What a relief, especially for the pressured Secretary General Mark Rutte. The summit could have been a serious fiasco, Donald Trump could have, for example, ultimately failed to take place at all. But he arrived, albeit in a hurry, with time for an extremely lavish royal dinner, a record-breaking formal summit, and a few bilateral meetings, then back to Washington to deal with, among other things, “the wonderful budget bill” and the aftermath of the bombing campaign against Iran, and little else. The soon-to-be 80-year-old American president, currently the most powerful in American history, has a lot to manage.
The relief is of course that the summit managed to deliver what is most important for the moment, an indispensable, joint and (almost) unanimous decision for NATO's continued existence, on a strong reinforcement of resources, a total of 5% defense growth (3,5% of the countries' GDP for purely military measures, the rest for other "defense-relevant" efforts), deemed necessary for the implementation of the alliance's emerging defense plans. And the support for Ukraine. In that sense, a historic meeting and a historic decision. It was a big step towards maintaining a relevant responsibility of the alliance, given the developments in the world. European NATO. serious about its own security, met the American demands for a long time, an increasingly clear American condition for continued support for and participation in the alliance
Good. Although it should be added that the agreement, despite intensive diplomacy, was not and is not total; some countries, including Spain, chose to withdraw from the community. And the long time horizon, with 2035 as the target, far beyond the Trump era, of course raises many questions about feasibility and verification, and as an alliance compromise, can be perceived by many as a striking lack of urgency, again given the global developments and their pace. And then there is the memento of everything that do not mentioned in the summit's final communiqué. The "historic" summit was also historic through its extremely concise final communiqué, in just five concentrated but generally sound points.
In connection with everything that is now being written and reflected upon, let us first look at what is actually stated in the document, the document that, through its omissions, also manifested the current state of the art of the possible within the alliance, primarily given the Trump administration's difficult-to-assess and difficult-to-manage stance.
Content of the final communiqué
In the first point, the 32 member states, including the United States, confirm their “ironclad commitment” to the alliance and to the common defense through Article 5 – the members declare that they will remain “united and steadfast” in the defense of the alliance’s 1 billion citizens, of the alliance and of its freedom and democracy. It is of course of the utmost importance that Trump’s United States also formally declares its “ironclad commitment” to NATO, regardless of all statements that could cast doubt on this crucial point. Even if the language used is general.
The second point speaks of a shared “commitment” to developing transatlantic defense industrial and technological cooperation. The implementation of this generally formulated declaration of intent in the years to come will likely largely depend on the extent to which the European rearmament announced in the declaration will benefit the American defense industry.
In the third point, the Dutch hosting is thanked protocolically, and it is announced that the next summit in 2026, piquantly enough, will take place in Turkey, followed the year after by Albania. It is already possible to foresee the importance Turkey will attach to the role of host of the next NATO summit. How will Turkey's not at all uncontroversial role as the backbone of the defense of NATO's southern flank be recognized, given Turkey's historically and military-geographically dictated (but politically problematic) role at the crossroads between East-West and North-South?
And then the fourth point, the substantial one about the European – and transatlantic – armament with the 5 percent of GDP until 2035. This point, which also contains precise writings about annual reports of progress towards the 10-year goal, deserves, or demands, to be reproduced verbatim, as it was written down after intensive diplomacy as a compromise of “the possible”, in The Hague:
"Allies agree that this 5% commitment will comprise two essential categories of defense investment. Allies will allocate at least 3,5% of GDP annually based on the agreed definition of NATO defense expenditure by 2035 to resource core defense requirements, and to meet the NATO Capability Targets. Allies agree to submit annual plans showing a credible, incremental path to reach this goal. And Allies will account for up to 1,5% of GDP annually to inter alia protect our critical infrastructure, defend our networks, ensure our civil preparedness and resilience, unleash innovation, and strengthen our defense industrial base. The trajectory and balance of spending under this plan will be reviewed in 2029, in light of the strategic environment and updated Capability Targets. Allies reaffirm their enduring sovereign commitments to provide support to Ukraine, whose security contributes to ours, and, to this end, will include Ukraine's defense and defense industry when calculating Allies' defense spending.”
Exegetical analysis of this negotiated text is not entirely easy to do. It is a gigantic defense investment (considering what these percentages mean for large and rich European countries). And as such, with a lot of question marks about realism and feasibility, although of course depending on the development of the world around us, including everything that thus do not touched upon (was not politically possible to touch upon) in the final compromise text.
But as a complement, in the absence of substance of a classic NATO style, the 32 member states in the two concluding points state, once again, their intention to develop defense-industrial cooperation, and once again, gratitude to the Netherlands and anticipation for the next gatherings in Turkey and Albania, respectively. The repetition of these messages appears as something of a substantial proof of poverty.
Conduct of the meeting
One thing is what is officially announced as the formal outcome of the summit. This marks an imminent European (and transatlantic) defense effort. Another is to note that the substance is otherwise meager. This applies in addition to all sorts of policy issues, such as those usually developed in the alliance's summits, primarily the issue of support for Ukraine. It is not only the absence of a "commitment" to Ukraine's NATO membership, always a controversial (but nevertheless) formulation issue, that is striking, but also the way in which the support for Ukraine is rather vaguely referred to - when this matter is mentioned - rather as a "sovereign commitment" of the member states (not of the alliance as a whole) that can be manifested through "direct contributions" that can be deducted when calculating their respective share in the total defense effort. The formulation "Ukraine, whose security contributes to our…” is also striking in its vagueness and weakness.
President Zelenskyj, who this time was able to attend the dinner with the royal couple but not the meeting itself, must reasonably find these formulations ominous, as a trend marker. But on the other hand, he had a bilateral meeting with his colleague Trump, a meeting that was reported to have been held in good spirits. And generally, Trump is reported to have returned from The Hague with a generally more positive view and experience of NATO and its potential, and (sufficiently) satisfied with the tightly held final communiqué. This in turn should have convinced not only Mark Rutte but probably most of the participating heads of state that there are hardly any limits when it comes to Trump's availability for and appreciation of flattery; Rutte's welcome message to Trump should break all alliance records in this regard.
But regardless of this later question of morality and diplomatic expediency, a relieved Rutte and many others can state that the crisis did not occur, and the compromise held: the compromise that the European countries' "promise" of "5%" - with all its vagueness, incomplete agreement, and Rutte's creative accounting in the step from 3,5 to 5% - ultimately proved sufficient for a (satisfied) Trump to sign a document confirming the US's "iron-clad" support for NATO and its fundamental Article 5. It was a matter of gaining support behind what everyone, including Trump's USA, could agree on, and then everything else where the consensus is cracking, including the handling of the Ukraine issue in an extraordinarily difficult to assess and manage situation, came to the fore. Everything that had to be left out, in fact including the fact that Trump had scared the world right on the eve of the Hague meeting with his Israel-supporting and internationally problematic B-2/"bunker buster" attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, was included in the "compromise", this in order to save the most essential thing, a (left) intact alliance.
Some reflections
- A question that arises when evaluating the summit outcome, such as the transatlantic compromise, concerns how meaningful it actually is to promulgate a ten-year rearmament plan, at the same time as the primarily Russian threat – the one that currently concerns Ukraine but which, according to a fairly unanimous intelligence community, may well apply further westward within a limited number of (2-4) years – and which, according to the same community, would actually need to be met with (at least) equivalent efforts in the near future, the following year. If the (primarily) Russian threat is to be taken fully seriously. Of course, it is possible to understand the long-term perspective in terms of what is politically and economically possible in the alliance as a whole and in the various member states – and that it must be about a balance between level of ambition and time horizon, the higher level of ambition requiring the longer time horizon. And here there is a problematic vagueness in the decision – that it is marked with the figure 5% to honor Trump's somewhat arbitrary mathematics, while at the same time the military core investment is stated at 3,5%, a figure that in an emerging European consensus is actually needed, regardless of Trump, as part of a gradual European assumption of responsibility for its own security, with the alliance intact, however, an example of strategic ambiguity. Taken in full operational seriousness, the figure 1,5% for "defense-relevant" other (civilian) activities also means the potential for a major investment in these vital areas. But the vagueness of the language now guarantees eager scheming and number-crunching during the journey ahead.
And we should note in this regard, as mentioned, that not all member states support the Hague decision in its current necessarily vague wording. Spain has formally registered, to Trump's particular annoyance, as not being covered by the decision (claiming to be able to implement its part of the defense planning with 2,1%), while Belgium (for constitutional reasons) and Slovakia and also Canada have highlighted difficulties and doubts and the US has declared that the 5% decision cannot apply to the US itself, given the burdens on NATO to date. One can therefore expect a lot of diplomatic entanglement around the process evaluation in the future.
This represents an interesting platform for Sweden, which has already committed itself, with full parliamentary consensus and strong state finances at the bottom, to implementing the 3,5% target as early as 2030, and with strong ambitions and traditions as a basis also in the civil defense area.
A ten-year implementation process also implies a perspective far beyond Trump, the man who is currently supposed to control everything, and dictate everything. We can observe that the review date in 2029 is also after Trump, possibly with a new, democratic administration in place. What this may entail is of course not possible to see today, it is essentially determined by how the Ukraine war and the relationship with Russia have developed by then. But a possible fundamentally changed US-Europe (NATO/EU) climate will inevitably strongly influence the nature and degree of agreement within the alliance on defense investments – and Ukraine support. Here is one of many uncertainties. Especially if you include a simmering disagreement also within European NATO, both on budgetary matters and on Ukraine policy.
- The Hague meeting and its final document mean, in a deeper sense, albeit for understandable reasons in an extremely complicated situation, that a discrepancy has arisen between strong resource allocation – especially if one also includes the EU's major investment – and a weak and unclear common policy direction. This applies first of all to his Ukraine policy, goals and means – hence the omission of serious operational writings in the decision document. The (little) that is stated in the document (cf. above) rather indicates that the uncertainty about the transatlantic agreement on goals and means has remained alarmingly large, despite the occasional hint by Trump of irritation over Putin's lack of enthusiasm for colleague Trump's various peace initiatives. But it is not just about Ukraine-Russia; Middle East issues have also recently emerged as watersheds within the alliance. It is one thing that Mark Rutte, in his famous message, thanks Trump for freeing the world from Iran's nuclear weapons, another that the US's unilateral action on Israel's side is rather strengthening the image in Europe of threatening Trump-American foreign policy stubbornness and arbitrariness.
America's allies in the rest of the world, primarily in Southeast Asia, as well as the giants in the Global South, should be studying the game within the transatlantic alliance very, very carefully.
But above all, it is the ravages of the Trump factor on the American liberal-democratic system that are eroding transatlantic trust, the foundation for the credibility of the alliance's Article 5.
- The Hague meeting/document also manifests a kind of strategic compromise. It attempts to address a trend of diminishing American commitment to Europe's defense based on the alliance's original raison d'etre. At the same time, there is an effort to secure the survival of the transatlantic alliance as a result of increasing American respect for the European will to defend itself and its growing capabilities. All in all, a difficult and risky process in various ways, all depending on developments in and by the USA, now under Trump. The balance sheet is reminiscent of a similar tightrope walk when earlier this year a British-French “coalition of the willing” tried to influence Trump’s plans for a ceasefire negotiated with the parties (especially the Russians) through (quite misguided) offers of troop contributions for the monitoring of a possible agreement.
The point here is to correctly calibrate this balance in a changing stage of development, so that increasing European defense policy responsibility do not instead, it fosters accelerated American distancing, with increasing transatlantic distrust, even hostility, as a result. That this would be an almost catastrophic development becomes clear if one considers what a total American withdrawal from Europe would cost, in compensatory money and in security, and in time. Given the Russian threat. In other words, the journey ahead in transatlantic relations, including trade relations as we have seen, looks extraordinarily close.
- A final reflection here and now: on the Trump phenomenon. The Hague meeting, its implementation in an atmosphere of crisis and its meager, but important, results, also bear witness to what an outstanding, almost unique, position of power that Donald Trump has almost miraculously conquered, both at home and in the world at large. Politically, one may possibly have different opinions regarding the resulting factual net, but it must be stated that an almost 80-year-old man, through manipulative skill, a great deal of luck (for example, the shooting in Butler a year ago) and the weakness or manipulability of the resistance, is now exercising an extraordinary one-man rule for American and Western conditions, which all parties, at home and in the world, have to relate to in terms of realpolitik. So too NATO/The Hague. Rutte and others' relief that an open crisis of one kind or another could be avoided this time will not prevent people in all capitals from now drawing the conclusion that neither the war nor even the battle has been won as a result. The well-documented stubbornness and fickleness, via Truth Social and other social media, will likely continue to apply in the future. Transactionalism and bilateralism alone – and flattery and excessive adaptability – will not suffice as a coping formula. Sooner or later, an open transatlantic conflict – over Ukraine, Gaza, Greenland or something else – may arise and cannot be avoided or concealed. And sooner or later, serious instability within the United States itself – over Trump’s power over the executive branch and the executive branch’s power over other federal and state agencies and society at large – may create further erosion of rational American foreign policy.
It should be added, however, that what has been stated here about Donald Trump's unique position of power – on different levels and for different reasons – applies here and now, before the counterforces against Trump's goals and (above all) means have had time to take effect, with an as yet uncertain effect.