NATO issued a six paragraph communique https://www.nato.int/en/about-us/official-texts-and-resources/official-texts/2026/07/08/the-ankara-summit-declaration A big improvement over last year's?  Sure, one para more. 

In the days of yore, I would watch folks at the expert forum side party comb through pages of paragraphs, trying to figure out what the summit addressed usually over 100 issues.  Last year's five para (with one thanking the Dutch hosts) showed that NATO can't come to consensus on much with Trump in the room. 

Let me go through the six, it won't take long.

1.  Usual language about Article 5.  This is entirely empty these days thanks to Trump 2/

There is nothing automatic about A5.  An attack only is an attack if the allies can get consensus.  Trump again demonstrated that while he is around consensus is more than elusive. 

2.  More spending on defense.  This is progress on last year's promise of getting to 3.5% of GDP. 

It does not mean that the alliance agreed to anything new here. But it does reflect less griping about burden sharing. To be clear, Trump will take credit for NATO countries spending more.  And he is right but not in the way he thinks--countries are realizing they will have to fight w/o US

3.  A stronger Europe in NATO.  More language about spending more on defence, modernizing.  Again, does not reflect any new agreement.

4. The Ukraine section: more pledges to give Ukraine money 4 Ukr to invest in its defense and to pay to buy US weapons (US doesn't donate anymore) 5/

Z seems to have done well in his meeting with Trump, but that won't necessarily stick.  I do think that the more Ukraine appears to be winning the war, the more Trump will have a positive attitude.  He always joins the winning side.

5.  The Iran para. No consensus except it would be nice if Iran didn't get nuclear weapons and we'd like to have the strait open. 

6.  The para thanking Turkey.

In sum, the alliance really didn't agree to much, but it survived another Trump summit, so there's that. Maybe summit less often?  ‪Summits are supposed to be like conferences for academics--to force folks to get their work done.  But this summit, like last year's, didn't get NATO members to agree to much. 

NATO has always been a defensive alliance, but the meaning is different now: the threat to its existence is the US.  The allies are trying to keep the alliance intact until the next president, but they have learned that the US will elect every 4-8 years a unilateralist as president (Bush jr, Trump and then Trump again).  Trump does everything he can to erode NATO credibility. 

I keep asking whether NATO is better off with or without the US. With the US, it has capability but little credibility.  W/o the US, it has more credibility but much less capability. 

 So, 3 cheers for the alliance surviving another summit.  And three boos for the tyranny of low expectations.