The two-day NATO summit wrapped up on Wednesday in Ankara, Türkiye with the release of the Ankara Summit Declaration which emphasized a collective push to ramp up defense investment. But beneath the show of unity, layers of division between the United States and its European allies, as well as rifts among the European states, have yet to be resolved.
The most prominent point of friction is the discord between the United States and its European partners. Upon arriving in Ankara, U.S. President Donald Trump again lashed out at European nations, slamming some of them for lagging far behind in raising defense outlays and even threatening to sever all trade ties between the United States and Spain.
The U.S. president also revived his long-running demand regarding Greenland.
Huseyin Bagci, a professor of international relations at the Middle East Technical University, pointed to a fundamental erosion of trust across the alliance.
"This is true that there is mistrust between America and the European countries on the one hand, but also transatlantic fracture is there and most of the European Union countries have troubles with the United States of America as NATO members," he said.
Military aid for Ukraine emerged as another major flashpoint of friction at the summit.
While the leaders formally approved a 70-billion-euro assistance package for Ukraine, a number of European countries had explicitly ruled out contributing funds ahead of the gathering, with Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev saying bluntly at the summit that Bulgaria had no surplus military supplies left to send to Ukraine.
Divisions also remained over the alliance's target of raising defense spending to 5 percent of GDP, with several European countries having yet to come up with concrete plans for meeting the target.
Some analysts warn that blind military expansion will fail to ease security concerns, and will, instead, shift the financial burden onto ordinary European citizens.
At a press conference following the summit's closing, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was still doing his best to present a "united" NATO to the outside world. However, it seems there is still a long way to go before NATO can truly bridge the divides among its member states.
NATO summit concludes with unresolved rifts across transatlantic alliance
