# TESTIMONY: Ankara 2026 — NATO 3.0 and Europe taking the reins

> In two weeks, the heads of state and government of NATO's 32 members will gather in Ankara for what analysts are already

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Profile
- Published: 2026-07-01
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/temoignage-ankara-2026-l-otan-3-0-et-l-europe-qui-prend-les-renes

## Introduction: a summit under the sign of strategic shift

### Ankara, July 7-8, 2026 — the Alliance reinventing itself

In two weeks, the heads of state and government of **NATO's 32 members** will gather in **Ankara** for what analysts are already describing as one of the most structurally significant summits since the end of the **Cold War**. On **June 30, 2026**, two weeks before the summit, the **Anadolu Agency** published an in-depth analysis: the **Atlantic Alliance** is entering a new era, designated by strategists as **NATO 3.0**. The paradigm is shifting. Europe is taking on more. The question is no longer whether the transition will happen, but how fast it can proceed without breaking what has protected peace for **75 years**.

Secretary General **Mark Rutte** had set the framework: **Russia** remains **"the primary threat"** to the **Alliance** in the short and long term. This is not a protocol formula — it is a strategic judgment that shapes all of **NATO**'s planning for the years ahead. Behind it lies the war in Ukraine, **Trump**'s demands that **Europe** bear a greater share of the defense burden, and **Washington**'s gaze turning toward the **Pacific** and the competition with **China**.

### What NATO 3.0 means concretely

**NATO 1.0** was the founding pact of **1949** — a war-shattered Europe seeking American protection against the Soviet threat. **NATO 2.0** was the post-**Cold War** version, deployed in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Libya — an alliance in search of an out-of-area mission. **NATO 3.0**, as analysts define it ahead of the **Ankara** summit, is a return to the fundamentals of territorial defense — but with a redistribution of roles: **Europe** takes on the continent's conventional defense; the **United States** maintains the nuclear umbrella and certain unique strategic capabilities.

This redistribution is not American abandonment — **Washington** says so, and **Ankara** will confirm it. It is a rebalancing in a world where the **United States** can no longer — and perhaps no longer wishes to — be the universal guarantor. For **Europe**, it is both an immense capability challenge and a historic opportunity to become a credible, autonomous security actor. For **Ukraine**, it is a context in which its own security future must be negotiated.

*I testify here to a transformation I have been watching for years with a mix of fascination and unease. A Europe "taking the reins" of its own defense is good news in the long run. But this shift is happening too fast, in a context of active war, without European capabilities having yet reached the required level. The road between a statement of intent and operational reality is still very long.*

## The numbers that tell the story of European rearmament

### Poland at 4.48% of GDP — the example that forces everyone else

**Poland** leads NATO members in defense spending: **4.48% of its GDP** devoted to defense in **2026**. This figure is the result of an accelerated buildup since the **2022** invasion of Ukraine, in a country that borders **Kaliningrad**, faces the **Suwalki corridor**, and has an acute awareness of being on the front line against the Russian threat. Poland does not spend this much out of abstract strategic virtue — it does so because it is afraid, and because that fear is rational.

In **2025**, at the **The Hague summit**, NATO members agreed to raise defense and security spending to **5% of GDP by 2035** — a considerable increase from the old **2%** threshold that all EU members in NATO had only first reached in **2025**. This decision signals a collective recognition that continental defense is not an optional expenditure but a condition of survival.

### Missing capabilities — what Europe cannot yet do alone

Analyst **Paul Taylor**, cited in the **Anadolu Agency** analysis, summed up the situation with precision: **"Europeans are primarily taking on the conventional defense of Europe. The US continues to provide the nuclear umbrella and certain unspecified conventional capabilities."** These unspecified capabilities include, according to experts, strategic airlift, intelligence gathering, satellite communications, aerial refueling, logistics, and command-and-control systems.

These are precisely the areas where **Europe** remains dependent on the **United States**. It can field tanks, infantry, artillery. It can defend its territory with its own soldiers. But it cannot yet project these capabilities over long distances, sustain complex networked operations, or guarantee continent-wide secure communications without American infrastructure. These gaps are not closed in a few years — they require considerable investment and industrial coordination that **Europe** is only beginning to organize.

*Strategic airlift, communications satellites, aerial refueling — these are the "invisibles" of defense. Tanks make headlines. These capabilities make the difference. And Europe still depends very heavily on the United States for them. Anyone who presents NATO 3.0 as complete European autonomy is misleading you. It is a direction — not a 2026 reality.*

## Turkey's role in this new balance

### Ankara as host city — a symbolically loaded choice

The choice of **Ankara** as the host city for the **2026 NATO** summit is not neutral. **Turkey** is an Alliance member with a strategic geographic position — it controls the **Bosphorus and Dardanelles** straits, borders **Russia** and several **Middle Eastern** countries. It has also had an ambiguous relationship with **Moscow** in recent years, notably over the purchase of the Russian **S-400** air defense system, which led to its exclusion from the **F-35** program.

Hosting the NATO summit in **Ankara** sends a strong signal to **Turkey**: you are a pillar of the Alliance, your commitment is valued, your role in European and Middle Eastern security is recognized. Turkey has also been an important mediator between **Ukraine** and **Russia** — notably during the **2022** grain agreement negotiations. This bridge role may prove valuable at a time when peace negotiations remain deadlocked.

### Turkish statements ahead of the summit

In the days before the summit, **Ankara** declared that **NATO** was **"adjusting to the new security landscape"** and that the **United States** was not withdrawing from **Europe**. This formulation is measured: it acknowledges change while presenting it as an adjustment rather than an abandonment. For the most anxious Alliance members — the **Baltic states, Poland, Romania** — this formulation walks a delicate line between reassurance and realism.

Secretary General **Rutte** had stressed in his pre-summit statements that the **2025 Hague summit** decision to raise defense spending to **5% of GDP** was a decision for delivery and implementation. **Ankara** must be the summit where these commitments start to take concrete form — not another summit where goals are reaffirmed without robust implementation mechanisms.

*Turkey in NATO is always a complex equation. It is strategically indispensable. It is politically unpredictable. Holding the summit in Ankara acknowledges that indispensability while hoping that institutional proximity anchors Erdoğan — or his successor — more firmly in the Western camp. This bet has its logic. It also has its risks.*

## Ukraine and the Ankara summit — between hope and realism

### Ukrainian security guarantees: the unresolved file

For **Ukraine**, the **Ankara** summit raises a fundamental question: what security guarantees will it receive? No formal **NATO** membership in the short term — the political obstacles remain considerable. But bilateral security agreements with the most committed members — **United Kingdom, France, Germany, United States** — can form a substitute security architecture while waiting for formal accession.

These bilateral agreements, which have multiplied since the **Vilnius** summit in **2023**, commit signatories to support Ukraine militarily, financially and in intelligence matters. They are not Article **5** — but they are a form of commitment that, if all members honor their pledges, provides Ukraine with substantial security. The **Ankara** summit should consolidate and deepen these commitments.

### NATO 3.0 and Ukraine's place in European security architecture

Within the **NATO 3.0** framework, **Ukraine** occupies a particular position: it is simultaneously the primary reason this transformation is necessary and a leading military actor whose capabilities could enrich the Alliance if its integration progresses. Ukraine's long-range drones, its army's combat experience, its electronic warfare doctrine — all of this represents added value for collective security that the most clear-sighted member states are beginning to acknowledge.

Estonian MEP **Riho Terras**, cited in the pre-summit analysis, declared that **Europe** must become **"strategically mature"** — which notably means recognizing Ukraine as a security partner, not only as an aid recipient. This vision — Ukraine as a contributor to European security rather than as a burden — should guide the discussions at **Ankara**.

*I testify to a shift in perception I have been observing for some months in European strategic circles: Ukraine is no longer seen only as a country to be defended — it is seen as an army to be integrated. This evolution is healthy and long overdue. The Ankara summit should formalize it further.*

## What the summit must deliver to be historic

### Verifiable, binding spending commitments

For the **Ankara** summit to be more than a diplomatic event, it must produce concrete and verifiable defense spending commitments. The target of **5% of GDP by 2035** is ambitious — but without robust monitoring mechanisms and without consequences for states that fail to meet their pledges, it risks resembling past **NATO** promises on the **2%** threshold, long unmet by most European members.

Alliance members bordering **Russia** — **Poland, the Baltic states, Finland, Norway, Romania** — already spend at high levels. It is the large Western European economies — **Germany, France, Italy, Spain** — that will need to make the biggest efforts. And that is precisely where internal political resistance is strongest, in societies that have enjoyed several decades of the peace dividend.

### A clear message to Moscow — and to Beijing

The **Ankara** summit must send a clear message to **Moscow**: **NATO** is not fragmenting, support for Ukraine is sustained, and the transition to **NATO 3.0** strengthens — not weakens — the continent's defensive capability. This message is particularly important at a moment when **Russia** hopes that divisions among allies over defense funding will create opportunities for further advances.

It must also send a signal to **Beijing**: **China**, which is carefully watching the management of the Ukrainian crisis to draw lessons about **Taiwan**, must understand that the West is capable of supporting an invaded ally and strengthening its own defenses simultaneously. If **NATO** demonstrates its solidity at **Ankara**, the entire Western deterrence posture toward **China** benefits.

*I watch the Ankara summit with the cautious hope that democracies are finally realizing that defense is an investment, not a cost. But I have also seen too many fine communiqués followed by scant implementation. What will matter is not what is said in Ankara on July 8. It is what is spent and deployed by January 8, 2027.*

## The question of a European army — an old idea in a new context

### Terras says no to a European army — Taylor says yes to a European pillar of NATO

**Riho Terras** was categorical in his pre-summit statements: **"A European army is a bad idea."** His argument: **Europe** does not need a new structure — it has **NATO**, which works. What it must do is fulfill its obligations within this existing structure. Political scientist **Kai Kamp** shares this view: **"We don't need a new structure for European decision-making — we have one, and that's NATO."**

This debate is not academic. The question of European strategic autonomy — championed by **France** in particular for years — resurfaces with force in the **NATO 3.0** context. The idea is not to replace **NATO** with a European army, but to ensure that **Europe** can act defensively even if the **United States** is slow to respond — or if a future American administration decides to disengage further than **Trump** has.

### The political flexibility of the NATO framework as an asset

The **NATO** framework holds a decisive political advantage over any other European defense structure: it includes the **United States**, which is irreplaceable for nuclear deterrence and strategic capabilities that Europe cannot yet afford on its own. It also includes **Turkey**, **Norway**, the **United Kingdom** — actors who would not necessarily be part of an EU army. This inclusivity is a strength in a security environment where cohesion and interoperability matter more than formal autonomy.

**NATO 3.0** is therefore less a formal restructuring than an informal redistribution of responsibilities within the existing framework. **Europe** takes on conventional defense. The **United States** keeps the nuclear deterrent. Both remain bound by Article **5** and by decades of interoperability. This is a pragmatic arrangement for a pragmatic era — and it is probably what the **Ankara** communiqué will formalize, with appropriate diplomatic language.

*I prefer NATO 3.0 over a European army for pragmatic reasons. The next two decades will be too dangerous for institutional experiments. But I want us to be honest: NATO 3.0 works only if every European member meets its spending commitments. Without that, it is a fine formula covering a real strategic void.*

## Russia and Iran: the allies of threats watching Ankara

### Moscow calculates what the summit reveals about Alliance cohesion

**Russia** is watching the **Ankara** summit with particular attention. Every signal of division among Alliance members — on funding, on red lines regarding Ukraine, on the pace of **NATO 3.0** — is strategic intelligence that **Moscow** will use in its military calculations. **Putin** has always bet on Western fragmentation. If **Ankara** produces an ambitious but vague communiqué without concrete implementation mechanisms, the Kremlin will draw its own conclusions about the coalition's solidity.

**Russia** also maintains its partnerships with **Iran** and **North Korea**, which continue to supply munitions and equipment. For these countries, a **West** that debates its burden-sharing instead of actually increasing its capabilities is good news. The **Ankara** summit must therefore not only reaffirm Alliance commitments, but demonstrate that members honor them. The credibility of deterrence depends on consistency between words and actions.

### Iran, North Korea and the chain of support to Russia

**North Korea** has delivered millions of shells to **Russia** since **2023**. **Iran** has supplied **Shahed** drones that continue to be fired at Ukrainian cities. **China** supplies technology components that feed the Russian defense industry despite Western sanctions. This coalition of support for **Russia** — informal but effective — is one of the factors explaining why the war has continued for more than four years despite sanctions.

Responding to this coalition requires Alliance coordination that goes beyond the purely military response: diplomatic pressure on **Pyongyang, Tehran** and **Beijing**, stricter enforcement of secondary sanctions on Chinese exports, and intelligence coordination to document prohibited arms transfers. The **Ankara** summit is an opportunity to strengthen this coordination — if members have the political will to do so.

*Russia, Iran, North Korea, and to some degree China form an axis of common interest against the liberal international order. This is not a formal alliance with a centralized command — it is a convergence of interests that produces concrete results on the ground. NATO must have a coordinated response to this axis. Ankara must begin to formulate it.*

## The Baltic states and the forward defense line — what the eastern flank demands

### NATO forward defense: from enhanced presence to real defense

Since the **Madrid** summit in **2022**, **NATO** has upgraded its **multinational battlegroups** on the eastern flank from symbolic presence to real combat strength. Brigades deployed in **Poland, the Baltic states, and Romania** have been reinforced. Permanent infrastructure has been built. Large-scale exercises have been conducted regularly.

But Baltic military experts are clear: to genuinely deter a Russian attack, forces must be sufficient to hold without waiting for reinforcements. The **Cold War** doctrine — absorb the attack, then counterattack with reinforcements from the West — is no longer credible in the Ukrainian context, where **Russia** has shown it can seize territory rapidly before reinforcements arrive. **NATO 3.0** must therefore give itself the means for robust forward defense from day one of any potential conflict.

### The Suwalki corridor and the Kaliningrad threat

The **Suwalki corridor** — that narrow strip of land between **Poland** and **Lithuania**, sandwiched between **Kaliningrad** to the west and **Belarus** to the east — is the most vulnerable point on **NATO**'s eastern flank. **Russia** could theoretically cut this corridor to isolate the Baltic states from the rest of the Alliance, trapping them in an enclave difficult to reinforce. **NATO** military planners have been working this scenario for years.

**NATO 3.0** must provide a credible answer to this risk. It must show that the **Suwalki** corridor is defensible, that pre-positioned forces in the Baltic states are sufficient to hold, and that reinforcements can arrive quickly if necessary. These questions will be at the center of military discussions at **Ankara** — even if public communiqués will probably only mention them elliptically.

*I think of the residents of Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius who are watching the Ankara summit with an anxiety that the French or Belgians do not feel in quite the same way. For them, NATO is not a geopolitical abstraction — it is the difference between freedom and occupation. These countries deserve concrete guarantees, not diplomatic formulas. Ankara must deliver.*

## Conclusion: Ankara as a point of no return

### A summit that must make history

The **Ankara** summit of **July 7-8, 2026** bears the weight of a pivotal moment in European security history. The war in **Ukraine** continues. Defense spending is rising. Ambitions are being asserted. But concrete capabilities remain to be built. This summit will be judged not on its declarations — which everyone will applaud — but on the concrete implementation mechanisms it produces. Timelines. Targets. Responsibilities. Consequences for non-compliance.

### What I take away as a witness of this era

I testify to this era with the conviction that **Europe** is taking its own defense seriously — for the first time since **1945**. This is not an easy transformation. It will cost hundreds of billions of euros, require difficult political choices, and unfold in a context of active war on the continent's doorstep. But it is necessary. And if the **Ankara** summit produces the commitments the situation demands, it will be in the history books as the moment when **Europe** decided to stand up — and to keep its allies standing too.

*I was not in Ankara. I will not be in the room where leaders make their decisions. What I know is that those decisions will have consequences for the lives of millions of Ukrainians, Europeans, and for the security of the democratic world for the next decades. That is why I watch, analyze and comment — with all the seriousness that responsibility demands.*

**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

- [Anadolu Agency — Ankara Summit: NATO enters new era as Europe takes on bigger security role — June 30, 2026](https://www.aa.com.tr/en/world/ankara-summit-nato-enters-new-era-as-europe-takes-on-bigger-security-role/3982444)

- Anadolu Agency — Ankara summit should mark delivery and implementation for NATO, says Mark Rutte — June 30, 2026

- [Reuters — Turkey says NATO adjusting to security landscape, US not withdrawing — June 30, 2026](https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/turkey-says-nato-adjusting-security-landscape-us-not-withdrawing-2026-06-30/)

### Secondary sources

- [Brookings Institution — A rebalancing NATO gathers in Ankara — 2026](https://www.brookings.edu/events/a-rebalancing-nato-gathers-in-ankara/)

- [European Parliament — EPRS Brief on NATO Ankara summit — 2026](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_BRI(2026)789355)

- [Kyiv Independent — Ukraine signs Gripen deal with Sweden — June 30, 2026](https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-signs-deal-with-sweden-to-purchase-16-gripen-e-fighter-jets/)

---

Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/temoignage-ankara-2026-l-otan-3-0-et-l-europe-qui-prend-les-renes