Next week’s NATO summit in Turkey might be the last time President Trump joins alliance heads of state since U.S. officials are considering canceling next year’s event, tentatively planned to take place in Albania, analysts said Tuesday.
“There’s a question of whether there would actually be a summit in 2028 during a U.S. election year,” said Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.
Most European leaders are hoping for a “fairly boring and technocratic” July 7-8 NATO gathering without a lot of drama, Mr. Bergmann said Wednesday during a briefing about the upcoming summit hosted by CSIS.
“It’s never quite clear with President Trump what will transpire at these summits,” he said.
Ramping up European defense spending and the evolving role of the U.S. in the alliance are likely to top the agenda at the NATO summit.
It’s taking place as the battlefield momentum in the war between Russia and Ukraine is clearly shifting in Kyiv’s favor, said Maria Snegovaya, a senior fellow at CSIS.
“Russia is not winning this war [but] the strategic outlook still remains uncertain,” she said. “I’m sure that the NATO summit will be somewhat a reflection of these trends.”
Despite the Kremlin’s well-documented setbacks on the ground in Ukraine, Russia could recover over the next four to five years with the help of China and pose additional threats to countries in Eastern Europe, said Seth Jones, president of the Defense and Security Department at CSIS.
“I think the role of the United States [in NATO] is important, both from a conventional standpoint — particularly with the brigade combat teams and some of the long-range strike capabilities — as well as the role of U.S. nuclear forces in Europe that are still important to deter Russian actions,” Mr. Jones said.
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