This commentary is part of the European Leadership Network’s special coverage of the 2026 NATO Summit, which will take place in Ankara on 7-8 July 2026. The series brings together expert voices to examine the key security challenges, strategic questions, and policy debates shaping the future of the alliance before and after the summit.

When NATO leaders meet in Ankara on 7-8 July, they will do so against the backdrop of a strategic environment unlike any since the end of the Cold War. The international system is undergoing not a conventional geopolitical transition, but a period of structural rupture. Established assumptions about security, economic interdependence, technological competition, and the distribution of power are being challenged simultaneously.

Russia’s war against Ukraine continues to reshape European security. Instability across the Middle East has intensified. Strategic competition among major powers is accelerating. Hybrid threats increasingly blur the distinction between peace and conflict. Critical infrastructure, supply chains, digital networks, and societal resilience have become integral components of national security.

In such an environment, NATO remains the indispensable framework for transatlantic security. Yet the alliance’s future effectiveness will depend not only on military capabilities but also on its ability to preserve political unity and cohesion among allies whose threat perceptions, regional priorities, and domestic political dynamics are increasingly divergent.

Against this backdrop, the Ankara summit carries significance beyond NATO’s traditional concerns of deterrence and defence. The central question is whether NATO can maintain the unity, adaptability, and strategic purpose that have constituted the foundation of its success for more than seven decades.

The 2025 summit in The Hague set an important direction. Allied leaders acknowledged that Europeans must assume greater responsibility for the defence and security of their own continent while preserving the centrality of the transatlantic bond. The commitment to move progressively toward allocating five percent of GDP to defence and security-related resilience and infrastructure expenditures reflected recognition that burden-sharing is no longer merely a political aspiration but an urgent strategic necessity.

This evolution should not be interpreted as a strategic separation from the United States. Rather, it reflects a growing understanding that stronger European contributions – not solely from the European Union – reinforce NATO itself. The objective is not strategic autonomy but strategic responsibility. A more capable European pillar within NATO would strengthen deterrence, improve resilience, and reinforce collective defence.

Yet higher defence spending alone will not suffice. The more difficult challenge lies in translating financial commitments into deployable capabilities, scalable industrial capacity, technological innovation, and military readiness. The defence-industrial dimension of security has therefore moved from the margins of policy debates to the centre of strategic planning. Munitions production, missile defence, cyber capabilities, space assets, advanced technologies, and secure supply chains have become essential elements of deterrence. Hence the clear need for greater synergy between the public and private sectors.

This shift is also shaping the EU’s efforts to strengthen its defence technological and industrial base through initiatives such as the emerging Security Action for Europe (SAFE) framework. These efforts are understandable and necessary, but they raise a strategic question: can Europe strengthen its security while excluding the capabilities and contributions of key non-EU NATO allies?

The answer should be clear. Europe’s security requirements extend well beyond the institutional boundaries of the EU. Countries such as Türkiye, the United Kingdom, and Norway are not external actors seeking access to Europe’s security architecture; they are already among its most significant contributors. Their military capabilities, industrial capacity, strategic geography, and operational experience are indispensable assets.

Europe’s ability to assume greater responsibility for its defence will therefore depend not on institutional exclusivity but on strategic inclusivity. A stronger European pillar within NATO should reinforce alliance cohesion rather than create new dividing lines between EU and non-EU allies.

The Ankara summit also offers an opportunity to give greater substance to NATO’s often cited “360-degree approach”. For years, allied communiqués have stressed the need to address threats and challenges from all directions. Yet the concept cannot remain merely declaratory. Its credibility depends upon implementation.

Russia’s war against Ukraine remains NATO’s most immediate security challenge, but it is not the only one. Terrorism, developments in the Black Sea, instability across the Middle East, hybrid and cyber warfare, disinformation campaigns, energy insecurity, irregular migration, and attacks against critical infrastructure all have direct implications for allied security.

The interconnected nature of contemporary threats and challenges requires a genuinely holistic approach. Security in the Black Sea cannot be separated from developments in Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. Energy security cannot be detached from geopolitical competition. Hybrid threats cannot be addressed solely through military instruments. A credible 360-degree approach – whether the threats and challenges emanate from the east, north or south – requires balanced strategic attention, resource allocation, intelligence cooperation, and political commitment across all theatres affecting allied security.

The choice of Ankara as the host city for this year’s summit is particularly meaningful in this regard. Few allied capitals are situated at the intersection of so many strategic theatres. Türkiye’s geography illustrates why NATO’s security environment cannot be viewed through a single regional lens: the Black Sea, the Middle East, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Caucasus, and Europe’s broader security architecture are increasingly interconnected.

Yet perhaps the most important issue facing the alliance today is political rather than military.

NATO’s strength has always rested on a combination of military capability and political solidarity. While the alliance has become more adaptive and capable since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, maintaining cohesion among 32 allies is becoming more demanding.

Differences in national priorities are inevitable. What matters is the ability to manage them through consultation and strategic dialogue. One of the central insights from the NATO 2030 reflection process, in which I took part as a member of the Independent Experts Group, was that political consultation constitutes a strategic capability in its own right. In periods of uncertainty, allies must think together.

This requirement becomes more important as the international order fragments further. Erosion of trust among allies would signal a greater long-term danger to NATO than any single external challenge. Preserving cohesion therefore remains the alliance’s most important strategic task.

For this reason, a strong reaffirmation of commitment to Article 5 of the Washington Treaty should remain at the heart of the Ankara summit. Collective defence is both a military commitment and a political one grounded in mutual trust. Deterrence depends as much upon the credibility of allied solidarity as it does on military capability.

Beyond reaffirming Article 5, the Ankara Summit must establish a practical agenda for strengthening the alliance over the coming years. The burden-sharing commitments agreed at The Hague should be translated into measurable progress by linking increased defence spending to capability generation, military readiness, defence-industrial capacity, and broader resilience objectives. NATO should also develop a practical roadmap for implementing its 360-degree approach, ensuring that challenges such as terrorism, instability in the Black Sea and the Middle East, hybrid and cyber threats, and the protection of critical infrastructure receive sustained and balanced attention.

Simultaneously, cooperation between NATO and the EU should be strengthened while ensuring the meaningful participation of key non-EU allies in emerging European defence-industrial initiatives. Resilience should be placed at the centre of allied planning, encompassing the protection of energy systems, supply chains, digital networks, undersea infrastructure, and societal preparedness.

Finally, allies should expand political consultation mechanisms, recognising that strategic dialogue and cohesion are themselves force multipliers in an increasingly fragmented international environment.

In a period of sustained structural rupture, resilience has become the new currency of power. NATO’s military capabilities remain indispensable. Yet the alliance’s greatest strategic advantage continues to be its ability to unite allies around a shared commitment to collective security. The ultimate test for the Ankara summit will therefore be whether it succeeds in strengthening that cohesion at a time when it is needed most.

The European Leadership Network itself as an institution holds no formal policy positions. The opinions articulated above represent the views of the authors rather than the European Leadership Network or its members. The ELN aims to encourage debates that will help develop Europe’s capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security policy challenges of our time, to further its charitable purposes.

Image credit: NATO / Flickr