Post success at The Hague summit, the real NATO work remains

Even against admittedly low expectations, the NATO summit at The Hague was a success.

The agreement to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense not only delivered a “win” for President Donald Trump, who has long complained (as have his predecessors) about European defense spending, but also sent an initial — albeit limited — signal to Russia that member-states are taking continental defense and deterrence more seriously.

Now the real work must begin both to operationalize The Hague Agreement in a timely fashion, and to continue to redefine NATO’s relationship with the United States.

Coming out of The Hague, NATO member-states cannot afford to take the “win,” sliding across the pitch post-goal (or spiking the football for American readers). The alliance may have reached an agreement that sees member-states (less Spain) committing to 5 percent GDP (3.5 percent on core defense spending and 1.5 percent on non-core spending like cyber, resilience, and Ukraine aid), but this is only the first step, and certainly the easiest in the process.

Domestically, the challenge is how member-states reach the 5 percent commitment amidst competing internal priorities and a challenging economic backdrop (made even more so by the Trump administration’s hardball trade and tariff negotiations), and in an environment in which there is an uneven appreciation of the threat that Russia poses.

Madrid declined to commit to the new target, as doing so would require cuts to social welfare programs or increased taxes — both of which were politically unpalatable to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. The communique issued at the end of the Summit artfully tweaked the language from “we commit’ to “allies commit,” allowing Spain to say the agreement neither applied to all members nor was binding. Given that out-card, Spain will not be the last country to find itself in a political and economic bind to meet the new spending targets.

The 10 year time horizon (which was, according to conversations with European diplomats, a point of contention) for the spending increase creates a buffer but also reduces the sense of urgency. The 2014 Defense Investment Pledge also had a ten-year target to reach a 2 percent floor, but even after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 and Trump’s rhetoric, only 23 of 32 member-states reached that target, and some with creative accounting. European capitals will almost certainly adopt similar practices to meet the new floor, especially given the vague 1.5 percent pot of money — in an accounting move worthy of Enron, Italy is reportedly considering classifying a €13.5B bridge to Sicily as “NATO spending.”

Mobilizing national resources to meet The Hague agreement’s spending targets in a reasonable time and building out a more robust defense industrial base in Europe are two vital steps to ensuring the United States’ commitment to NATO under Trump and beyond. While necessary, it is not sufficient — much more creative thinking is necessary to redefine America’s relationship with the defensive alliance.

First, European member-states, as they begin to increase their own militaries, must look to build upon permanent forward deployments and rotations to front-line states, assuming greater responsibility from the United States. Germany’s activation of a brigade in Lithuania in April of this year as part of NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence, is a step in the right direction. Other member-states should expand their existing footprints, such as the United Kingdom in Estonia or Canada in Latvia, while other member-states should look to provide increased conventional assets on the Eastern flank. This should take priority, especially as Washington’s force posture review is set for later this summer and is expected to result in a shifting of US forces out of Europe.

Second, getting ahead of the Pentagon’s decision curve is vital for NATO both to prepare the alliance for forthcoming change and to maximize America’s remaining engagement.

NATO must undertake a soup-to-nuts review of what responsibilities it can assume, and on what timeline, leading to clarity in what it ultimately needs from Washington. It is not enough to just respond to Washington’s supply signal (shifting to the conventional and nuclear backstop, as the administration has indicated), the alliance needs to candidly look at its own demand needs.

Much of this work is ongoing, both prior to and since Trump’s election. Under Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the alliance has shifted from a reactive what-can-you-provide planning approach to a proactive here-is-what-NATO-needs. Jettisoning NATO’s Oliver Twist approach (“please sir, I want some more”) to defense and deterrence will yield a stronger planning process and stronger alliance and further build out the European pillar within NATO — a welcome outcome from President Trump’s perspective.

Third, beyond enhanced and permanent presence, and operational planning, the conversation on the US-NATO relationship should shift to the development of a collective post-industrial defense industrial base. Increased continental production of American defense products could serve as the foundation of a new relationship.

Translating this model over to other pieces of defense equipment, for which there are long-lead times and significant shortfalls like precision long-range strike missiles such as the ATACMs, anti-tank missiles such as the Javelin, and air defense interceptors such as the Patriot, and for basic items like radios (which currently require shipment to the United States for repair and upgrade), would mean more production overall.

The United States in turn needs to accept greater competition from European defense companies — America First cannot mean Buy America alone — and adjust its ITAR and other trade restrictions; it remains baffling that long-standing allies like the United Kingdom and Australia, who are Five Eyes partners, remain obligated to jump through export control rules.

Along those lines, the alliance also needs to change its production models. Ukraine’s successes leveraging drone technology have demonstrated the value of rapid development and innovation at scale. There are limitations to this parallel as Ukraine’s innovation is done out of necessity, lacking alternatives such as a steady supply of advanced munitions, and by leveraging cheap, commercial off-the-shelf Chinese drones as a base, something NATO cannot do. NATO itself and its member-states need to absorb these lessons and build next generation procurement and acquisition systems, where appropriate — rapidly innovating a drone is a lot easier than rapidly innovating a main battle tank, after all.

NATO successfully made it through The Hague summit, but now the real and indeed hard work remains. Mobilizing resources, overcoming domestic political issues, building out a post-industrial defense industrial base, and redefining the relationship between the United States and Brussels will generate a stronger NATO in the long-term, but will require considerable focus and capital.

The alliance survived its first summit of the Trump era, but to make it through the next one, real action is going to be needed.