Hello from The Hague, and welcome to this special edition of Foreign Policy’s Situation Report. We are officially on the ground for this year’s NATO summit, which kicks off on Tuesday. The weather here, which is alternating between bright sunshine and overcast drizzles throughout the day, seems a fitting metaphor for the uncertainty surrounding this year’s gathering.
Here’s what’s on tap for the day: NATO tries to stay laser-focused on a new defense spending target, though the Russia-Ukraine war and U.S. strikes on Iran are likely to be top of mind for many attendees.
Managing Distractions—and Trump
U.S. President Donald Trump was always expected to dominate the proceedings, whether or not he was present at the summit. (As of now, he still plans to attend.) But by inserting the United States into Israel’s conflict with Tehran by bombing three of Iran’s main nuclear facilities over the weekend—and even floating the idea of regime change in a post on Truth Social—Trump has added yet another point of discussion for the more than two dozen NATO leaders and officials at the Hague this week. Iran fired back on Monday, launching several missiles at the United States’ Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
The U.S. involvement in Iran also risks distracting Washington from the more existential conflict between Ukraine and Russia that NATO’s European members are worried about. Russia, a key Iranian ally, condemned the U.S. strikes on Monday, even as it pummeled Kyiv with airstrikes that killed at least 10 people. Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to meet Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Monday.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte declined to comment on the prospect of regime change during a pre-summit press conference on Monday, simply restating NATO’s long-standing policy that Iran must not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.
“My biggest fear would be for Iran to own and be able to use and deploy a nuclear weapon that would be a stranglehold on Israel, on the whole region, and other parts of the world,” he said, adding that he “would not agree” that Trump’s decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites contravened international law.
Much of the NATO summit’s agenda is already geared toward Trump appeasement. It will be far more truncated than in previous years—only two days of discussions and just one meeting between the heads of all the NATO member states—reportedly reflecting, at least in part, Trump’s distaste for long, drawn out multilateral talk shops. (He did abruptly leave the G-7 gathering in Canada last week.)
“[NATO] summits are usually two to three day affairs,” said Julianne Smith, who served as the U.S. permanent representative to NATO under former President Joe Biden. “This is, in essence, a social dinner plus one substantive session the next day,” she added.
Five percent or bust. The truncated summit, according to Smith, will be “narrowly focused on just one issue and one issue only”: announcing that most NATO member countries will accede to Trump’s demand to raise their individual defense spending to 5 percent of their GDP. At least 3.5 percent of that will be direct military spending, with the remaining 1.5 percent expected to go toward defense-related infrastructure.
“This is a quantum leap that is ambitious, historic, and fundamental to securing our future,” Rutte said, adding that the investment plan includes a fivefold increase in NATO’s air defense capabilities, thousands of tanks and armored vehicles, and millions of rounds of ammunition and artillery.
Smith said the 3.5 percent target would have likely happened regardless of Trump, citing requirements set out in the regional defense plan agreed upon during NATO’s 2023 summit in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius. “The 1.5 percent on defense-adjacent spending … is something that I certainly support, although it seems like an easy way to get to Trump’s 5 percent target, which does feel more arbitrary to me,” she added.
But there is still considerable uncertainty among some NATO members about meeting that target, with Spain—already the alliance’s lowest spender—asking for an exemption from the new target. (It is also one of eight member states that still hasn’t met the previous 2 percent spending target set in 2014.) The new deadline for countries to meet the 5 percent target is 2035, with a review planned for 2029.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said his country would only hit 2.1 percent, but Rutte told reporters that no such exemption had been agreed upon.
“NATO has no opt-outs, and NATO doesn’t know side deals,” he said. “Spain thinks they can achieve those [defense] targets with 2.1 percent; NATO is absolutely convinced Spain will have to spend 3.5 percent to get there, so each country will now regularly report on what they are doing.”
The headline numbers will have to be followed by concrete action in what is now an “emergency” for Europe, according to former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
“Last year—a full decade after NATO committed to spending at least 2 percent at my final summit as secretary general—only 23 of 32 allies met the threshold,” Rasmussen wrote in Foreign Policy on Friday. “Ten years from now, we must not look back at a European commitment to 3.5 percent as a hollow promise made just to mollify a volatile and transactional U.S. president.”
Smith echoed those concerns, citing issues such as the fragmentation of Europe’s internal defense production capabilities and the inability for the alliance’s members to agree on a cohesive strategy to deter Russia.
“We should certainly celebrate this week the new target that is a net positive without a doubt, but no one should assume that now the alliance will have a smooth and easy path going forward,” she said. “There are a number of additional thorny questions out there on the horizon.”
Uncertain Ukraine. Trump has also diverged from the rest of NATO on how to end the war in Ukraine, repeatedly looking to negotiate with Russia and considering Putin’s core demand that Ukraine cannot be allowed to join NATO. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (with whom Trump had an infamous shouting match in the White House in February) will be present at the NATO summit, though the NATO-Ukraine Council meeting on Tuesday will be attended by the alliance’s foreign ministers rather than heads of state.
“Normally, Zelensky is welcomed with open arms at all NATO summits—he is celebrated for his leadership and innovation and courage,” Smith said. “I’m very interested to see what this summit does in terms of welcoming President Zelensky and what type of signals it sends him on NATO’s future relationship with Ukraine.”
Rutte sent a very strong signal on that front on Monday, indicating that NATO’s Trump appeasement has its limits. “[L]ast year in Washington, NATO allies agreed that … there’s an irreversible path for Ukraine to enter NATO,” he said. “That is still true today, and it will still be true on Thursday after this summit.”
Put On Your Radar
Tuesday’s NATO summit agenda, in Central European Time (GMT+1):
10 a.m.: Rutte’s opening address to the NATO Public Forum.
1:30 p.m.: Opening plenary of the NATO Summit Defense Industry Forum.
2:30 p.m.: Rutte meets with Ukrainian and European Union leaders.
7 p.m.: Heads of state arrive at the Palace Huis ten Bosch for a dinner hosted by the king and queen of the Netherlands.
7 p.m.: Working dinner of the NATO-Ukraine Council attended by the alliance’s foreign ministers.
Overheard at the Summit
And now for a variation of the classic local-taxi-driver-talks-to-foreign-correspondent trope, the receptionist working at Rishi’s hotel when he checked in mentioned that NATO leaders would be attending a dinner scheduled for later in the week.
“Your president will be one of them,” he said, referring to Trump. “I really hope he behaves himself.” Then, far more wistfully, he added: “And I hope this summit results in world peace.”
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