The NATO summit in Ankara has ended with one of the alliance’s largest commitments to Ukraine since the war began. NATO members pledged €70 billion in military equipment, assistance and training for Ukraine during 2026, alongside an intention to sustain at least an equivalent level of support in 2027. Leaders also agreed to invest more than $40 billion over five years in counter-drone capabilities and €27 billion in fuel infrastructure, while reaffirming the longer-term commitment made at The Hague to move towards defence and security expenditure equivalent to 5% of GDP by 2035. Donald Trump met Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the summit and again said he believed a settlement with Russia was achievable, while European members increasingly accepted that they will need to finance a much larger share of Ukraine’s defence themselves. The numbers are significant, but the summit raises a more interesting question about collective security: if Europe becomes capable of defending itself and Ukraine with much less American assistance, does that weaken American leadership of NATO, or does it finally create the alliance of sovereign partners NATO was theoretically supposed to be?
For decades, NATO contained a tension between the language of equality and the reality of power. Every member formally possessed sovereign equality within the alliance, yet the United States supplied capabilities that no European state could replace individually: nuclear deterrence, intelligence, strategic airlift, logistics and enormous military-industrial capacity. Europe benefited because American protection allowed governments to allocate more resources towards welfare and domestic investment. America benefited because dependence generated influence. Washington was not merely defending Europe; it occupied the central position in the institutional architecture through which European security decisions were made. The relationship was therefore mutually beneficial while still being highly asymmetric. Formal equality between states does not eliminate material hierarchy between them.
Trump has spent years attacking that asymmetry, arguing that wealthy European societies should carry much more of the financial burden for their own defence. The Ankara commitments suggest that this pressure, combined with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has changed European behaviour dramatically. Yet Washington should recognise the logical consequence of getting what it asked for. A Europe capable of financing Ukraine, producing weapons and defending itself more independently will also possess greater freedom to disagree with America. Burden-sharing inevitably becomes power-sharing once the weaker partner acquires enough capability to act without permission. America cannot coherently demand European military independence while expecting permanent European diplomatic dependence.
This is not necessarily a problem. It may actually create a healthier NATO. An alliance in which one member is indispensable can become politically fragile because the entire system depends on that member’s domestic politics. Every American presidential election then becomes indirectly a European security event. If Europe develops enough capability that an American reduction in support creates difficulty rather than catastrophe, NATO becomes more resilient. The relationship moves from protection towards partnership. That may reduce some American leverage, but it also reduces the burden America must carry.
The €70 billion Ukraine commitment is important in precisely this context. Europe increasingly needs to demonstrate that its support for Ukrainian sovereignty is not merely a preference funded by somebody else. Political philosophy often discusses sovereignty as the right of a community to determine its own political future. But defending that principle requires resources. If European governments believe Ukraine should retain meaningful freedom from Russian domination, they need to be willing to bear enough of the material cost required to make that freedom possible. Principles become strategically credible when those asserting them are willing to pay for their enforcement.
At the same time, unlimited support without a political theory of how the war ends would be equally unsatisfactory. Military assistance should improve Ukraine’s bargaining position and deter future Russian aggression, not become an objective independent of diplomacy. NATO therefore needs to hold two ideas simultaneously: Ukraine should not be forced into concessions simply because Russia is larger, and military support should ultimately help create conditions under which negotiation becomes safer. There is no contradiction between supporting Ukraine strongly and wanting a settlement. The contradiction would be supporting Ukraine without being able to explain what political equilibrium that support is intended to produce.
The summit’s counter-drone initiative is perhaps more revealing about the future of warfare than another expensive fighter or tank programme. NATO plans more than $40 billion of investment over five years in counter-drone capabilities through its new Drone Edge initiative. Ukraine has demonstrated that cheap unmanned systems can destroy or disable equipment costing many times more. This creates an economic problem for traditional defence procurement. If a $20,000 drone can force an adversary to fire a million-dollar interceptor, the defender may win the engagement while losing the cost-exchange ratio. Modern defence therefore increasingly requires inexpensive detection, electronic warfare and mass-produced interceptors rather than assuming the most technologically sophisticated weapon is always the most strategically efficient.
This matters because military power is partly an economic production problem. A country does not simply need the best weapons; it needs weapons that can be replaced at the rate a prolonged war consumes them. Ukraine has forced NATO to rediscover something industrial warfare made obvious a century ago: inventories disappear quickly once fighting begins. A military possessing a small number of exquisite platforms can appear formidable during peacetime and become fragile if replacement takes several years. Deterrence therefore depends partly on factories, supply chains and manufacturing speed.
The €27 billion investment in NATO fuel infrastructure reflects the same logic. Armies cannot move without energy, and European military mobility remains constrained by infrastructure originally designed more for commercial efficiency than high-intensity war. Fuel depots, pipelines, railways, ports and bridges sound less impressive than fighter aircraft, but they determine whether fighter aircraft and armoured units can actually operate where needed. Military capability is a system, and the system fails at its weakest logistical point.
Turkey’s role as summit host also deserves attention. Ankara occupies one of NATO’s most complicated strategic positions: it is a treaty ally of the United States, controls access between the Black Sea and Mediterranean, maintains important relationships with Russia, competes with Moscow in several theatres and has repeatedly pursued policies independent of Washington and Brussels. Trump also indicated during the summit that he was considering allowing Turkey back into the F-35 programme, despite the continuing controversy surrounding Ankara’s Russian S-400 air-defence system. Turkey therefore illustrates what a more multipolar alliance may increasingly look like: members can remain strategically indispensable without becoming politically obedient.
This is actually closer to genuine sovereignty than the expectation that alliance membership requires complete alignment. Alliances work when states cooperate because their interests overlap sufficiently, not because their interests become identical. Turkey can disagree with America over Israel or Russia while still believing NATO membership improves Turkish security. France can seek greater European autonomy while remaining committed to collective defence. Poland can prefer an extremely strong American presence while Germany emphasises greater European capacity. Pluralism inside an alliance is not necessarily weakness; it becomes weakness only when disagreement prevents collective action on the limited purposes for which the alliance exists.
The same principle should govern NATO’s relationship with Iran. The Ankara declaration stated that Iran must never obtain a nuclear weapon and emphasised freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. Those are legitimate collective security concerns, particularly after this year’s war. But NATO should resist transforming itself into a universal instrument for every Western security problem. Institutions become less coherent when their mandate expands faster than members’ shared interests. NATO’s comparative advantage remains territorial defence and military coordination among its members. It should cooperate with Gulf states where useful without assuming every crisis requires alliance-wide military responsibility.
For India, the summit reinforces a broader lesson about alliances and strategic autonomy. India has traditionally avoided treaty alliances partly because it fears exactly the dependence Europe is now trying to reduce. Yet NATO also demonstrates that alliances can multiply national capability dramatically when interests genuinely align. The relevant choice is therefore not simply alliance versus autonomy. The real question is whether an international relationship expands a state’s available choices or narrows them. India can deepen partnerships without surrendering decision-making authority, just as Europe can strengthen NATO while becoming less dependent on Washington.
The Ankara summit should therefore be remembered less for another defence-spending figure than for the institutional transition underneath it. NATO is gradually moving away from a model in which America provides security and Europe provides political support towards one in which Europe contributes substantially more military power of its own. That transition will be expensive, inefficient at times and politically contentious. It may also produce a more durable alliance because responsibility and authority become distributed more evenly.
The political principle is relatively simple. Dependence can create stability, but it also limits agency. Partnership becomes stronger when cooperation remains valuable even after both sides acquire the capacity to say no. NATO’s challenge after Ankara is proving that a stronger Europe does not require a weaker Atlantic alliance, but can instead create one in which collective defence rests increasingly on consent backed by capability rather than dependence disguised as solidarity.
