NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte arrived in Ankara on Monday with a pointed message for alliance members: present “clear, concrete and credible plans” to meet defense spending targets or face pressure from Washington.
The two-day NATO summit begins Tuesday in the Turkish capital. The timing is deliberate. Alliance members agreed last year to commit 5% of gross domestic product to defense, split between 3.5% for military budgets and 1.5% for infrastructure, including roads, bridges, and ports needed to move troops quickly during a conflict. Some members are still failing to meet the old 2% threshold.
Rutte acknowledged that stragglers remain. When asked what happens to members without a credible plan, he offered a measured warning: “If one or two of them still have to be convinced, we have ways to do that.” He declined to elaborate.
He did not need to. U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker had already made Washington’s position explicit a week earlier. “President Trump fully expects that all allies will step up immediately and get on the path to 5% and do it with urgency,” Whitaker said. He added that the U.S. “has something in store” for those who fail to move, without specifying what.
The summit comes as the Trump administration has been pressing Europe to carry more of its own defense burden, a posture the White House calls “NATO 3.0.” Undersecretary of Defense Elbridge Colby outlined the approach earlier this year at a NATO defense ministers meeting: Europe takes greater responsibility for its own security, freeing the U.S. to concentrate on other strategic priorities.
Trump has raised the pressure further after some NATO allies refused to allow use of their military bases during the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran. He has repeatedly threatened not to guarantee the defense of members not meeting spending commitments, and recently called for “loyalty” from the alliance.
European defense spending has moved. Rutte said NATO estimates that Europe and Canada combined will invest $258 billion more in defense in 2025 and 2026 than in prior years. But Spain, which endorsed the 5% goal, has told the alliance it can meet NATO’s security requirements without reaching that threshold, an argument Washington has not accepted.
Russia is adding urgency to the summit. Several European governments have warned in recent days that Russia may be preparing a hybrid attack somewhere on the continent as President Vladimir Putin faces difficulty securing victory in Ukraine.
Tuesday’s summit is also set to feature a “big reveal” of military equipment purchased with the surge in defense funding, including a deal to replace NATO’s aging fleet of AWACS surveillance aircraft. The planes are roughly 50 years old.
The European Stability Mechanism, a eurozone financial institution, released a report Monday warning that the defense buildup will require debt financing in the short term and has become “one of the central fiscal policy questions of this decade.” Governments attempting to meet the 5% target face hard choices between tax increases and pulling resources from domestic programs.
The strain is visible. U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey resigned unexpectedly last month, saying his government was unwilling to fund defense spending at a time of rising threats
