NATO Cracks Before the Ankara Summit: Europe Confronts the Security Reality of Accelerated U.S. Withdrawal

The NATO Ankara Summit on July 7–8 was meant to be a showcase of what Europe had achieved.

European allies have sharply increased defense spending over the past year, and the Hague Summit's target of 5% of GDP for defense and security investment is fast becoming the new political benchmark. Through ReArm Europe and the SAFE defense loan instrument, the EU is trying to turn budget commitments into ammunition, missiles, air defenses, UAVs, electronic warfare, space, and C4ISTAR capabilities.

Yet even before the summit opens, another question has overshadowed the agenda: is the United States accelerating its withdrawal from European security?

Ahead of the summit, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) noted that European allies had hoped Ankara would serve as a report card on defense spending. Instead, the U.S.-Europe rift that followed the Iran war has turned it into a stress test of NATO's future structure. This is more than a summit with a bad atmosphere: the transatlantic security order is entering a new phase.

Europe Is Spending More, but That May Not Buy U.S. Patience

Washington's main complaint about NATO has long been that European allies spend too little on defense. The complaint grew sharper after Donald Trump returned to the White House, and European countries have indeed responded. With the 2025 Hague Summit, NATO raised its long-term target from 2% to 5% of GDP: 3.5% for core defense and 1.5% for infrastructure, cybersecurity, civil resilience, and the defense industry.

On paper, Europe is making progress. Poland is heading toward defense spending of 5% of GDP, the Baltic states rank among the top spenders, and Germany is rearming with debt financing and special funds. The EU's SAFE mechanism offers up to €150 billion in loans to encourage joint procurement and ease the European defense industry's long-standing fragmentation, duplication, and lack of capacity.

But Washington is no longer asking only for more money. It wants capability, speed, and political alignment. As NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte put it in Washington, "Putin is not afraid of commitments; he is afraid of implementing those commitments." That sums up the real pressure on the Ankara summit: defense budgets are only the starting point, and the test is whether Europe can turn them into usable forces. Washington's impatience with Europe is now as much about strategic trust as about burden-sharing.

The Iran War Triggered the Rift Early

The immediate cause of the tension around Ankara is the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Some European allies refused to provide bases, airspace, or political support, leading Washington to conclude that its NATO allies did not stand with the United States when it mattered.

Spain refused to let U.S. forces use jointly operated bases or its airspace to support the operations, Italy raised legal objections, and the UK hesitated before confirming that U.S. forces could use its bases. Each decision had its own constitutional, legal, and political reasons at home, but Washington read them as allies enjoying American protection while refusing to help when the United States needed it.

Against that backdrop, Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the Ankara meeting "probably the most important meeting in NATO's history, because there are some things here that need to be cleared up and fixed." Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was more direct still. At the NATO defense ministers' meeting on June 18, he announced a review of U.S. force posture and basing in Europe that would take up to six months, calling it the "NATO 3.0 review."

Hegseth's message was clear: Europe must take the lead in its own defense. His remark that "NATO will be a two-way street" signals that the U.S. no longer sees NATO as a one-sided American guarantee and will expect allies to reciprocate on defense spending, basing, airspace, operational support, and political backing in a crisis. The Iran war turned a power shift that might have been negotiated gradually into an early political confrontation.

Withdrawal Is Not Just About Troop Numbers

What really worries Europe is less the loss of a few thousand U.S. troops than the drawdown of high-end capabilities it would find hardest to replace.

Reuters, citing the New York Times, reported that the U.S. plans deep cuts to the military assets it makes available for NATO operations in Europe: F-16 and F-15E fighters would fall from roughly 150 to 100 and maritime patrol aircraft from 26 to 15, eight aerial refueling tankers would be withdrawn, and a missile-capable submarine, an aircraft carrier, and part of the bomber force would be redeployed.

The list may look scattered, but every item is a capability Europe would struggle to replace quickly: long-range strike, aerial refueling, maritime ISR, strategic mobility, missile defense, and integrated command and control. Europe can speed up production of artillery shells, missiles, and air defense batteries, but it cannot easily replicate the battlefield awareness, satellite support, and C2 architecture the U.S. has built over decades.

In effect, the U.S. functions as NATO's "operating system," the framework that links sensors, weapons, data, and mission planning. Without it, the effectiveness of European forces drops sharply, and this is the part Europe would find hardest to replicate on its own.

Europe Wants a Roadmap; the U.S. Applies Pressure

European leaders had hoped for a managed transition in which the U.S. gradually handed over conventional defense responsibilities while Europe steadily built up its capabilities. That is the "NATO 3.0" some U.S. officials have described: the U.S. stays in the alliance, but Europe becomes the mainstay of its own conventional defense.

Instead of a jointly planned roadmap, Washington is delivering unilateral adjustments and political pressure. Europe needs years to build up ammunition production, air defense networks, long-range fires, satellite systems, and supply chains.

Washington believes that without pressure Europe will not move fast enough. Hence the paradox: U.S. withdrawal is meant to force Europe to take responsibility, but withdrawing too quickly could leave Europe exposed before its capabilities are ready. CFR concluded that Europe is unlikely to get a reliable NATO 3.0 transition roadmap; even if Europe sets out its own timeline and capability plans, Washington may not treat them as a stable basis for future U.S. deployments.

Turkey as an Unusual Host

With Turkey as host, the summit carries an extra layer of political meaning.

Turkey has NATO's second-largest military and a fast-growing defense industry, particularly in UAVs, counter-UAS systems, air defense, missiles, naval vessels, and cyber capabilities. Before the summit, Turkish Defense Minister Yaşar Güler said NATO was not in crisis but adapting to a changing security environment, and stressed that the U.S. had no intention of leaving; it wanted its European allies and Canada to take on more responsibility.

President Erdoğan focused on alliance solidarity and restrictions on the defense trade. He called on allies to lift their defense trade restrictions on Turkey and to bring it into European security initiatives. That touches another European problem: if Europe wants to strengthen its own defense, can it keep a military and industrial power like Turkey out of parts of its defense planning?

Despite rifts over human rights, the Mediterranean, and Russia, Turkey's military capacity is hard for Europe to ignore. Ankara holds up a mirror to the dilemma of European strategic autonomy: Europe wants to depend less on the U.S., yet struggles to integrate the most capable allies on its doorstep.

Fragile European Solidarity

Under U.S. pressure, European leaders are trying to present a united front. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz hosted the leaders of the UK, France, Italy, and Poland in Berlin to press for a stronger European pillar within NATO. Yet internal divisions persist.

The Franco-German Future Combat Air System (FCAS) remains bogged down in disputes over strategy and management, a reminder of how hard it is for Europe to develop major weapons together. Italy and Poland have also voiced frustration at a Franco-German-British core steering Ukraine policy. Southern European countries face domestic legal and political constraints over base access, while Eastern European states care most about keeping U.S. troops on the front line.

To build a "European pillar," Europe must first settle how power is shared within it. Germany has the money; France has the nuclear deterrent and strategic culture; Poland has front-line exposure and high defense spending; the UK remains a major military power despite Brexit; Italy and Spain are focused on the Mediterranean.

These countries share a sense of threat but differ on priorities, the industrial division of labor, and relations with the U.S. The faster the U.S. withdraws, the greater the pressure to integrate; the slower Europe integrates, the harder it will be to fill the gap the U.S. leaves behind.

NATO 3.0 in Essence: The Alliance Remains, the Guarantee Weakens

NATO 3.0 sounds like an upgrade, but in substance it may be closer to a redistribution of power.

Cold War NATO was U.S.-dominated; post-Cold War NATO was U.S.-led, with Europe enjoying a peace dividend; today's NATO is moving toward a model in which the U.S. retains its nuclear umbrella and specialized high-end capabilities while Europe shoulders conventional defense and regional operations.

This does not mean the U.S. will leave NATO. But even if it stays, it may no longer provide the highly predictable, automatic, and ample security guarantee of the past. European security was built on the assumption that in a crisis the U.S. would automatically knit the alliance into a single fighting system.

Now Europe must plan for a scenario in which the U.S. is still there but offers less, moves more slowly, and makes its commitments conditional on European political cooperation in other theaters. That is harder to handle than an outright exit: an exit would force immediate restructuring, whereas conditional support invites hesitation and delay.

After the Ankara Summit: Filling Capability Gaps, Not Just Spending Percentages

The most likely outcome of the summit is a show of unity over deep internal anxiety. The declaration will reaffirm NATO solidarity, support for Ukraine, and a defense-industrial ramp-up, but the real divisions will not go away.

Europe now faces several concrete problems:

1. How to build its own ISR, satellite, early warning, and battlefield data integration capabilities without full U.S. support.

2. How to close the air and missile defense gaps exposed by the war in Ukraine.

3. How to build long-range fires and ammunition production capacity, so that Europe can manufacture over the long term rather than simply buy.

4. How to build a workable defense-industrial division of labor among the EU, NATO, the UK, Turkey, Norway, and other non-EU allies, instead of duplicating and excluding one another.

5. How to establish European-led command, control, and data-sharing architectures to reduce reliance on U.S. systems.

All of this is far harder than hitting a GDP target. A budget can be drawn up on paper; real capability requires industry, talent, procurement channels, maintenance infrastructure, and command integration to come together at the same time.

Conclusion: Entering the Post-U.S. Guarantee Era

What matters about Ankara is not whether NATO is about to break apart. It is that the alliance is moving from an era of stable, unconditional U.S. security guarantees to one in which they are more conditional, less predictable, and more dependent on reciprocity.

European security will increasingly depend on whether Europe can turn its defense budgets into real, integrated combat capability. The question Ankara raises is no longer whether NATO survives, but whether Europe is ready for a security order in which the U.S. is gradually letting go.