Faulty reasoning signals

• Confirmation Bias - 6.3% (87 hits)
• Anchoring Bias - 3.4% (46 hits)
• Availability Heuristic - 2.9% (40 hits)
• Representativeness Heuristic - 0%
• Hindsight Bias - 2.7% (37 hits)
• Overconfidence Bias - 5.7% (78 hits)
• Framing Effect - 14.2% (195 hits)
• Loss Aversion - 0%
• Status Quo Bias - 5% (68 hits)
• Sunk Cost Effect - 0%
• Optimism Bias - 6.4% (88 hits)
• Pessimism Bias - 3.6% (50 hits)

Article text

Europe prays for uneventful NATO summit: ‘No news is great news’

In Focus delivers deeper coverage of the political, cultural, and ideological issues shaping America.

Published daily by senior writers and experts, these in-depth pieces go beyond the headlines to give readers the full picture.

You can find our full list of In Focus pieces here.

As the United States and its NATO allies prepare for this week’s summit in Ankara, Turkey, European members of the alliance are praying for an uneventful meeting.

President Donald Trump, who has made his disdain for NATO well known, is pressuring allies to increase defense spending to offset a reduced U.S. presence across the continent.

The goal is to create “NATO 3.0.”

The climate of the summit will depend on whether the president is satisfied or feels the need to cause a further ruckus.

“In many ways, no news is great news ahead of the Ankara Summit,” Kristjan Prikk, Estonia’s incoming ambassador to NATO, told the Washington Examiner.

Prikk, who is currently wrapping up his term as ambassador to the U.S. before heading to Brussels, said the “priority” at the summit is to “ensure that Allies are aligned on the key objectives.”

Those objectives are “strengthening our collective defense, increasing defense investment in line with the long-term threat posed by Russia, reinforcing NATO’s deterrence and defense posture, and ensuring sustained, long-term support for Ukraine.”

In 2025 alone, NATO allies in Europe, combined with Canada, increased their defense spending by about 20% compared to the year prior, according to the NATO annual report released in March, which translates to a $90 billion boost.

Poland and Lithuania were the only countries that were estimated to spend 4% of GDP or more in 2025, while Latvia, Estonia, Denmark, Norway, and the U.S. were all projected to have spent more than 3% on defense, according to the NATO defense spending 2025 report.

“I think the bar is quite low for the NATO summit,” said Seth Jones, president of the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“No blowups, I think, would be the low bar that many would at least hope for.”

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said last month that this summit is even more important than last year because countries will need to demonstrate how they intend to meet the goal they agreed to at the 2025 summit.

He also visited Trump in the Oval Office in late June, where Rutte, the former Dutch prime minister, praised the president as the leader who prompted a massive reinvestment in the alliance.

“It’s great to have the commitments, and The Hague was a big success, but then to deliver on the commitments, and that’s what I’m seeing is going to happen in Ankara, is even more important,” he said at an Atlantic Council event.

“In the end, Putin is not afraid of commitments.

He is afraid of implementing those commitments, and that’s exactly what we are doing, Vladimir.”

UKRAINE’S 40-DAY MISSILE AND DRONE BLITZ HEAPS PRESSURE AND PAIN ON PUTIN

Making a splash

Some countries are looking to make a splash at the summit, showing they’ve gone above and beyond the defense spending minimums.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has been working on the establishment of a Defense, Security, and Resilience Bank for the sake of “middle power” countries.

He reportedly hopes to announce at Ankara that the 10 founding member states of the international institution will serve as a financial mechanism for bolstering mutual defenses between Canada and its peers.

Luxembourg has signed on to act as the bank’s European base.

Ukraine will also be a significant topic for the alliance, as it sees Russia as its primary threat.

While NATO countries can purchase U.S. military equipment and give it to Ukraine, the U.S. does not give Ukraine military assistance for free under the Trump administration.

Ukraine has had recent success on the battlefield with its new strategy of targeting Russian supply lines and energy infrastructure, which has imposed a cost on Russia unlike before.

In the backdrop of the meeting is the Pentagon’s recently announced six-month review into its longer-term European military presence, which Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced last month at the NATO Defense Ministers Meeting in Brussels, Belgium, though the department had long made its intentions known.

In February, the alliance announced it would shake up the distribution of senior officer roles.

The United Kingdom and Italy will take over command of Joint Force Command Norfolk and Joint Force Command Naples, respectively, from the U.S., while Germany and Poland will share command of Joint Force Command Brunssum on a rotational basis.

The U.S. will continue to lead Allied Land Command and Allied Air Command, while taking over Allied Maritime Command, so that it will be the lead for all three theater component commands.

The U.S. will continue to hold the role of Supreme Allied Commander, a position currently held by Gen.

Alexus Grynkewich.

In Hegseth’s public remarks to his NATO counterparts last month, he expressed outrage at their country’s lack of support for the U.S. war against Iran.

TRUMP CHANGED HIS TUNE ON UKRAINE, BUT DON’T EXPECT THE CASH SPIGOT TO TURN BACK ON SOON

“As President Trump put it and rightfully so, he gave our allies a test, to support America when we ask for their help and too many failed it.

The United States has defended Europe for generations and all the president said was our jets would need to take off from bases in Europe or our ships from ports to strike targets in the Middle East,” Hegseth said.

“But too many of our allies said no or tried to down us in arcane legal debates or criticized us publicly for doing what they aren’t prepared or able to do themselves.

It was shameful.”

U.S.

Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker reiterated Trump’s frustration with European countries that were either publicly critical of the war or did not allow the U.S. to use bases in their countries to aid in their war objectives.

“President Trump was very frustrated during [Operation] Epic Fury, especially at the start where we had either allies that didn’t cooperate with our use of our own bases or even more importantly, were very negative on the efforts politically with their statements,” Whittaker said on Fox News Thursday morning.

“I think that was incredibly frustrating for many of us that know, to President Trump’s point, that he made the world better with Iran not being on a path to getting a nuclear weapon.

We have to make sure that our allies are with us politically and militarily at all times.”

Awkward family reunion

Trump’s interactions with specific NATO leaders will garner attention as well.

He recently said outgoing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was “sort of a friend of mine,” but added, “He was not good to us with NATO.”

Starmer announced his resignation last month, which Trump preemptively revealed, while his former Defense Secretary John Healey resigned over what he saw as a defense industrial plan that “falls well short of what is required for defense.”

The U.S. president has also recently gotten into a verbal spat with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

While the brouhaha initially focused on Trump’s claim that she “begged” him for a photo at the G7 Summit last month, he later added, “She wouldn’t even let us use Italy’s landing strips or runways, a great logistical inconvenience.”

RUTTE PROMISES TRUMP 195,000 NEW US DEFENSE JOBS FROM EUROPE

He also took exception to comments from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who told a group of schoolchildren in late April that the U.S. was “humiliated” by the Iranian regime regarding the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Days after he made those comments, the Pentagon announced it would reduce its troop presence in Germany by 5,000.

The president has also been critical of Spain, which has shown the most resistance to the proposed defense spending increase.

The Trump administration has also pursued the acquisition of Greenland, which is an autonomous territory within Denmark.

The island of Greenland is strategically significant for Arctic supremacy and early warning detection for the U.S., though the Trump administration’s efforts have not been well met by Europe.