under Trump resists crossing.

Security guarantees: between commitment and ambiguity

The security guarantees dossier for Ukraine — presented as an alternative to immediate NATO membership — will be part of the Ankara discussions. These guarantees, whose form and legal force remain to be defined, aim to deter future Russian aggression even in the absence of member status. Several European countries — including the United Kingdom, France and Germany — have concluded bilateral security agreements with Kyiv that could serve as models.

But Zelensky has been clear: bilateral guarantees without Article 5 are not enough. And on this point, the Ankara summit will need to navigate between Ukrainian ambition, American reluctance under Trump and European willingness to find a formula that is both meaningful and politically acceptable to all allies.

The defense industry: the engine of transformation

An unprecedented NATO industry forum

For the first time, the Ankara summit will organize a Defense Industries Forum — bringing together senior NATO officials, defense ministers and company executives from the sector, including SMEs and startups. This innovation reflects a reality: the war in Ukraine demonstrated that military capabilities depend directly on the strength of the industrial base. Producing munitions, drones and air defense systems at the required speed demands reinvented public-private partnerships.

The tens of billions in contracts announced by Rutte therefore represent not only a political demonstration, but a genuine market signal: allied governments are committing to buy, so manufacturers can invest in their productive capacity. That is the logic of the defense industrial revolution — turning money into steel, electronics and powder.

The industrial fragmentation challenge

Rutte identified one of the most important structural obstacles: the fragmentation of national defense industries in Europe. Historically, each nation developed its own industrial capabilities, its own standards, its own weapons systems — often incompatible with those of its allies. Reducing this fragmentation to create a genuine transatlantic industrial base is one of the central challenges of Ankara.

The concept of NATO 3.0 — promoted by Hegseth on the American side and echoed by Rutte — aims precisely at this objective: a more balanced alliance where Europe takes primary responsibility for its own conventional defense, while the United States focuses on its nuclear contribution and its Indo-Pacific interests. This rebalancing is under way — but it is generating considerable friction.

The cyber dimension and the new frontiers of collective security

Cybersecurity as an Ankara priority

Collective defense in the digital age goes beyond conventional capabilities alone. At the Ankara summit, cyber defense figures among the explicit priorities of the discussions. The critical infrastructure of NATO members — power grids, financial systems, government communications — is the target of daily attacks attributed to Russian, Chinese and North Korean state actors. Allies have recorded a threefold increase in significant cyber incidents since 2022.

The NATO Cyber Excellence Center in Tallinn plays a growing role in coordinating allied responses and building national capabilities. Integrating cyber defense into the 1.5% of GDP dedicated to security-related investments — under the formula adopted at The Hague — gives nations a framework to justify these expenditures outside traditional military budgets. But interoperability standards and cyber intelligence-sharing remain to be harmonized.

Space and the electromagnetic domain

Beyond cyber, the Ankara summit must also address the new frontiers of collective security: orbital space — where Russia has threatened Western navigation satellites — and the electromagnetic domain, where documented GPS disruptions in the Baltic states and Finland are attributed to Russian electronic warfare systems. These domains are intrinsically interconnected: jammed space communications can disable ground-based weapons systems.

Integrating these new dimensions into NATO's operational doctrine is a work in progress. The Ankara summit should adopt a multi-domain operations (MDO) directive that formally recognizes hybrid threats in space, cyberspace and the electromagnetic spectrum as falling within collective defense — a major doctrinal advance that redefines the scope of Article 5.

Conclusion: From The Hague to Ankara, turning intention into action

A summit that will be judged on contracts, not speeches

The Ankara summit will be historic not for the declarations it produces, but for the contracts it signs. If Rutte delivers on his promise of "tens of billions" in new defense agreements, it will be a strong signal that NATO has genuinely turned the page on the decade of underinvestment. If the contracts remain vague or conditional, the summit risks disappointing the most vulnerable allies on the Eastern Flank.

Zelensky's presence, the discussions on Ukrainian security guarantees, the review of national spending roadmaps, the NATO industry forum — all of these elements make Ankara the summit most laden with concrete stakes since the end of the Cold War. Turkey hosts this meeting at a moment when its own strategic positioning — between East and West, between Moscow and Washington — deserves as much attention as the official declarations.

Ukraine as the test of credibility

Ultimately, the success or failure of the Ankara summit will be measured by what it concretely delivers for Ukraine — in military support, security guarantees and political signaling toward Moscow. It is the war in Ukraine that made this meeting a historic one. And it is the outcome of that war that will determine whether the promises of Ankara carried real meaning.

This is the central paradox of the NATO summit moment: the alliance must simultaneously reaffirm its commitment to Ukraine and address structural questions about its own future posture. Neither can be sacrificed to the other without serious strategic cost.

Interim assessment: what Ankara truly changes

An irreversible dynamic if the signatures follow

If the "tens of billions" promised by Rutte materialize in contracts signed at Ankara, this summit will mark a structural turning point: the moment when NATO moved from an alliance of declarations to an alliance of industrial production. This turning point is all the more important because it comes in a context of American doubt about European commitments — the contracts are the concrete answer to that doubt.

The long-term visibility that signed contracts provide — over years, even decades — changes the logic of the European defense industrial base. Manufacturers can invest in productive capacity, hire engineers, develop technologies, knowing that demand is guaranteed by government orders. That is the difference between a political promise and a contractual commitment. Ankara can be the moment of this pivot.

What remains open after Ankara

Several crucial questions will remain open after the summit: Ukraine's accession to NATO is not on the immediate agenda; the exact nature of the security guarantees for Kyiv remains to be defined; Trump's position on Article 5 remains an unpredictable variable; and the ability of countries like Spain or Belgium to reach 5% by 2035 remains to be demonstrated.

These persistent questions serve as a reminder that the Ankara summit is not the end of a process — it is a step in a deeper transformation of Western collective security. This transformation will take years, cost hundreds of billions of euros, and require a rare political discipline in democracies. But it is underway. And that is the essential thing.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

My acknowledged biases

I am firmly committed to maintaining and strengthening NATO as a guarantee of European security in the face of the Russian threat. I am skeptical of Turkey's positions within the alliance but convinced that Turkey's presence remains, on balance, preferable to its absence. I am enthusiastic about the increase in European defense spending — even if it implies painful budgetary trade-offs.

I want to be precise about what this means in practice: I am more likely to give weight to evidence of Russian aggression than to Russia's stated justifications, and I am more likely to side with Ukraine's strategic assessments than with those of actors who advocate for a negotiated settlement at Ukraine's expense. Readers deserve to know this.

What I do not know

I do not have access to the confidential documents that will be presented at the Ankara summit. I do not know precisely which contracts will be signed, or their detailed content. The figures on allied defense spending I use come from NATO's annual report published in April 2026 and the Atlantic Council Defense Spending Tracker. All my sources are publicly accessible and dated.

The precise military planning behind Russia's current posture, the internal calculations of the Kremlin, and the full extent of allied intelligence on these questions are unavailable to me. My analysis is necessarily incomplete, and I have tried to flag uncertainty where it exists.

Sources

Primary sources

NATO — Media advisory for Ankara Summit July 7–8, 2026 — April 22, 2026

Anadolu Ajansı — NATO to announce tens of billions at Ankara summit — June 25, 2026

NATO — Defence expenditures and NATO's 5% commitment — 2026

Secondary sources

Straits Times — NATO's Rutte says billions in new contracts at summit — June 26, 2026

Al-Monitor — NATO's Rutte on Ankara defense contracts — June 25, 2026

Atlantic Council — NATO Defense Spending Tracker — April 9, 2026

Quwa — NATO tens of billions in defence contracts at Ankara — June 26, 2026

Euronews — Zelensky invited to NATO Ankara summit — May 22, 2026