{"id":513,"date":"2025-06-24T11:16:18","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T11:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=513"},"modified":"2025-06-24T11:16:18","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T11:16:18","slug":"nato-wants-a-focused-summit-amid-wars-in-iran-and-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=513","title":{"rendered":"NATO wants a \u2018focused\u2019 summit amid wars in Iran and Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NATO wants a \u2018focused\u2019 summit amid wars in Iran and Ukraine<\/h1>\n
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As NATO countries gather in The Hague this week, Russia has launched a new offensive in Ukraine, the Pentagon has begun reviewing its spread of forces in Europe and the Trump administration has just conducted unprecedented military strikes against Iran.<\/p>\n

But ask many European officials how this will affect this year\u2019s meeting, and they\u2019ll say it won\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very focused summit,\u201d a senior NATO official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told reporters last week.<\/p>\n

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Instead, as the world\u2019s strongest alliance gathers for the first time during the second Trump administration, it\u2019s framing the summit around a narrow set of issues intended, in part, to ensure its success.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

While in The Hague, the member countries will make a massive defense spending pledge to allocate 3.5% of GDP spent to defense and another 1.5% to other security-related areas, such as infrastructure.<\/p>\n

The commitment would far outpace NATO\u2019s current floor of 2%, which only two-thirds of its countries already meet. And it\u2019s meant to satisfy a key demand of U.S. President Donald Trump, who\u2019s cast doubt on America\u2019s role in the alliance if its members don\u2019t spend more.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really nothing short of a reset of our approach to defense,\u201d the NATO official said.<\/p>\n

And yet, in private, NATO members concede a much greater deal of anxiety.<\/p>\n

Even as Russia expands its offensive in Ukraine, the Pentagon is reviewing its posture around the world, an effort expected to conclude by the late summer or early fall. European officials widely expect that review to end with the U.S. reducing its number of forces on the continent, now around 80,000.<\/p>\n

In the interim, many European officials are parsing whatever the Pentagon says on its posture for signs of reassurance or warning. The outgoing head of U.S. European Command, Gen. Chris Cavoli, recommended that America maintain its current share of forces on the continent while testifying before Congress in April. But defense officials, particularly those in the Pentagon\u2019s policy offices, have privately signaled that a drawdown is likely.<\/p>\n

The staggered announcements have led to some frustration among NATO countries weighing how to fill whatever gaps are left. While at the summit, the alliance will agree to a new set of capability targets \u2014 or the share of equipment and units each country should contribute to the whole. If America drastically reduces its own forces on the continent, that would impact what European countries must add themselves.<\/p>\n

That sequence of events already has some officials looking past this week\u2019s summit, wary that any decisions may prove obsolete.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NATO wants a \u2018focused\u2019 summit amid wars in Iran and Ukraine 4 min read As NATO countries gather<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":515,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513\/revisions\/515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}