A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
NATO leaders are meeting in Ankara today. European allies are looking to show President Trump that they're making good on pledges from a year ago. They promised to shoulder more of the responsibility for their own defense. Teri Schultz explains it's a mission made more urgent by the fact that the United States is scaling back the military resources it is willing to commit to Europe's security.
TERI SCHULTZ, BYLINE: As NATO leaders headed to their summit in Turkey, China test-fired a long-range ballistic missile and Russia intensified its constant pounding of Ukraine. But in Ankara, those issues will take a back seat to trying to prevent what many countries feel is a bigger threat to the alliance, the potential for abrupt U.S. disengagement. There's uncertainty about how things will play out with President Trump in Ankara, explains Armida van Rij with the Center for European Reform think tank, which leaves less room to address more difficult issues that could prove divisive.
ARMIDA VAN RIJ: The ambition is to get through essentially 24 hours without any major public display of disagreement between the allies. And if that happens, then that will be considered a successful summit, which, given the external security environment and the threats that the Euro-Atlantic area faces, is an incredibly low bar.
SCHULTZ: To keep President Trump bullish on NATO for the short time he's on the ground, Secretary General Mark Rutte will attempt to counteract Trump's lingering anger at Europe's lack of enthusiasm for his war on Iran.
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MARK RUTTE: We are now creating an alliance which is sustainable, where the U.S. knows it is a fair deal.
SCHULTZ: Rutte's plan of action - continuing to praise Trump for getting NATO members to agree last year to spend 5% of their GDP on defense and proving that they're spending this money now on making themselves more self-sufficient.
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RUTTE: We are spending the same as they are, taking more responsibility for the conventional defense of Europe. Stronger Europe, stronger NATO.
SCHULTZ: The process is referred to as burden shifting, and there's been less coordination of it than Europeans would like. The U.S. informed allies in May that it would sharply curtail the military resources NATO can rely on in its plans for responding to a potential attack. And U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned last month that the U.S. had begun a six-month review of where it should maintain its troops and equipment in Europe. He said decisions would be determined in part by how much allies spend on defense and how they responded to U.S. expectations for help on Iran. Armida van Rij says Europe must move faster than it has been to avoid dangerous security gaps.
VAN RIJ: Europe needs to quite seriously think about their way of war, how they're going to bring mass to a conflict, how they're going to use technology, how they're going to learn lessons from Ukraine in terms of developing really quick innovation cycles.
SCHULTZ: Perhaps about communication, too, suggests the George W. Bush Institute's Elizabeth Kennedy Trudeau, a former U.S. diplomat who spent years working at NATO. She says the alliance should be open about its differences.
ELIZABETH KENNEDY TRUDEAU: Constructive disagreement produces better policy. Allies bring different regional perspectives. They bring different military capabilities and domestic political constraints. You know, testing assumptions through debate leads to stronger and more durable decisions.
SCHULTZ: That process has already produced the draft of the summit's final declaration, which has received tentative approval from all 32 countries and just awaits a green light from leaders. As low a bar as it may be, given that NATO was founded on this principle, Europeans will nonetheless be relieved to see Donald Trump agree to, quote, an "ironclad commitment" to our collective defense. For NPR News, I'm Teri Schultz in Brussels. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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