European leaders arrive for this year\u2019s NATO summit meeting in Ankara, Turkey, with the alliance under threat.<\/p>\n
They want to keep President Trump and the United States deeply engaged in NATO, but they have come to accept that the alliance is changing \u2014 and will have to rely far less on Washington for the conventional defense of Europe.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has made it clear that it is withdrawing troops and capabilities from Europe to shore up American military power in the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific, where China has become a rival<\/a> to the United States.<\/p>\n The European governments want to ensure that the transition toward what many call NATO 3.0 is done as smoothly as possible. They want to feel confident that the gaps the Americans leave can be filled, even if imperfectly, to diminish their vulnerability to a more aggressive, militarized Russia.<\/p>\n The dangers of the current moment have been underscored by China\u2019s test of a long-range ballistic missile on Monday, the first such launch in nearly two years, and another huge Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv.<\/p>\n NATO leaders are expected to endorse continued support for Ukraine, with the non-American members pledging $80 billion this year and next. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine will attend, to press his urgent desire for more air defenses against the Russian onslaught.<\/p>\n Mark Rutte, the secretary general of NATO, is trying to walk a narrow line, prodding European member states to pay more for security while making sure Mr. Trump does not abandon the alliance in the process.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will breathe life into the concept of NATO 3.0: A stronger Europe in a stronger NATO,\u201d he said<\/a> last week.<\/p>\n But for several years at least, senior European officials say, the reality will be a gradually stronger Europe in a weaker NATO. There will be fewer American troops, fewer high-tech American capabilities and doubts that Mr. Trump would come to NATO\u2019s aid in all circumstances, undermining deterrence.<\/p>\n Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland\u2019s foreign minister and a former defense minister, outlined the transformation of NATO after it was founded in the aftermath of World War II.<\/p>\n \u201cNATO 1.0 was a clear defense against Soviet aggression and expansionism, and NATO 2.0 was a post-Cold War search for purpose,\u201d he said in an interview, with the alliance looking outside North America and Europe and after Sept. 11, especially, to fight terrorism in Afghanistan and the Middle East.<\/p>\n Russia was seen as a possible ally and certainly less of a threat, and some European NATO members effectively disarmed, he said.<\/p>\n But with Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, China\u2019s rising ambitions and Washington wanting to shift resources to Asia away from Europe, Mr. Sikorski said, \u201cNATO 3.0 will mean that Europe will take more of the burden for conventional defense and the U.S. will be more of a cavalry-over-the-hill kind of ally.\u201d<\/p>\n Time may be short to prepare. German and many NATO officials say a battle-hardened Russia would be ready for a war against NATO by 2029, so the pressure is on Europe to become more \u201cwar ready,\u201d as the Germans say, and on the United States not to create unnecessary vulnerabilities in the meantime.<\/p>\n In Ankara, Mr. Trump and his officials are expected to keep the pressure on other NATO members to pay more for defense, and to stick to a commitment made last year to increase spending to 5 percent of gross national product<\/a> by 2035. Matthew Whitaker, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, warned allies last week that there may be benefits for those who pay up and difficulties for those who lag the others.<\/p>\n For a time, the Europeans hoped that American threats to reduce its contributions to NATO would fade, as they did in Mr. Trump\u2019s first term. They now accept that the Americans are serious, and that they must step up in their own interests.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very clear that the U.S. role is changing,\u201d said Claudia Major, an expert on trans-Atlantic security at the German Marshall Fund, a research group. She added that \u201cthe main hope is to do damage control and to get predictability.\u201d<\/p>\n Europeans know they must do more, she said. The change \u201ccan be shaped but not avoided.\u201d<\/p>\n The key questions, though, are how quickly will Washington withdraw support and how quickly can Europe act.<\/p>\n In 2022, at the Madrid summit of NATO leaders, the alliance began to demand for the first time since the Soviet Union collapsed that its members obtain specific quantities and kinds of equipment and personnel, and be able to move them to specific places in case of a war.<\/p>\n These requirements were drawn up by NATO\u2019s then Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, an American, and his staff. But they must be redrawn after Washington announced some troop reductions and the withdrawal of critical equipment, like air refueling and fighter planes.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump has been dismissive of NATO generally, calling it \u201ca paper tiger\u201d and saying allies were not there for him when he wanted their help in the war with Iran.<\/p>\n Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been even more biting than Mr. Trump about NATO and has announced a further review of the United States\u2019 troop presence in Europe<\/a> over the next six months.<\/p>\n Mr. Rutte will devote Tuesday, the first day of the summit, to a trans-Atlantic defense industry forum, to emphasize growing ties. The leaders\u2019 dinner will take place on Tuesday. On Wednesday, there will be a morning session, followed by news conferences.<\/p>\n Much happy talk is expected in Ankara about European military spending and defense procurement. Beneath the surface, though, there are serious anxieties.<\/p>\n European armies do not have enough troops, U.S. and NATO officials agree. For example, the British Army is at its smallest since Waterloo in 1815, with fewer than 70,000 full-time, trained personnel.<\/p>\n European budgets are also stretched. It is unclear when any large country other than Germany<\/a> and Poland<\/a> will be able in the next few years to reach NATO\u2019s spending goal of 3.5 percent of national income on core military needs and another 1.5 percent on related military spending, like improving rail transport and emergency services in case of war.<\/p>\n Even at last year\u2019s summit, when these spending targets were agreed upon, allies refused Mr. Rutte\u2019s request to reach those levels by 2029, insisting on 2035, suggesting that major increases will come only toward the end of that period.<\/p>\n Building up the so-called European pillar in NATO will inevitably take time, and it is not just a question of money, but of developing, buying and integrating sophisticated weaponry that the Americans will no longer provide. Most crucially, these \u201cstrategic enablers\u201d include long-range, ground-based missiles, air defense, satellites and intelligence coordination.<\/p>\n It is also vital, Mr. Rutte argues, that Washington provide the main nuclear deterrent for the alliance, the so-called \u201cnuclear umbrella,\u201d to counter threats from Russia or any other country.<\/p>\n Even as the alliance evolves into NATO 3.0, \u201cyou still need U.S. leadership, high-end U.S. capabilities, nuclear deterrence and enough American conventional power on the ground to show that the U.S. has skin in the game,\u201d said Matthew Kroenig, a former Pentagon official now at the Atlantic Council, a research group. \u201cThere is a connection between troops on the ground and nuclear credibility.\u201d<\/p>\n If few American soldiers are in Europe to fight and die, questions about the willingness of an American president to go nuclear become more acute.<\/p>\n There is also the fundamental question of command and control.<\/p>\n NATO has been built to be led by an American supreme commander, with simultaneous control over American troops in Europe. The continent has competent generals, but no clear European command, since each ultimately reports to their own country\u2019s political masters, said Camille Grand, a former senior NATO official and director of the main defense industry trade body in Europe. Although European officials are normally either deputies to Americans or have an American deputy, overall command should remain with Washington, he argued.<\/p>\n \u201cIf there is only one American soldier left in Europe, it has to be\u201d the American supreme commander, Mr. Grand said.<\/p>\n The Pentagon seems to accept that, with talk of a German or French supreme commander having faded.<\/p>\n If the United States withdraws or pulls back, \u201chow do these countries work together on defense?\u201d asked Max Bergmann of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research group. \u201cIt is a really important political question, one that Europeans are currently reckoning with, because what we see in Europe is not a lot of European defense cooperation.\u201d<\/p>\n And if there is a crisis, with Russian troops massing on a NATO border and the Americans missing, how does Europe organize a united response?<\/p>\n \u201cNATO will evolve and reform and it\u2019s healthy to be more honest about it,\u201d Mr. Grand said. \u201cBut will it be a clear transition or a sudden pulling the plug on important capabilities? It must be something we do together. \u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"European leaders arrive for this year\u2019s NATO summit meeting in Ankara, Turkey, with the alliance under threat. 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