This Week’s NATO Summit May Be the Most Important in Decades
This commentary was originally published in the Dallas Morning News on July 11, 2023.
A very important meeting of the heads of state of the 31 NATO allies is occurring in Vilnius, Lithuania, July 11–12.
Uppermost on the agenda is the Russian invasion of Ukraine. NATO allies must commit to do more for Ukraine now. But, importantly, the alliance will also address the urgent need for coordinated planning beyond Ukraine for our collective future.
NATO is evolving into a security strategist, assessing the risks we have in common with allies as well as approximately 40 partners. Clearly, building European defense capabilities to deter further aggression by Russia will be the pillar of the summit deliverables.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has been provocative to NATO for years, sowing misinformation in NATO countries through cyberattacks and attempting to divide NATO and disrupt accessions of new countries into the alliance. Russia violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, secretly building intermediate-range missiles for 10 years, while denying doing so. The hostile taking of two provinces of Georgia in 2008, followed in 2014 by the invasion of Ukraine’s Crimea, preceded the march on Kyiv in February 2022. Bombing and trench warfare have killed thousands of Ukrainian troops, patriotic civilians, and innocent children, and is decimating Ukraine’s infrastructure. Putin even announced he would topple Ukraine’s government and its valiant leader, Volodymyr Zelensky.
What has Putin achieved? It is estimated that 100,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or injured, and rather than weakening NATO, the alliance has been strengthened and expanded with significant military capability.
That unity of the determined alliance will show through at the summit.
The heads of state will formally welcome their newest ally, Finland, adding a capable military and stable democracy. The other allies have successfully urged Turkey to agree to a 32nd ally, Sweden, another strong democracy to add solid military strength. Because Article 5 commits all allies to declare war on any country that attacks one of us, all accessions to NATO must be by unanimous consent. Turkey and the rest of the allies must consider the strength of the alliance that protects all of us above any other concerns that should be dealt with on a bilateral basis.
It is expected that the meeting will add assurances to Ukraine of further support and more structure to the relationship. More concrete plans for building coordinated defense measures will be adopted to reinforce Europe’s border with Russia.
Included in defense commitments will be a proposal for converting the 2 percent defense spending goal made at the 2014 Wales summit to a floor: a minimum commitment, no longer a maximum achievement. Of NATO allies, the U.S. spends the most on security—over 3 percent of GDP—but needs to increase even that to keep our superiority in technology and arms to deter well-armed autocratic leaders from menacing free and sovereign nations.
Strategically, the solid deterrence produced among allies girding Europe will become part of the larger measures needed to address hostile regimes that are testing the resilience of Western and like-minded nations in Asia and the Middle East. The expansion of coordinated defense plans and procurement will put meat on the bones of a strategy begun in 2019 with the U.S. strategic review that set the goal of deterring great power competition from cascading into all-out war.
In 2022, history was made when four Pacific partners were invited to the summit. Leaders from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea will meet again with the allies this year to discuss more security cooperation and defense interoperability.
Last but not least, the alliance leaders will formally congratulate the extension of NATO’s exceptional head, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. He had planned to retire this fall, after multiple previous extensions. But, because he has kept the unity in these challenging times and continues to lead in the adaptation of NATO, the allies have asked him to extend one more year (at least!). Stoltenberg, the former prime minister of Norway, is uniquely qualified to continue building unity and strength for our common security.
This summit will be one of the most consequential in NATO’s 74-year history—meeting the challenge of today, including a ground war in Europe, while looking over the horizon at even bigger security requirements for the United States, our allies, and increasingly significant additional partners.
Key Bailey Hutchison is a senior adviser (non-resident) with the Office of the President at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She is a former U.S. ambassador to NATO and a former U.S. senator from Texas.