This article contains an update.
When NATO leaders gather this week in The Hague for the alliance’s 76th summit, the mood will be far from celebratory. With President Donald Trump back in the White House, NATO must confront an uncomfortable truth: The threat to the alliance is no longer just external, but now also comes from within.
Trump has called the alliance “obsolete,” praised authoritarians who seek to fracture it, and—most recklessly—publicly threatened to abandon Article 5, the linchpin of collective security, if allies do not pay up. But the problem runs deeper than dollars and cents. As much as NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte may present the new 3.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) benchmark (5 percent with defense-related initiatives included)* as a win for the alliance—and for that matter, a win for Trump—the rhetoric over funding obscures a more fundamental point: NATO’s credibility as a deterrent is in question. The truth is that no amount of European defense spending will resolve the alliance’s deepening political rift—or satisfy an administration fundamentally opposed to the principle of collective defense.
Trump does not believe in alliances; he believes in leverage. And in his view, NATO is a bad deal—one in which the United States gives too much and gets too little. That claim falls flat: NATO delivers enormous strategic and economic returns, strengthening deterrence, supporting U.S. trade partnerships, and helping share the burden of global security. President Trump’s transactional approach to the bloc is little more than a cudgel to humiliate allies and flatter adversaries.
What makes this moment especially fraught is what it signals to America’s enemies abroad. Trump has made clear that he views U.S. military protection as a service to be sold—not a commitment grounded in shared security or democratic values. When he dismisses Article 5, scorns the principle of deterrence, or belittles the shared sacrifice of U.S. coalition allies in Afghanistan, he undermines America’s credibility on the world stage and invites aggression.
The threat to the alliance is no longer just external, but now also comes from within.
This is not just offensive; it’s dangerous for the American people. For Chinese President Xi Jingping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, a fractured NATO is the ultimate prize. And Trump’s brash threats give Moscow every reason to believe that prize is now within reach.
Confusion, obstruction, and no strategy for Russia
If anything, the Hague summit risks signaling disunity rather than resolve. There will be no meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council in parallel with the summit—the first time that such a convening will not take place since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country. Perhaps more concerning, the United States has signaled interest in reviving the NATO-Russia Council. Established in 2002, the council was meant to serve as a platform for dialogue and cooperation between NATO and Russia on security issues ranging from counterterrorism to arms control. But following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the council effectively went dormant. Reviving it now would be a serious error. It would hand Putin a symbolic victory, imply a return to business as usual, and project disunity within the alliance—undermining the very deterrence NATO seeks to strengthen.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy may attend only the summit dinner—a striking downgrade from the visibility and engagement Ukraine has received at past NATO meetings. Some suspect that Trump himself intervened to limit Zelenskyy’s participation, eager to sideline Ukraine and avoid the optics of alliance unity behind Kyiv. It is entirely possible that the U.S. president will refuse to meet with him at all. The symbolic damage of that absence is real—but the strategic confusion runs deeper.
NATO has pulled back from developing a long-term Russia strategy, a commitment first agreed to at last year’s Washington Summit and due for consideration at The Hague. One can only imagine that this retreat happened under political pressure, as former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Juliane Smith recently suggested in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe.
All of this comes amid rising anxiety from allies over U.S. force posture in Europe. Will Trump withdraw troops? Will the United States abandon its forward defense deployments? The ambiguity itself is corrosive. It further underscores why NATO must build a real European pillar—one that does not just talk about readiness, but actually plans for a scenario where Washington walks.
Russia is watching—and planning
Putin’s recent speeches leave no doubt: Russia sees itself as an imperial power—and Ukraine is only the beginning. Without sustained U.S. pressure, the Kremlin has no interest in a genuine settlement—let alone a lasting peace—as last month’s Istanbul summit and subsequent devastating air strikes made abundantly clear. Instead, Putin called for, and then did not attend, his own talks in Turkey. He is biding his time.
Western intelligence agencies agree on what will happen if Russia prevails in Ukraine: Putin will not stop his aggression; he will likely expand it. His regime has already moved to a full war economy, with defense spending now accounts for one-third of the total Russian budget.
If Putin or the hardliners around him come to believe that NATO—or more precisely, the United States—will not stand by a partner or NATO ally in need, he will have more reason to push further and with devastating consequences.
Since the invasion in 2022, Russia’s military production has vastly outstripped that of the United States and its European allies. Conscription barrels ahead, with twice-yearly call-ups drafting hundreds of thousands of young men to sustain an attritional war along an essentially frozen front line. This is not the behavior of a country seeking peace.
Believing Moscow wants peace is exactly the kind of gross miscalculation Putin is counting on. If Putin or the hardliners around him come to believe that NATO—or more precisely, the United States—will not stand by a partner or NATO ally in need, he will have more reason to push further and with devastating consequences.
Putin could test the alliance with a small incursion, likely in the Baltics or South Eastern Europe. This would mean seizing a slice of occupied territory, followed by escalatory rhetoric and even nuclear threats. In such a scenario, if President Trump hesitates, refuses to convene the alliance, or signals that the United States will stand aside, the deterrent power of Article 5 will collapse. Putin—despite much weaker conventional forces, a GDP 25 times smaller than NATO’s, and a state apparatus hollowed out by corruption—would have fatally outmaneuvered the alliance.
This is not a far-fetched scenario. Moscow is already carrying out advanced cyber and infrastructure attacks on NATO territory, virtually with impunity. The line between harassment and hybrid warfare is blurring—and the Kremlin is watching to see how, or whether, NATO responds.
The summit must deliver a political firewall
The Hague summit must not smooth over this crisis. It should confront it—and act.
First, NATO must issue a direct and unambiguous reaffirmation of Article 5, backed by updated contingency planning. That includes naming the nuclear dimension explicitly and preparing public messaging if that threat arises. Trump must be pushed to affirm the core purpose of deterrence.
Members of the alliance should also move to resurrect the NATO-Russia strategy to maintain a coherent, long-term approach to deterrence and defense. At the same time, it must make clear that it will not revive the NATO-Russia Council unless conditions fundamentally change.
If the United States pushes to bring the council back, allies should block the effort. Reviving a body that has been dormant since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 would hand Putin a dramatic propaganda win—and signal a divided, weakened alliance.
Second, Europe must accelerate development of its own defense capabilities—especially strategic airlift, missile defense, and command infrastructure. If Trump forces a decoupling, Europe must be ready to act within a NATO-compatible—but less U.S.-dependent—framework.
At the same time, the Senate NATO Observer Group, as well as the official U.S. delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, most recently convened in Dayton, Ohio, must publicly speak out in advance of the summit. As institutional conduits between the U.S. Congress and the Alliance, they can counter harmful narratives. Their bipartisan affirmations of NATO’s central role in transatlantic security—and clear warnings against any effort to undermine it—would reinforce unity during a critical moment.
Finally, NATO leaders must speak directly to the public about mounting gray-zone threats—deliberate acts of sabotage against member state infrastructure, including increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks. These range from the jamming of civilian air traffic control and ransomware strikes on critical utilities and energy providers, to alleged arson and even targeted killings. The danger is not abstract. It is visceral. If NATO fails, a new, larger war in Europe becomes possible again.
Conclusion
Too often, NATO summits drown in technocratic language. This one cannot. The message must be blunt and moral: The alliance is defending a peace that generations fought to build. Should it fall, the costs will be incalculable. Trump understands narrative power. He paints NATO as a relic—a giant freeloading bureaucracy. If the alliance wants to survive, it must win that argument first.
*Correction, June 23, 2025: This article has been updated to clarify that the new NATO defense spending benchmark is 5 percent with defense-related initiatives included.