SUMMIT PRELUDE AMID ESCALATING PRESSURE<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nRutte\u2019s visit comes at a particularly tense moment. Just before his departure, Trump publicly reprimanded NATO allies, singling out Britain, Germany and Italy for refusing to support the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey weren\u2019t too nice to us in our recent little military skirmish,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t need their money \u2014 we don\u2019t need anything. We have the most powerful military in the world by far. But I just want loyalty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His remarks followed U.S. War Secretary Pete Hegseth\u2019s characterization of NATO as a \u201cpaper tiger\u201d and his announcement of a six-month review of U.S. troop deployments in Europe, with a clear message that Europe must take \u201cprimary responsibility\u201d for its own defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Pentagon has already informed allies of concrete cuts to military assets available for NATO missions, including reducing F-16 and F-15E fighter jets from roughly 150 to 100, cutting maritime reconnaissance aircraft from 26 to 15, and withdrawing all eight aerial refueling tankers, and reallocating one of two groups of bombers previously assigned for Europe\u2019s defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Against this backdrop, Rutte\u2019s agenda includes meetings with Trump, congressional leaders, and members of the strategic community, with NATO officials hoping the recent U.S.-Iran peace deal will prevent the July summit from devolving into a public showdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNow there\u2019s a deal, it places us in a better position,\u201d one NATO official told Euronews, adding that Trump \u201cwill be in a better place\u201d after the peace deal with Iran is confirmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
STRUCTURAL DIVERGENCES THAT DEFY QUICK FIXES<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nDespite Rutte\u2019s efforts to contain the rupture, analysts argue that the current tensions reflect deeper, structural shifts in U.S. strategy rather than mere presidential temperament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rutte\u2019s visit should be seen primarily as an effort \u201cto prevent NATO\u2019s internal tensions from spilling over ahead of the summit\u201d rather than a genuine attempt to resolve all disagreements, said Ivan Cardillo, a member of the Center for International and Strategic Studies at Luiss University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNATO is unlikely to collapse in the short term, but the way it works is changing. The U.S. security commitment is becoming more conditional, more transactional and more closely linked to what allies are willing and able to contribute,\u201d Cardillo said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump expresses this tendency in a more direct and transactional way, but the tendency itself is structural \u2014 a reality that would persist under different U.S. administrations as Washington reassesses its investments in European security while pivoting toward the Middle East, the Indo-Pacific, and global strategic competition, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alexander Graef, lead of Russia and European Security Programme at the European Leadership Network, warned that Europeans must prepare for a future \u201cin which U.S. leadership and the predictability that has traditionally accompanied it, becomes increasingly uncertain or may even be absent altogether.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While European governments have expanded bilateral and regional cooperation frameworks, Graef noted that these mechanisms have yet to provide alliance-wide strategic planning and political direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA larger European role within NATO requires a greater degree of convergence in how allies assess deterrence, escalation risks, and the use of military force,\u201d he said. Otherwise, the growing number of military initiatives could \u201creinforce fragmentation rather than coherence across the alliance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Liana Fix, a senior fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted that both sides are reinforcing narratives of betrayal. Europe centered on the Greenland episode and the U.S. focused on Iran, risking the replacement of \u201cshared strategic understanding\u201d and making it harder for NATO to redefine its goals, with the current trajectory resembling a \u201cmessy divorce\u201d conducted in blame, said Fix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CAPABILITY GAP FEEDS EUROPEAN DIVISIONS<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nFor European allies, the challenge is twofold: they cannot quickly replace U.S. capabilities from nuclear deterrence to command systems, and they remain divided on the way forward. Analysts warn that this gap between dependency and disunity undermines a coherent European response to U.S. pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Europe may increase defense spending and expand industrial production, but it cannot quickly replace the United States in nuclear deterrence, strategic intelligence, space capabilities, long-range projection and high-level command systems, said Cardillo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The challenge is compounded by a cacophony of European responses. Mark Montgomery, senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, noted that European countries are stepping up by geographic variation, with Eastern states such as Poland, the Baltic countries, Romania and Bulgaria \u201cclearly\u201d doing the most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Poland has become one of NATO\u2019s largest military spenders, while the continent\u2019s largest economies lag behind, said Montgomery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Germany, Britain and France are politically committed to higher defense spending, but their paths diverge. Berlin, under Chancellor Friedrich Merz, is positioning itself as a potential hub for Europe\u2019s future defense industrial base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Britain and France have deepened cooperation through the Lancaster House 2.0 framework, including unprecedented coordination on nuclear deterrence. Yet even these leading nations cannot quickly replace the U.S. capabilities on which they have long depended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2025, NATO members agreed to invest 5 percent of GDP in defense by 2035, including 3.5 percent for core defense expenditure. Meeting that target will be particularly challenging for southern and smaller economies facing tighter fiscal constraints. Italy, Spain and Belgium face high public debt, making sharp increases in defense spending politically and financially difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Raising Italy\u2019s defence budget to a target level of 5 percent of GDP would require more than 60 billion euros (68 billion U.S. dollars), a commitment that might be tough to meet for Italy, which sees its massive public debt rising to almost 138 percent of GDP in 2026, according to Reuters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spain has opted out of the timeline entirely, citing self-determination and fiscal limitations. For Spain, committing to a 5 percent target would \u201cnot only be unreasonable, but also counterproductive,\u201d said Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Analysts caution that this internal divergence \u2014 between those who feel threatened, those who feel obliged, and those who feel fiscally unable \u2014 suggests that Rutte\u2019s visit may temporarily \u201cpress pause\u201d on the most acute frictions, but Europe\u2019s response to U.S. pressure will remain uneven and contested for years to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRutte\u2019s task is essentially damage limitation: to ensure the summit is a managed event rather than a public rupture,\u201d said Christoph Bluth, professor of International Relations and Security at the University of Bradford. \u201cIf the principles are not broadly aligned beforehand, the Ankara summit itself can go badly wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Source: Xinhua<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nSource: teleSUR English<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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