NATO leaders arrive in Ankara under pressure to move beyond spending percentages and show that Europe can finance Ukraine, expand weapons production and assume a larger share of continental defence without creating new capability gaps.

NATO’s Ankara summit will open on 7 July with a familiar political demand in a harder operational form: Europe must assume more responsibility for its own defence, but this time higher budgets alone will not count as delivery.

The summit agenda described in Reuters’ curtain-raiser includes the transfer of more conventional defence responsibility from the United States to European allies, a path towards spending 5 per cent of GDP on defence and security by 2035, higher industrial output and a proposed €70 billion package of military assistance and training for Ukraine in 2026.

The last element is especially revealing. The expected package is not built around new US financing. It will test whether European allies and Canada can sustain support for Ukraine while replacing stocks, strengthening NATO regional plans and preparing for a less predictable American force posture.

From burden-sharing to burden-shifting

NATO has spent years arguing about whether allies pay a fair share. The newer debate is more consequential. Burden-shifting concerns who supplies the forces, logistics, munitions and industrial capacity needed to defend Europe if the United States makes fewer conventional assets available.

European and Canadian defence spending has risen sharply, and every ally now has a route towards higher expenditure. Yet money becomes military power only after governments translate it into trained formations, stocked depots, resilient infrastructure and weapons that can be produced and repaired at scale.

The capabilities most difficult to replace are not always the most visible. Europe remains dependent on the United States for elements of strategic airlift, aerial refuelling, intelligence and surveillance, integrated air and missile defence, long-range fires, space support and command infrastructure. Closing those gaps requires common planning over a decade, not a single year’s procurement surge.

This is why the 5 per cent objective can mislead if treated as an end in itself. Two countries may spend the same share of GDP but produce very different military value. Readiness depends on what is bought, whether systems can operate together and whether ammunition and maintenance can be sustained during a prolonged conflict.

Ukraine support is part of NATO readiness

The proposed €70 billion commitment places Ukraine inside the capability debate. Assistance to Kyiv is sometimes presented as competing with the rebuilding of NATO inventories. In reality, both requirements expose the same production shortage.

Air-defence interceptors, artillery ammunition, drones and precision weapons are needed by Ukraine now and by NATO forces for deterrence. Restricting support to preserve small stockpiles does not solve the industrial problem. It merely delays the moment when governments must fund larger production runs.

The summit draft reported last week links an “ironclad” Article 5 commitment to multi-year assistance for Ukraine. Defence Matters examined that connection in NATO Ankara Draft Links Article 5 Credibility to Ukraine Support. The operational question in Ankara is whether the headline figure is backed by funded national allocations, delivery schedules and contracts.

If the package consists partly of training, equipment already promised or the valuation of existing support, the summit will need to distinguish that from genuinely additional capability. Ukraine cannot use a political total; it needs specific systems arriving on known timelines.

Production is the real summit metric

Europe’s defence industry has expanded, but orders remain fragmented and delivery times long. Governments still protect national suppliers, specify different variants and negotiate workshare before accepting common solutions. That weakens scale and complicates battlefield support.

Ankara should therefore be judged by what follows the communiqué. Multi-year purchases can allow companies to add production lines and secure components. Common standards can increase order size and reduce duplication. Faster certification and testing can bring Ukrainian battlefield innovation into European procurement.

The summit also needs a credible discussion of US force posture. European allies cannot plan an orderly assumption of responsibility if they do not know which American capabilities may be reduced, on what timeline and under what conditions they would return in a crisis.

A summit about capacity, not reassurance

Article 5 language remains politically important, particularly after repeated US criticism of European allies. But reassurance without capacity is fragile. European governments need to demonstrate that they can carry more of the conventional burden while the United States remains the Alliance’s central nuclear, strategic and technological power.

The challenge is not to reproduce every American capability nationally. It is to build a European force able to hold the line, reinforce rapidly, sustain Ukraine and deny Russia the expectation that political hesitation or industrial exhaustion will create an opening.

Ankara will produce spending figures and declarations of unity. Its real test begins afterwards, in factories, budgets, training areas and deployment plans. NATO’s burden debate has reached the point where promises must become equipment and formations. Europe now has to show that it can make that conversion.