# DECODING: NATO 3.0, the E5 in Berlin and Europe Learning to Walk Alone

> On June 24, 2026, the leaders of the five largest military powers in the European Union — Germany, France, the United Kingdom,

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Analysis
- Published: 2026-06-26
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/decryptage-otan-3-0-les-e5-a-berlin-et-l-europe-qui-apprend-a-marcher-seule

## Key takeaways

- On June 24, 2026, the leaders of the E5 (Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Poland) met in Berlin ahead of the Ankara NATO summit, expressing support for Ukraine and commitment to defence spending targets. Spain was excluded because it refuses the 5 percent of GDP target.
- European NATO members raised defence spending by 20 percent in 2025, about $90 billion more than in 2024, with Germany spending $114 billion.
- The United States has conditioned its NATO contribution on a six-month performance review led by Pete Hegseth, which the article's columnist criticises as measuring spending rather than capabilities and as introducing uncertainty about Article 5.
- Ukraine's membership remains deferred, and the columnist calls for clearer conditions, while China's support for Russia is described as complicity.
- Europe has the budgets but lacks industrial capacity, according to DW, and the columnist says production speed is now the key constraint.

## Introduction: The Week That Redrew the Transatlantic Security Architecture

### Berlin, June 24: Europe's five great powers at the table

On **June 24, 2026**, the leaders of the **five largest military powers in the European Union** — **Germany**, **France**, the **United Kingdom**, Italy and **Poland**, grouped under the **E5** label — met in **Berlin** to display their unity ahead of the **NATO** summit in **Ankara**. According to their joint statement published by **Agenparl**, they expressed support for **Ukraine**, commitment to meeting defence spending targets, and determination to play a central role in the security architecture of the **Alliance**.

The **E5** gathering is not a new format — but its timing at this precise moment, and its deliberately exclusively European composition (the **United Kingdom** participating despite Brexit, thereby asserting the primacy of collective security over post-Brexit divisions) sends a signal that analysts were quick to decode: Europe is preparing to exist strategically even if the **United States** modifies its commitment. The presence of **Poland** — Europe's defence investment champion — reinforces the credibility of this group both East and West.

### What the Ankara summit will decide

The **Ankara** summit toward which these preparations converge is supposed to constitute the **NATO 3.0** summit — the Alliance's third major transformation since its founding in 1949, following the post-Cold War restructuring of the 1990s and the post-9/11 era. Version 3.0 must answer a fundamental question: how does **NATO** function in a world where its principal funder and military partner — the **United States** — explicitly conditions its engagement on a "performance review" and demands that Europeans assume a far larger share of their own defence?

The target adopted at the **The Hague summit in 2025** — **5 percent of GDP by 2035**, with 3.5 percent for pure defence — sets the quantitative framework for this transformation. But targets are not enough: they must be met, and the timelines, investment priorities and industrial coordination between allies remain open construction sites that the **Ankara** summit must begin structuring operationally.

*NATO 3.0 is the NATO of post-Trump-I and the American geostrategic pivot toward Asia. Europeans were slow to accept it — the idea that America might one day no longer be the ultimate guarantor of their security. June 2026 says: that moment is here, now. And the E5 in Berlin are trying to prove they have understood.*

## The Numbers That Prove Europe Has Begun to Change

### +20 percent in defence, +$90 billion in 2025

**European NATO members** increased their defence spending by **20 percent** in 2025, amounting to **$90 billion more** than in 2024, according to **Simon Gros**'s analysis of June 21, 2026. This figure is proof that years of rhetoric are finally translating into concrete investment. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, Europe is massively increasing its defence budgets — not incrementally, but with an accelerated catch-up that reflects the collective realisation that the Russian threat is real, permanent, and demands a structural response.

Leading these increases: **Germany**, which spent **$114 billion** on defence in 2025, a rise of **24 percent** according to **DW** on June 23. For a country that had long been the prime target of American criticism over defence under-investment, this shift is spectacular. The **Sondervermögen** — the **100 billion euro** special fund voted in 2022 — has delivered on its promises, and **Germany** is on its way to becoming Europe's leading conventional military in terms of investment.

### Mark Rutte and the "Trump Trillion" posters

Perhaps the scene that best illustrates the shift in transatlantic dynamics played out in the **Oval Office**, where **NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte** presented **Trump** with two posters showing that European allies had spent an additional **$250 billion** on defence — rebranded the **"Trump Trillion"** to flatter the President, according to the **New York Post** on June 24. This stagecraft reveals the diplomatic tactic European allies have adopted with **Trump**: show him the quantified results of his influence, present the European spending increase as his personal victory, and use his ego as a lever for maintaining American engagement.

This approach is cynical — but it is effective. **Trump** responds to numbers and personal success narratives. If **Rutte** can tell him "it is thanks to your pressure that Europe is spending **$250 billion** more," he maintains American engagement in the **Alliance** while allowing Europeans to progressively build their own strategic capacity. That is applied diplomacy with remarkable situational intelligence.

*Rutte brandishing "Trump Trillion" posters in the Oval Office — that image says everything about the nature of transatlantic relations in 2026. The presidential ego is flattered to keep the Alliance machinery running. That may be the most effective form of diplomacy available in this context. But it is also a vulnerability: an Alliance whose cohesion depends on one man's vanity has a structural problem.*

## Hegseth and the Performance Review: the Knife at Europe's Throat

### Six months to prove their worth

The most concrete threat of the period is one formulated by **Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth**: the **United States** is conditioning its contribution to **NATO** on a **6-month performance review**, according to **US News** on June 19, 2026. This review must assess whether European allies are contributing sufficiently to their own defence to justify maintaining the current level of American presence and engagement in Europe.

This threat has a context: the **Trump** administration has long expressed frustration with **NATO** members failing to meet the 2 percent GDP target. With the new European increases, many allies are approaching or exceeding that target — so the target has been raised to 5 percent by 2035. **Hegseth**'s logic is that of a client who pays and demands measurable results from its partners. It is a transactional vision of the **Alliance** that shocks committed Atlanticists but reflects the political reality of **Washington** in 2026.

### What the performance review can and cannot measure

**Hegseth**'s performance review has a fundamental limitation: it measures spending figures, not actual capabilities or strategic value. As **US News** noted on June 19, the review "appears out of step with what NATO allies are already doing." The **United Kingdom** maintains an independent nuclear force, a globally power-projecting navy and the world's finest special forces. **France** holds nuclear weapons, a global strike capability and an exporting defence industry. These capabilities cannot be measured purely in GDP percentage.

The real risk of the performance review is not its outcome — Europeans will likely pass the quantitative criteria. The real risk is its **political signal**: by conditioning American engagement on a formal evaluation, the **Trump** administration introduces uncertainty about the **Article 5** guarantee that had until now been treated as unconditional. This uncertainty, even if temporary, encourages **NATO**'s adversaries — notably **Russia** — to test the Alliance's limits and calculate whether American guarantees are truly credible in a crisis.

*Making Article 5 conditional on performance, even implicitly, means playing with something that has kept the peace in Europe for 75 years. Deterrence only works if it is unconditional and credible. The moment it becomes conditional, adversaries start testing. And testing NATO is precisely what Putin has been doing since 2014.*

## Spain Excluded: the Political Limits of European Autonomy

### Madrid refuses the 5 percent and pays the price

A revealing aspect of the **E5** meeting in **Berlin** is what it reveals through its exclusion: **Spain** is not part of it, precisely because it refuses to commit to the **5 percent of GDP in defence** target, according to **Brussels Signal** on June 25. This exclusion illustrates the tensions between member states that have accepted the new geostrategic reality — and the investments it requires — and those that, for domestic political reasons, resist this pace of defence spending increases.

**Prime Minister Sánchez's Spain** faces real domestic political constraints: a left-leaning coalition that resists massive military investment, social priorities that compete with the defence budget, and a historical tradition of relative distance from **NATO**'s military structures. But by standing apart from the **E5**, Madrid risks marginalising itself from the strategic decisions that will determine Europe's security architecture for the coming decades.

### The spending divide within the Alliance

Spain's exclusion reveals a wider fracture. Among European **NATO** members, the situations are highly varied: **Poland** already spends close to **4 percent of GDP** on defence, making it the most engaged member of the **Alliance** outside the **United States**. The Baltic states and Finland have massively increased their spending since 2022. **Germany** is catching up. At the other end, **Spain**, Italy and several other Mediterranean members remain below the targets.

This heterogeneity creates an operational problem: an **Alliance** whose members contribute so unequally has difficulty maintaining coherent defence planning and sufficient interoperable capabilities. The 5 percent target for 2035 has more than an accounting value — it aims to create a common baseline of capabilities that makes **NATO** 3.0 credible against the combined threats of **Russia**, **China** and other hostile actors.

*I understand Spain's internal political difficulties. But when you look at the map — Ukraine holding for four years on limited resources, the Baltic states investing massive shares of their GDP for their security, Poland re-emerging as a major military power — the argument that one cannot afford to invest in one's own defence rings hollow. It is a question of priorities, not means.*

## NATO 3.0: An Alliance Reinventing Itself

### From collective defence to systemic competition

What Simon Gros calls **NATO 3.0**, in his analysis of June 21, 2026 on transatlantic defence rebalancing, is an **Alliance** transitioning from a paradigm of **collective defence against an identified threat** (the Soviet **Russia**, version 1.0; terrorism, version 2.0) to a paradigm of **permanent systemic competition** against multiple simultaneous adversaries — **Russia**, **China**, Iran, North Korea — across all domains: military, economic, technological and informational.

This transformation requires more flexible command structures, faster decision-making processes, capabilities in new domains such as cyber, space, AI and economic warfare, and a burden-sharing between members that reflects their comparative capabilities. Europe, with its advantages in diplomacy, trade and regulation, can contribute to dimensions of this systemic competition that pure military capabilities do not cover. That is the most ambitious vision of **NATO** 3.0 — and the hardest to operationalise.

### Defence ministers in Ankara: intensive preparation

According to **NATO.int** on June 18, 2026, Alliance defence ministers made "good progress" in preparations for the **Ankara** Summit. These advances cover several areas: reinforcing regional defence plans for Eastern and Northern Europe, interoperability capabilities between allies, ammunition production targets, and formulating a clear **Alliance** commitment toward **Ukraine** without settling the sensitive question of formal membership.

The **Ankara** summit, scheduled after the **G7** and the **E5** meetings, takes place in a context where the war in **Ukraine** continues, tensions with **China** in the **Indo-Pacific** are rising, and Iran is playing a complex game between the Hormuz agreement and maintaining its regional destabilising capabilities. It may be the most geopolitically loaded **NATO** summit since the end of the Cold War — and the ministers arriving in **Ankara** do so with an acute awareness of the historic weight of the moment.

*Ankara 2026 — a Turkish city, a NATO summit, in a country that has navigated for years between the Alliance and its own interests with Russia and Iran. The choice of Ankara as the summit venue itself says something about NATO 3.0: an Alliance that must hold together members with sometimes contradictory interests, in a world where geography matters again. That is the challenge of complexity.*

## European Strategic Autonomy: Dream or Necessity?

### The debate between Atlanticists and Europeanists

The rise in European defence spending reopens an old but now urgent debate: is **European strategic autonomy** a desirable objective, or should it remain subsidiary to **NATO** under American leadership? Atlanticists — a majority in Eastern and Northern European countries — fear that European strategic autonomy would weaken **NATO** by creating redundancies and signalling to the **United States** that Europe no longer needs them. Europeanists — more present in **France** and among some German decision-makers — argue that eternally depending on **Washington** is a political vulnerability that the **Trump** era has made impossibly risky.

The reality of June 2026 partially settles this debate through facts: **Hegseth**'s performance review, the conditions placed on American engagement, and the **E5** meeting in **Berlin** are all signals that **Europe must invest in its own capabilities** — not to replace **NATO**, but to carry enough weight to influence its decisions, avoid being sidelined if American engagement fluctuates, and contribute credibly to collective defence rather than passively consuming it.

### The timelines and industrial realities

The major obstacle to European strategic autonomy remains the **defence industry**. After decades of under-investment and post-Cold War rationalisation, Europe's defence industrial base is not sized for the demands of modern war of attrition, as illustrated by the conflict in **Ukraine**. Artillery factories, ammunition production lines, military shipyards, combat aircraft plants — all have been reduced, rationalised, sometimes shuttered. Rebuilding them takes years, sometimes decades, and requires massive capital and skills investments that European governments are beginning to plan but which have not yet produced their effects.

According to **DW** on June 23, European defence ambitions are "hitting a reality check": delivery delays, skilled labour shortages in the defence industries, and supply chain lead times for critical raw materials are slowing the build-up even when budgets are in place. That is the paradox of June 2026: the cheques are signed, but the factories are not yet built.

*Europe has the budgets. It does not yet have the factories. And in a war of attrition, factories win wars. Germany's $114 billion in defence spending is only worth something if behind it there are production lines running 24 hours a day. That is where the real problem lies — and that is where the next few years will be decisive.*

## Ukraine and NATO: Between Hope and Strategic Realism

### Membership refused, support maintained

The question of **Ukraine**'s **NATO** membership remains one of the most delicate issues at the **Ankara** summit. Since the **Vilnius summit in 2023**, the **Alliance** has offered **Kyiv** a membership promise "in time" without a precise timeline — something **Zelensky** has called "an open door without a lock." In June 2026, allies' positions remain fundamentally the same: massive military and financial support for **Ukraine** is maintained, but formal membership is deferred until the end of hostilities or until a moment politically acceptable to the most cautious members, notably the **United States**.

This position is pragmatic but painful for **Kyiv**. **Ukraine** wants security guarantees that do not depend on the goodwill of an unpredictable American president or a European government that changes after elections. The debate over **bilateral security guarantees** — modelled on the agreements that the **United Kingdom**, **France** and others have signed with **Kyiv** — illustrates this tension: Ukraine is given something, but not everything it demands. And in a war of attrition, the difference between "something" and "everything" can be existential.

### The cost of ambiguity for deterrence

The ambiguity over Ukraine's **NATO** membership carries a direct strategic cost. **Moscow** continuously calculates the limits of the Western reaction. Every time the **Alliance** sends a mixed signal — massive support but no membership — the **Kremlin** draws the conclusion that the red line is not absolute. That is the perverse logic of deterrence through ambiguity: it attempts to discourage escalation but encourages testing from an adversary that has demonstrated its willingness to take risks. Clarity would have been more deterrent, even if politically harder to achieve within the **Alliance**.

The **Ankara** summit must find wording that sustains the support dynamic for **Ukraine** while managing internal divergences over the membership timeline. It is the most complex diplomatic balancing act **NATO** has had to perform since the end of the **Cold War** — and the outcome will determine whether **Kyiv** feels it can count on the **Alliance** or must seek other forms of long-term security guarantees.

*Zelensky deserves an honest answer on NATO membership. Not a vague promise, not an "open door" that looks more like an illusion than a real invitation. If the Alliance is not ready to admit Ukraine now, it should at least be clear about the precise conditions that will trigger membership — and stick to them. Ambiguity is a form of betrayal in a war for survival.*

## China on NATO's Periphery: the Threat Nobody Names Loudly Enough

### Indo-Pacific, Taiwan and Beijing's shadow over Ankara

The **Ankara** summit takes place in a context where **China** has become, officially for the first time, a **NATO** concern. The **Madrid Strategic Concept of 2022** had described **Beijing** as a "systemic challenge." In 2026, as **China** multiplies military exercises around **Taiwan**, maintains technology transfers to **Russia**, and builds its own influence within **NATO** member countries through strategic investments, the Chinese threat has become too concrete to remain in the diplomatic register of euphemism. The **Alliance's Asian partners** — **Australia**, **Japan**, **South Korea** — attending summits as invited partners are pushing for more explicit recognition of the link between Indo-Pacific security and Euro-Atlantic security.

Resistance to this expansion of **NATO**'s mandate toward the **Indo-Pacific** comes notably from **France** and several European members who fear diluting the Alliance's primary mission by adding geographically distant and politically contentious theatres of operation. But ignoring the Sino-Russian dimension of the current threat means viewing the war in **Ukraine** as a local conflict rather than as the first act of a systemic confrontation between two incompatible visions of the world. The **Ankara** summit will have to navigate this tension without resolving it entirely — but it must at least name it.

### Beijing's technological support for Moscow

One of the concrete issues linking the Chinese threat to the war in **Ukraine** is the technological support **Beijing** provides to **Moscow**. Electronic components, dual-use technologies, drones and spare parts for military equipment flow between **China** and **Russia**, circumventing Western sanctions. The **United States** and the **European Union** have imposed measures against Chinese companies involved in these transfers, but the volume remains substantial. **Beijing** officially maintains neutrality while concretely supporting **Moscow** — what **NATO** allies have begun calling "the Chinese double game" in private meetings.

The **Ankara** summit is an opportunity to coordinate the **Alliance**'s response to this Sino-Russian complicity — not by declaring **China** a **NATO** adversary, but by developing common strategies to reduce allied economies' technological dependence on **Beijing** and to counter transfers to **Moscow**. It is an economic and technological dimension of collective security that the **Alliance** has not yet fully integrated into its structures — but which has become as urgent as the traditional defence budget increases.

*China is the threat NATO names cautiously but should name more clearly. Beijing does not fire directly on Ukrainians — but it supplies Moscow with the components used to build the drones and missiles that kill civilians in Kyiv. That is not neutrality: it is complicity with precaution. The Ankara summit must have the courage to name it.**Europe in June 2026 is a Europe in transition — between yesterday's security dependency and tomorrow's strategic autonomy. This path will be long, costly, sometimes chaotic. But the direction is clear, and the numbers are beginning to prove it. What is still missing is not budgets or political will — it is industrial execution speed. And no summit can resolve that with a declaration.*

## Conclusion: Europe Taking Its Destiny in Hand, Slowly but Surely

### An irreversible transformation under way

The week of June 18 to 25, 2026 confirmed a trend that is accelerating: Europe is taking its destiny in hand on defence matters. The **$90 billion more** spent in 2025, **Germany**'s **$114 billion**, the **E5 meeting in Berlin**, the **5 percent of GDP target for 2035**, the **E5** advocating for **Ukraine** at the **Ankara** summit — all of this says the paradigm shift is real and under way. It is not yet complete, it has gaps (**Spain**, industrial delays, tensions with Atlanticists), but its direction is clear.

This transformation is not only geostrategic: it is also political and existential. A Europe that is rearming is a Europe that accepts responsibility for its own security, that no longer entirely delegates to the **United States** the task of defending it, that looks its eastern neighbours in the eye and says: we will honour our commitments. That is a strategic maturity painfully acquired under the twin pressure of the war in **Ukraine** and Trumpian unpredictability.

### What the Ankara summit must produce

For **NATO** 3.0 to be more than a concept, the **Ankara** summit must produce **concrete operational commitments**: coordinated ammunition production plans between European and American defence industrialists, clarified command structures for the defence of Eastern Europe, a precise **Alliance** commitment on **Ukraine** in the short and medium term, and — perhaps the hardest — an agreement on how decisions will be made if the **United States** reduces its contribution. **NATO** 3.0 without these operational foundations will be nothing more than a fine statement of intent. And statements of intent do not deter **Putin**.

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [NATO.int: NATO Defence Ministers progress ahead Ankara Summit — June 18, 2026](https://www.nato.int/en/news-and-events/articles/news/2026/06/18/nato-defence-ministers-make-good-progress-ahead-of-the-ankara-summit)

- [Agenparl: E5 Leaders' Statement Berlin — June 24, 2026](https://agenparl.eu/2026/06/24/e5-leaders-statement/)

- [Brussels Signal: Europe's biggest powers pledge stronger NATO role — June 25, 2026](https://brusselssignal.eu/2026/06/europes-biggest-military-powers-pledge-stronger-nato-role-ahead-of-ankara-summit/)

### Secondary sources

- [Euronews: Europe's five largest powers meet ahead NATO summit — June 24, 2026](https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/06/24/europes-five-largest-military-powers-meet-ahead-of-key-nato-summit-with-ukraine-in-mind)

- [Simon Gros: NATO 3.0 Rebalancing Transatlantic Defence — June 21, 2026](https://simongros.org/2026/06/21/nato-3-0-and-the-rebalancing-of-transatlantic-defence-europe-american-force-posture-and-the-return-of-hard-deterrence/)

- [DW: Europe defence ambitions reality check — June 23, 2026](https://amp.dw.com/en/europe-is-spending-billions-to-rearm-so-why-the-delays/a-77650976)

- [US News: Pentagon review out of step NATO allies — June 19, 2026](https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2026-06-19/pentagon-chiefs-review-appears-out-of-step-with-what-nato-allies-are-already-doing)

- [New York Post: RutteTrump Trillion chart — June 24, 2026](https://nypost.com/2026/06/24/us-news/rutte-claims-to-trump-your-european-allies-have-been-there-on-iran-as-he-flatters-prez-with-trump-trillion-chart/)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/decryptage-otan-3-0-les-e5-a-berlin-et-l-europe-qui-apprend-a-marcher-seule