The July 9-11 NATO Summit was originally envisioned as a celebration of the alliance’s 75th anniversary at the organization’s founding venue in Washington D.C., with a solid work program focused on enhancing Ukraine support. By most counts the 32-nation Summit achieved its intended results although some in Ukraine were unhappy that the path to Kyiv’s NATO membership, although passionately declared as “irreversible” was not spelled out with a concrete timeline. However, it was clear to all that NATO is simply not in the business of “importing” ongoing armed conflicts into its membership ranks.
As a result of upcoming U.S. elections in November in this year filled with so many important national elections globally, it was completely normal that much of the Summit’s work had a secondary objective of “election-proofing” the organization’s support program for Ukraine. In fact, many commentators openly referred to this goal as “Trump-proofing” NATO’s work for as long as possible, with all of this happening just days before the attempted assassination of presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Directly linked to this strategic concern was the intense scrutiny given by just about everyone to U.S. President Biden’s health and mental acuity, as Summit host and leader of the free world.
A media feeding frenzy to delight NATO’s enemies
As this is not an article focusing on U.S. electoral politics, and there is plenty of time for those pieces in the coming months, it seems the intense scrutiny President Biden faced at the Summit is really a separate subject. Unfortunately, far too much of the media coverage of the Summit focused on that issue instead of the topics under discussion by NATO heads of state.
As far as international relations go however, the primary issue here is whether that intense media scrutiny substantively weakened U.S leadership and the Summit’s outcome. The media’s inevitable focus on Biden’s suitability for re-election after the June debate debacle and the closing press conference was also fueled by fresh statements from a small number of lower- and middle- level Congressional and Senate representatives as well as attention seeking Hollywood personalities. In this atmosphere it would be hard to argue that all of these statements taken together did not have the effect of at least slightly undermining Washington’s overall foreign policy objectives for the Summit, as well as the President’s.
What should have become a strong celebration of alliance unity and expansion, with tech-heavy Sweden becoming NATO’s newest member earlier this year, instead became a “will he or wont he” guessing game relentlessly fueled by mostly unfounded speculation from America’s top pundits. While it would be easy to dismiss most of this as the usual media feeding frenzy, the conclusions drawn by NATO’s enemies about internal alliance cohesion and coordination are what really matter.
Take aways for Kyiv, Moscow, and Beijing
Since all parties knew going into the Summit that an immediate invitation for Ukraine was not possible since NATO does not induct new members who are currently involved in armed conflicts, the NATO Washington Summit Communique’s forward leaning language regarding membership will have to suffice for now: “As Ukraine continues this vital work (e.g. structural and governance reforms), we will continue to support it on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership.”
In terms of Summit “deliverables,” the Ukrainians came away with many important immediate aid announcements as well as medium-term support pledges. NATO committed to maintain a baseline of roughly USD 43 billion in annual support to Kyiv at least for the next year, assuming the conflict continues.
With Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky a major presence at the Summit, Kyiv won new pledges of air defense support, including five Patriot missile systems, Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and accelerated delivery of the first F-16 fighter jets by the end of this summer, as well as promises that individual security deals being signed by NATO members with Ukraine constitute a “bridge to NATO.”
As part of that bridge, NATO agreed to launch a new program to provide military aid and training to Ukraine and help it prepare to join the alliance. Handing this mission to NATO to coordinate, instead of having individual countries manage their aid programs, was seen as a well-thought-out step to “Trump-proof” all NATO military aid to Ukraine, at least until the next Summit.
Some observers see lost opportunities in the Summit’s outcome, since the Ukrainians pressed hard, but unsuccessfully, for allied removal of their targeting restrictions on new NATO-supplied weapons systems that could strike into Russian territory.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst, writing for the Atlantic Council, summarized the missed opportunity:
“The Summit’s start was marred by a clear provocation from Russia’s President Vladimir Putin: the murderous attack on Kyiv on July 8 that struck a children’s hospital. This was planned to tweak NATO and underscore to the Ukrainians how vulnerable they remain. The United States could have turned this incident back on Putin if it used the occasion to remove all restrictions on the use of U.S. weapons against targets in Russia. But it did not.”
From Moscow’ perspective, there were few major surprises from the Summit. Clearly, it could have been worse, especially if NATO had reacted more strongly to the July 8 missile strikes on Kyiv and other cities.
The Washington Summit Communique condemned Russia’s “irresponsible nuclear rhetoric and coercive nuclear signaling, including its announced stationing of nuclear weapons in Belarus,” adding that Belarus continues to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But NATO also responded to the Belarus nuclear threat with its own announcements (see below).
One Summit development certainly caught Moscow’s eye, the announcement that the U.S, will start deploying longer range missiles in Germany in 2026, initially on a rotational basis. Weapons under consideration include SM-6 air defense missiles, Tomahawk cruise missiles, and developmental hypersonic weapons with greater range. This step would have been prohibited under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty signed by the U.S. and the Soviet Union in 1987 but that collapsed in 2019.
Whether China will take to heart the latest western warning to stop enabling Russia’s war efforts through exports of high technology “dual use” items is an open question. The Summit’s Communique strengthened previous NATO language on China, calling it a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war effort in Ukraine and saying Beijing continues to generate systemic challenges to Euro-Atlantic security. In the communique, NATO also expressed concern about China’s space capabilities, referenced rapid expansion of its nuclear arsenal, and urged Beijing to engage in strategic risk reduction talks.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on July 11 that NATO’s “hyping up” of China’s responsibility towards the Ukraine crisis “comes with malicious intent” and strongly criticized the NATO Summit Communique that described it as a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war effort in Ukraine as biased and “sowing discord.”
China will never accept the “unfounded accusations” made against it at the NATO Summit in Washington, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said to his Dutch counterpart over a phone call, his ministry said.
The NATO Summit Communique also discusses the importance of the Indo-Pacific to NATO, saying developments there directly affect Euro-Atlantic security. NATO leaders met on July 11 with leaders from Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea (The Indo-Pacific Four) as well as the European Union to discuss security challenges and regional issues.
