A divided alliance: NATO faces its most critical test yet

As NATO convenes in The Hague, internal divisions threaten its unity, with Donald Trump's push for higher defence spending and reduced support for Ukraine clashing with traditional allies.;

Update: 2025-06-26 05:52 GMT
A divided alliance: NATO faces its most critical test yet

NATO chief Mark Rutte and US president Donald Trump at NATO (Photo: @nicksortor / X)

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In Moscow, President Vladimir Putin must be laughing at the irony of the divisions appearing among the constituents of his biggest adversary, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), as it met for a two-day summit at the Hague from June 25.

Founded in 1949, NATO was formed by 12 nations to counter the threat to security in Europe posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War by facilitating a strong US presence on the continent. Since then, NATO's membership has swelled to 32 with Sweden joining only last year. Its collective security guarantee is a political commitment by all countries to come to the aid of any member whose sovereignty or territory might be under attack.

But, as far as current US President Donald Trump is concerned, therein lies the rub! The US is NATO's most powerful member and spends much more on it than any other ally. This has helped it control the NATO agenda, but apparently, it is willing to relinquish this privilege under Trump, considering that he has been at loggerheads with the alliance because he believes European nations have not been paying their "fair share" of expenses.

Time and again, he had threatened to pull out of the body, and at the moment is pausing the liberal assistance his predecessor Joe Biden had provided to Ukraine to assist it in combating the ongoing Russian aggression.

Europe well knows that without US backing it is incapable of providing the assistance to Ukraine exigently necessary for it to continue to ward off the Russians. This, more than anything else, explains why NATO has been reported to have bowed down to Trump's pressure tactics and "agreed" to a new target for each country to spend 5 percent of its gross domestic product on defence, as announced by its Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

But, all 32 members are not willing to go by such a commitment as required for the decision to be implemented - Spain, for instance, has denounced the new target as "unreasonable", inducing Trump to castigate Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's government as a "low payer," something he had also charged Canada with.

Also, considering that the current negative situation in Ukraine poses an existential threat to the rest of Europe, it is little wonder that European allies and Canada want Ukraine to be at the top of the summit agenda, something not desired by Trump because he does not want President Volodymyr Zelen-skyy to steal the limelight!

In fact, by his decision to order the bombing in Iran just on the eve of the summit, Trump has not only shown that the NATO summit is far from being a top priority for him, but also deeply divided NATO, as France and Germany led opposition to the attack, while Britain and Spain have supported it.

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