Ankara’s Test: Europe Must Turn Bigger Budgets Into Real Firepower

For years, the familiar complaint about NATO was that too many wealthy European governments treated American protection as an entitlement. After the July summit in Ankara, that excuse is becoming harder to sustain. NATO says European allies and Canada increased core defense investment by more than $139 billion in 2025, and leaders arrived in Türkiye with more than $50 billion in new procurement commitments.

Those are meaningful numbers. They are not yet a victory.

The facts established in Ankara are straightforward. NATO reaffirmed Article 5. European allies and Canada committed themselves to greater responsibility. The alliance kept the 2035 goal of investing 5 percent of GDP in defense and security: at least 3.5 percent for core military requirements and up to 1.5 percent for supporting needs such as infrastructure, resilience, networks, and industrial capacity. NATO projected that five allies would reach the core 3.5 percent guideline in 2026, while 17 would reach the broader 1.5 percent guideline. Those are forecasts, not audited year-end results.

The conservative interpretation is that sustained American pressure has begun to change the alliance’s incentives. For decades, Washington warned Europe about free-riding while continuing to make dependence comfortable. The Trump administration’s approach has been blunter: an alliance of capable partners is valuable; an alliance built around permanent American subsidy is not.

That view now has an official strategic framework. The 2026 National Defense Strategy says European allies should assume primary responsibility for Europe’s conventional defense while the United States provides critical but more limited support. It also places greater American emphasis on homeland defense and the Indo-Pacific. That is not isolationism. It is division of labor among nations with the wealth and population to carry their own share.

Ankara matters because the discussion moved beyond percentages. NATO announced multinational tanker, maritime-surveillance, airborne-warning, counter-drone, and fuel-infrastructure initiatives. The alliance also committed to expanding manufacturing capacity and reducing barriers to defense trade. Those are the practical foundations of deterrence: munitions that exist, aircraft that fly, fuel that can reach the eastern flank, and factories capable of replacing losses.

But announcements are not inventory. A signed political statement cannot intercept a missile. A procurement headline does not establish when a system will be delivered, whether crews will be trained, or whether national forces can deploy and sustain it. Even the 5 percent figure requires scrutiny because only 3.5 percent is reserved for core defense; the remaining share can include broader security and infrastructure spending. Some of that spending is essential, but it must not become an accounting shelter for governments avoiding hard military choices.

Ukraine is another measure of the shift. NATO says European allies and Canada now finance the vast majority of security assistance and pledged €70 billion in equipment, assistance, and training for 2026, with sovereign commitments to sustain at least an equivalent level in 2027. Whether one supports every detail of that policy or not, the burden-sharing principle is sound: nations closest to the threat should carry more of the cost.

Washington should therefore judge Ankara by a hard scoreboard. How much reaches core defense rather than adjacent programs? How many signed contracts become delivered systems? Are ammunition production lines expanding? Can European brigades deploy with their own air defense, logistics, intelligence, and sustainment? Is the American share of Europe’s conventional burden actually declining?

The strongest NATO is not the one that asks the United States to do everything. It is the one that deters aggression because every member has something real to bring to the fight.

Ankara suggests the old dependency model is beginning to break. The task now is to make the change permanent. Europe must turn budgets into firepower, factories into output, and promises into readiness. America should remain a powerful ally—but it should finally be surrounded by allies capable of carrying their own weight.