The upcoming NATO summit hosted by Ankara is not merely another routine meeting of a military alliance accustomed to reviewing its defense plans and debating burden-sharing. It is the Alliance’s first political and strategic test since the US-Iran war, and the first occasion on which its leaders meet while the war in Ukraine remains unresolved, European doubts about the durability of American leadership continue to grow, and Turkey seeks to reaffirm itself as both a pivotal NATO ally and a regional power.
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The importance of the summit will not be measured by its final communiqué, but by what it reveals about the direction of American leadership and the new priorities it sets for the Western security order. Europe’s most consequential absentee is Russian President Vladimir Putin, who will determine the course of his war in Ukraine this summer in light of Donald Trump’s performance at the summit – whether the American president attends or stays away.
The unfinished war with Iran is a source of concern for NATO members. Iran’s nuclear program remains unresolved, the ballistic missile file has been postponed, and the issue of Iran’s regional proxies has also been deferred. This has heightened European concern because postponing these files does not resolve them; it merely delays the sources of danger.
