Stoltenberg shares his proudest moment ahead of the Ankara summit

Introduction: a confession on the eve of a historic gathering

A personal admission days before Ankara

Days before the NATO summit in Ankara, set for July 7 and 8, 2026, former NATO Secretary GeneralJens Stoltenberg offered a rare confidence to the Anadolu news agency. Asked about the decision he remains proudest of after a decade leading the organization, he didn't hesitate: NATO's enlargement to Sweden and Finland remains, in his own words, the achievement that gives him the greatest personal satisfaction.

"The decision I'm proudest of is expanding NATO to include Finland and Sweden," he said, noting he was able to make it happen in close collaboration with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. That public acknowledgment of Ankara takes on particular weight as the Turkish capital prepares to host the leaders of the Alliance's 32 member countries for the first time in 22 years.

A membership born out of the urgency of February 2022

The trigger for a historic decision

The story of this membership begins with a continental trauma: Russia's invasion of Ukraine, launched in February 2022, immediately pushed Helsinki and Stockholm to abandon decades of military non-alignment. As early as May 2022, the two countries jointly submitted their NATO applications, a move unthinkable just months earlier given how central neutrality had been to their strategic identity since World War II.

Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometer border with Russia, the longest of any Alliance member, officially joined NATO on April 4, 2023. Sweden, delayed by more complex negotiations with Turkey and Hungary, became the Alliance's 32nd member on March 7, 2024, ending more than 200 years of Swedish military non-alignment.

An ideological shift as fast as it was unprecedented

This rapid shift isn't explained solely by the cold strategic calculations of general staffs: it also reflects a profound change in Finnish and Swedish public opinion, long attached to neutrality as a marker of national identity. Polls taken in the spring of 2022 showed a dramatic swing in opinion in favor of membership, within just weeks of the invasion beginning.

This reversal in public opinion gave political leaders in both countries a rare democratic legitimacy for such a structural decision, greatly easing the parliamentary ratification process that followed the formal applications submitted to NATO.

Turkey's pivotal role in the process

Tense but fruitful negotiations

The path to membership was anything but automatic. Turkey, under the presidency of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, long blocked ratification of Sweden's application, citing disputes over the fight against Kurdish terrorism. That blockage required months of intense diplomacy, culminating in a trilateral agreement signed at the Madrid summit, which unlocked the membership process.

Jens Stoltenberg personally praised this cooperation with Erdogan, calling it a decisive factor in the final success of this enlargement. This partnership highlights an often-underrated aspect of NATO diplomacy: the ability to turn bilateral blockages into collective compromises, even when national interests initially appear irreconcilable.

A trilateral deal sealed in Madrid

The trilateral agreement reached at the Madrid summit resolved Turkish objections in exchange for specific commitments from Helsinki and Stockholm on mutual security matters. That agreement served as a diplomatic template for resolving similar blockages within the Alliance, proving that a well-negotiated compromise can unlock even the thorniest files.

The parliamentary ratification that followed this trilateral agreement wasn't instant, though: Hungary dragged its feet for a long time before finally ratifying Sweden's membership, illustrating the persistent complexity of unanimity-based decision-making within NATO.

A rapid precedent in the Alliance's history

The fastest accession process ever recorded

According to Stoltenberg's own words at the signing of the accession protocols in 2022, only seven weeks passed between Finland and Sweden submitting their applications and all allies signing the accession protocols. That record-setting timeline illustrates the geopolitical urgency felt across the entire NATO membership in the face of the Russian threat, an urgency that swept aside the usual bureaucratic delays.

This precedent of speed contrasts sharply with earlier accession processes, often stretched over several years. It shows that when genuine collective political will exists, the Atlantic Alliance can act with a swiftness rarely seen in international multilateral institutions.

A ratification process spanning nearly two years

While the signing of the accession protocols was fast, full ratification by NATO's 30 national parliaments took much longer. Finland completed its accession in April 2023, while Sweden had to wait until March 2024, nearly two years after initially submitting its application.

This timing gap between the two Nordic countries illustrates that even a process considered fast by the Alliance's historical standards remains subject to the vagaries of domestic politics in each of its 32 members, each of which holds a de facto veto over admitting new states.

What Finland and Sweden concretely bring to the Alliance

Defense investments exceeding NATO standards

Far from being merely symbolic members, Finland and Sweden now rank among the Alliance's most serious contributors in military spending. According to a status report published by Anadolu Agency on July 1, 2026 ahead of the Ankara summit, Finland devotes 2.77 percent of its gross domestic product to defense, while Sweden reaches 2.51 percent, both figures above the Alliance's historic 2 percent target.

Finland's defensive posture rests on a painful historical memory: the Soviet invasion of 1939-1940 remains deeply embedded in the country's collective consciousness, fueling a tradition of credible territorial defense that predates NATO membership by decades. Sweden, for its part, has rapidly increased its military investments since submitting its application, an effort expected to continue as it fully integrates into the Alliance's structures.

Military integration already well advanced

Beyond the budget figures, Finland and Sweden have already taken part in several joint military exercises with NATO forces, strengthening the interoperability of their respective militaries with those of other allies. This technical and doctrinal integration has proceeded at an accelerated pace, building on decades of informal cooperation that predated the two countries' formal accession.

Finland's geographic proximity to Russia now makes it an advanced pillar of Western deterrence in Northern Europe, a strategic position that would have been unthinkable for Helsinki before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The Ankara summit, the first meeting in Turkey in 22 years

A powerful symbol for Turkish diplomacy

The choice of Ankara as host of the July 7-8, 2026 summit marks a powerful symbol: it's the first time in 22 years that NATO leaders have gathered in Turkey. Stoltenberg personally congratulated Turkey for organizing the event, expressing his certainty that the summit would be a success, citing Ankara's steady commitment to the Alliance.

This geographic choice is far from trivial in the current context: Turkey occupies a unique strategic position, at the crossroads of Europe, the Middle East, and the Black Sea region, a crossroads whose importance has grown since Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the persistent tensions around the Strait of Hormuz.

A pivotal position between several strategic theaters

Turkey's geographic position, between Europe, the Caucasus, and the Middle East, makes it an indispensable player for any coherent Western strategy toward Russia and Iran. This geographic centrality partly explains why NATO chose Ankara for this summit, despite recurring tensions between Ankara and some Western allies on other regional issues.

Turkish control of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits also gives Ankara a unique strategic lever over naval access to the Black Sea, a crucial factor given the war in Ukraine and regional maritime security.

Stoltenberg's expectations for the summit

Unity as the central goal

Asked about his precise expectations for this gathering, Jens Stoltenberg was clear: "My main expectation is that the summit demonstrates unity" within the Atlantic Alliance. That emphasis on cohesion is far from trivial in a context where several analysts point to persistent tensions between some European members and the American administration over funding Ukraine's war effort.

According to several media outlets, including Time Magazine, US president Donald Trump reportedly called it ridiculous to maintain the current level of American support for NATO, reviving budget tensions just days before the summit opens. This climate makes Stoltenberg's call to preserve an image of collective unity all the more significant.

A backdrop of recurring transatlantic tensions

Budget tensions between Washington and its European allies aren't new: they've punctuated NATO's life for decades, with every successive American administration demanding a bigger budgetary effort from its European partners. What sets the current period apart is the frequency and sharpness of the public criticism coming from Donald Trump himself.

Despite these recurring rhetorical frictions, overall defense spending by NATO's European members has risen substantially since 2022, a broad trend that predates the most recent criticism from the White House by a wide margin.

A final text promising a collective defense commitment

A declaration of unity despite the tensions

According to reporting by Reuters in early July, NATO leaders, including Donald Trump, are expected to jointly affirm an ironclad commitment to the Alliance's collective defense in the final text of the Ankara summit. That language, negotiated in advance by ambassadors from the 32 member countries, is designed precisely to offset the uncertainty created by the American president's more ambiguous public statements.

Drafting this final text is a delicate diplomatic exercise: it must reassure the allies most exposed to the Russian threat, notably the Baltic and Nordic countries, while avoiding a public rupture with Washington over the long-term funding of the Alliance.

Language negotiated word by word

Negotiating this final text mobilized ambassadors from the 32 member countries for several weeks before the summit, with every term scrutinized to avoid any ambiguity that Russian propaganda could exploit. This painstaking process reflects just how much NATO's public communication itself remains an informational battlefield against Moscow.

This attention to diplomatic language illustrates an essential lesson from the war in Ukraine: the perception of unity or division within the Alliance directly influences the Kremlin's strategic calculations, as it watches for the slightest Western crack to adjust its own military and diplomatic posture.

The shadow of China, Iran, and North Korea

A backdrop of multiple, converging threats

The Ankara summit isn't limited to the Russia question alone. Several preparatory documents also raise the need to strengthen security around the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic zone where tensions with Iran remain sharp. China, for its part, continues to be identified by several Western think tanks as a long-term systemic challenge to Euro-Atlantic security, notably through its indirect support for Russia's war effort.

North Korea, whose troops have been deployed alongside Russian forces on Ukrainian soil, also illustrates the growing entanglement of threat theaters NATO must now face simultaneously, far from the vision of a single, isolated adversary that prevailed during the Cold War.

China, a long-term systemic challenge

Several summit preparatory documents identify China as a long-term structural challenge to Euro-Atlantic security, notably because of its indirect support for the Russian defense industry and its growing technological and military ambitions in the Asia-Pacific. This concern, long considered secondary to the immediate Russian threat, is taking up a growing share of the Alliance's strategic discussions.

Chinese material and economic support for Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine began concretely illustrates why Western strategists now refuse to treat the Russian and Chinese threats as entirely separate files.

Defense contracts announced ahead of the summit

Rutte promises billions in new contracts

NATO's current Secretary General, Mark Rutte, announced on June 25, 2026 that billions of dollars in new defense contracts would be unveiled at the Ankara summit, a strong signal of the Alliance's intent to turn its political commitments into concrete military capabilities. This announcement fits into a broader dynamic of Western rearmament that has accelerated since Russia's invasion of Ukraine began.

These contracts are expected to cover a range of capabilities from air defense to munitions production systems, directly addressing needs identified over more than three years of war in Ukraine, where ammunition consumption has far outstripped the initial production capacity of several member countries.

Strengthening Western ammunition production

The war in Ukraine has laid bare the West's industrial limits in producing munitions and basic military equipment, long neglected after the end of the Cold War. The new contracts announced in Ankara aim directly at closing this industrial gap built up over decades of relative underinvestment.

This industrial revival also benefits member countries' national economies, creating skilled jobs in the defense sector while strengthening the Alliance's collective capacity to sustain a high-intensity conflict over an extended period, a lesson drawn directly from the Ukrainian conflict.

The Ukraine question at the heart of parallel discussions

Zelensky expected on the summit's sidelines

Although Ukraine is not a NATO member, the question of continued support for it sits at the heart of parallel discussions planned in Ankara. Several outlets, including the Straits Times, report that Donald Trump is expected to meet with Ukrainian and Syrian leaders on the sidelines of the official summit, a diplomatic setup that illustrates the persistent centrality of the Ukraine file on the Western agenda, even at a summit officially devoted to other structural priorities.

This Ukrainian presence in the summit's background is a reminder that the enlargement Stoltenberg celebrated, that of Finland and Sweden, remains directly tied to Kyiv's fate: without the February 2022 invasion, those two accessions would probably never have happened on such a tight timeline.

Ukrainian membership still on hold

Unlike Finland and Sweden, Ukraine faces a major additional obstacle: no country in active war has ever joined NATO, a legal and political reality that considerably complicates any prospect of a fast accession for Kyiv as long as the conflict with Russia remains active on the ground.

This situation creates a permanent tension between the massive military support granted to Ukraine by Western countries and the persistent absence of a formal security guarantee equivalent to that offered to Alliance members, a gap Volodymyr Zelensky never fails to point out in his public statements.

A personal reckoning for Stoltenberg beyond his term

From Secretary General to Norwegian finance minister

Jens Stoltenberg now holds the post of Norway's finance minister, after leaving the top job at NATO. That transition hasn't stopped him from continuing to publicly comment on the Alliance's major issues, as shown by this interview granted to Anadolu on the eve of the Ankara summit. His book, whose title translates roughly as "Leading NATO in Wartime," was recently published in Turkish, drawing particular interest for his recollections of working with President Erdogan.

This continuity between his former institutional role and his current public life illustrates how major figures of Western diplomacy keep influencing public debate long after leaving office, a phenomenon especially pronounced for files as structurally important as NATO's enlargement.

A book documenting a decade of crises

The book published by Jens Stoltenberg covers his entire term leading NATO, a period marked by the pandemic, the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, and above all Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Its recent publication in Turkish reflects continued public interest in this pivotal period in the Atlantic Alliance's history.

The passages devoted to his relationship with President Erdogan have drawn particular attention from Turkish readers, illustrating how much the personal dimension of diplomatic relationships can shape the course of major collective decisions like the Nordic enlargement.

What history will remember about this decision

A precedent for future candidacies

The fast, successful accession of Finland and Sweden already stands, according to several Euro-Atlantic security analysts, as a potentially useful precedent for other future candidacies, notably Ukraine's own, even though the latter remains blocked by political and security considerations far more complex than those surrounding the two Nordic countries.

This precedent nonetheless shows that a threat clear and shared enough by all members can unlock accession processes usually paralyzed by bureaucratic or diplomatic considerations, a lesson the leaders gathered in Ankara will surely keep in mind during their discussions on the Alliance's future enlargement.

How the Baltic allies view this enlargement

Strengthened security for the Baltic region

The accession of Finland and Sweden has profoundly transformed the security balance of the Baltic Sea, now almost entirely surrounded by NATO member countries, with the notable exception of the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. The Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, have welcomed this accession as a direct boost to their own security against Russian ambitions in the region.

This new geographic configuration considerably complicates any Russian military maneuver in the Baltic, a major strategic shift several defense analysts consider one of the most lasting effects of NATO's Nordic enlargement.

Conclusion: a pride that sums up the Alliance's spirit

A decision that redrew Europe's strategic map

Jens Stoltenberg's confession days before the Ankara summit sums up, in a single sentence, one of the decade's most significant geopolitical shifts: Finland and Sweden's entry into NATO redrew the strategic map of the European continent, transforming two historically neutral countries into active pillars of Western collective defense. That transformation, born out of the urgency of Russia's February 2022 invasion, illustrates the West's capacity to reinvent itself in the face of adversity.

A symbol of unity on the eve of Ankara

As leaders from the 32 member countries prepare to gather in Ankara on July 7 and 8, this pride Stoltenberg openly claims is a reminder of what matters most: despite budget tensions, occasionally erratic statements from certain leaders, and the multiple challenges posed by Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, the Atlantic Alliance remains capable of historic decisions when unity and collective determination win out over internal divisions.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Who I am and my acknowledged biases

I sign this narrative as an openly pro-Western, pro-NATO columnist, convinced that the Alliance's enlargement to Finland and Sweden represents a major strategic success against Russian aggression. I give credit to Jens Stoltenberg for his role in this file, while staying aware that NATO diplomacy also involves compromises with partners, including Turkey, whose domestic democratic record otherwise remains open to criticism.

I had no access to any confidential NATO document nor any private exchange with Jens Stoltenberg. Every piece of information reported here comes from verifiable journalistic sources, notably Anadolu Agency, Reuters, and Time Magazine, dated late June and early July 2026.

What I don't know

I don't know the precise outcome of the budget discussions between Donald Trump and other NATO leaders at the Ankara summit. I also don't know whether the reported tensions over American funding of the Alliance will lead to a concrete rupture or remain political rhetoric. I commit to never presenting a hypothesis as an established fact.

Sources

Primary sources

Anadolu Agency — Former NATO chief says Sweden, Finland accession his proudest decision, July 3, 2026

Anadolu Agency — Factbox: NATO defense spending where allies stand ahead of Ankara summit, July 1, 2026

Secondary sources

Yeni Şafak — Former NATO chief proudest of Sweden Finland accession

Reuters — NATO leaders to affirm ironclad commitment to collective defence, July 3, 2026

Wikipedia — 2026 Ankara NATO summit

Forbes — What defense leaders will discuss at the 2026 NATO summit, July 1, 2026

Time Magazine — Trump says it's ridiculous for US to maintain current NATO support, July 3, 2026