The 2024 NATO Washington Summit: A Pre-Storm Gathering?

The Washington Summit – double-hatted as the NATO 75th anniversary – focused more on the founding of NATO and its past success as ‘the world’s most successful military alliance’ rather than fully engaging with future challenges, both immediate and long-term. Moreover, scheduled in July, it was a summit designed to support President Joe Biden’s re-election bid, maximising the celebrations and avoiding controversies. The deliberately lowered expectations led to only incremental progress, both in the ongoing transformation of the Alliance’s defence and deterrence posture, and on support to Ukraine. Instead, the summit was dominated by the DC chatter surrounding the US presidential election in November, which will be hugely consequential for NATO, Ukraine and European security.

Political Volatility

The political preamble to Washington was intense. Biden’s underwhelming performance in the first election debate has sparked growing calls for him to cede to a younger Democratic candidate. These interventions grew louder during the summit, with the closing unscripted press conference becoming a litmus test of the president’s abilities on the world stage, which he failed. Over in Europe, centrist parties were overcome in the EU Parliamentary elections in June, which pressed French President Emmanuel Macron to call a snap parliamentary election. While the worst-case scenario – a majority for the far-right National Front – was averted, French lawmaking will now be paralysed, giving more electoral ammunition to the far right for the 2027 presidential election. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ruling coalition in Germany was equally challenged, but it will likely limp on for another 15 months. Going against this grain, in the UK, the Labour Party won a landslide election victory and with it a strong mandate to govern. Meanwhile, Hungarian President Viktor Orban – who holds the rotating EU Council Presidency – visited the Kremlin on a ‘peace mission’ and shook hands with President Vladimir Putin, providing a stark reminder that NATO has a growing Hungary problem.

This last development is particularly repugnant as the summit week began with Russia bombing the Okhamdyat children’s hospital in Kyiv and other medical facilities. These strikes were likely a deliberate policy to demonstrate to already nervous European countries the cost of escalation. If this was the intent, it backfired as NATO countries rallied together to announce an additional strategic and tactical air defence package for Ukraine.

What is New?

Surprisingly, the language on China is now much stronger than at previous summits, with Beijing now labelled a ‘decisive enabler’ of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The declaration states that ‘The PRC cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation’, which is a significant step for the Alliance in calling out its hostile intent. However, it mainly identified and admired the problem, rather than outlining what NATO should do about it.

In addition, defence industrial cooperation was a focal point, with a separate ‘NATO Industrial Capacity Expansion Pledge’ published alongside the main declaration, which will be critical in restocking NATO militaries as quickly and as efficiently possible, together with ensuring long-term industrial support to Ukraine.

One of the central objectives was to ‘Trump-proof’ NATO support to Ukraine. With no invitation, NATO sought to ‘bridge’ membership through three measures.

First, a ‘NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine’ will be established – at a new command in Wiesbaden, Germany – to transition lead responsibilities from the US to NATO on coordinating support and training and place it on an ‘enduring footing, ensuring enhanced, predictable, and coherent support’. This is twinned with the creation of a senior NATO civilian representative post in Kyiv to allow closer coordination. However, Germany vetoed its original ‘mission’ designation over concerns this could be escalatory. These semantic gymnastics and overall timidity towards Ukraine will be seen by Putin as weakness, and degrade NATO’s own deterrence.

Second, a €40 billion package was agreed for Ukraine in 2025. A five-year commitment had been favoured by the NATO Secretary General, but Allies wanted an annual review.

Third, a Joint Analysis Training and Education Center will be set up to jointly identify and apply lessons from the current war and increase Ukrainian interoperability with NATO. This will act as a critical feedback loop for NATO’s Allied Command Transformation.

These commitments are not trivial, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was very careful to not come across as ungrateful as he was at Vilnius, which annoyed many Allies at the time. However, these collective commitments do not move the dial decisively in Ukraine’s favour. Political slogans to support Ukraine for ‘as long as it takes’ were repeated. However, there were no definitions from the many speakers at the Public Forum on what a Ukrainian victory would actually look like – or, for that matter, a Russian defeat. At Vilnius, the requirement for Ukrainian membership of NATO was ‘when allies agree and conditions are met’. A year on, Ukraine is still none the wiser as to what these conditions are.

A Missed Opportunity?

The central victory for Ukraine was the following passage from the summit declaration:

‘We welcome the concrete progress Ukraine has made since the Vilnius Summit on its required democratic, economic, and security reforms. As Ukraine continues this vital work, we will continue to support it on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership’.

Ukraine, and its advocates, secured the stronger language of an ‘irreversible’ path towards NATO. However, this wording is anything but irreversible for two reasons. First, a future President Donald Trump could renege on the commitment, with fears that a US government led by him could offer up a commitment that Ukraine will never join NATO in future negotiations with Russia. Second, Macron, straight after the declaration from the 2019 London meeting of the North Atlantic Council was published, rowed back on the agreed language on China. Summitry wording does not equal policy.

In fact, the only procedurally ‘irreversible’ mechanism would be an invitation for Ukraine to join the Alliance. It was a missed opportunity for several reasons.

First, unity. The short-term desire to harness the unity that NATO has enjoyed since Russia’s 2022 invasion is detrimental to its longer-term health. It has been 16 years since NATO made the commitment at the Bucharest Summit that Ukraine (and Georgia) ‘will become members of NATO’. With the irreversible language in 2024, NATO has backed itself into a corner, with little semantic room left for the subsequent years. As such, it will get harder and harder for NATO to satisfy support for Ukraine.

Second, a formal invitation would give NATO, and the US, greater control on the timing of Ukraine joining at the precise moment ‘when conditions are met’. Through the use of Article 11 (Ratification) of the Washington Treaty, the Allies could show support to Ukraine and gradually manage escalation with Russia, even using it as a punishment for Russian behaviours by incrementally moving Ukraine closer through national ratifications in response to Russian atrocities such as the Okhamdyat strike. This would be preferable to waiting until ‘conditions are met’ – presumably an end to the war in Ukraine’s favour – and then starting the process, which could take years (the quick ratifications of Finland and Sweden’s accession were an exception to the rule).

Third, there is nothing in Article 10 (Invitation) to suggest that NATO can withdraw an invitation once made. Therefore, this could ‘Trump-proof’ Ukraine’s membership of NATO and ensure it is not offered up in any peace deal with Russia that would surely cause a deep rupture in the Alliance.

Fourth, an invitation now would pre-empt more difficult electoral maths in national parliaments to ratify the Assession Protocols. With such political instability across the Euro-Atlantic, NATO might never have had a better chance of getting ticks in the box. Of course, there is a possibility that parliaments – under different compositions – could ‘deratify’ the protocols in the future, but this would be difficult to do.

Fifth, it would firmly anchor Ukraine into the Euro-Atlantic security architecture. Policymakers should consider what is currently happening in Georgia as a cautionary tale. There is no guarantee that a future political leadership in Ukraine might not also turn away from Europe. It was striking that the Washington declaration removed all reference to Georgia, showing that 16 years of hard work since Bucharest in 2008 have been wasted due to the passing of Georgia’s new foreign agents law – widely dubbed the ‘Russian Law’ – derailing Tbilisi’s Euro-Atlantic path.

Finally, an invitation would be the ultimate expression of democracy – mentioned in the preamble to the Washington Summit – allowing Allies and national Parliaments to demonstrate support for Ukrainian membership, and those that have reservations to voice them.

UK Leadership

With political challenges for the leaderships of the US, France and Germany, the contrast with the UK’s new government mandate at a critical time for the UK, Europe and NATO was stark. The summit was an immediate opportunity for new UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to meet and greet world leaders. The momentum will continue next week as the UK hosts the fourth European Political Community summit with around 40 European leaders at Blenheim.

The prime minister, flanked by his new Foreign Secretary David Lammy, his Defence Secretary John Healey and Minister for European Relations Nick Thomas-Symonds, put on a show of force in the US to reassure allies and partners. Throughout its election campaign, the Labour Party emphasised its NATO credentials, historically referencing the Party’s and Ernest Bevan’s role and confirming an ‘unshakeable’ commitment to NATO and an ‘iron clad’ commitment to the nuclear deterrent.

Due to the transatlantic political volatility, there is a real opportunity for the UK to increase its leadership role within NATO. Indeed, it is likely to be necessary. However, the UK’s ability to lead within NATO – beyond words – largely rests on the conclusions of the UK’s next Strategic Defence Review (SDR), which will be announced by the prime minister next week. Three steps will make this possible.

First, Defence Intelligence and the wider UK Intelligence Community should be used to make an assessment of when the government believes the UK might have to commit to war in Europe. This would bring the UK in line with NATO itself and many European allies, and it would be the key to informing resourcing and capability choices – the difference between getting ready for 2027 versus 2033 is stark. It would also provide a target to communicate to the Treasury to negotiate the required increase in funding, or argue to more appropriate funding mechanisms for defence. This assessment should also be openly communicated to UK society.

Second, to meet a ‘NATO first’ approach, the SDR should fully align with the NATO Defence Planning Process (NDPP) rather than try to circumvent it. The UK should directly ask NATO what is required through the process for this four-year cycle and likely the subsequent two. This would then become the foundation of the SDR to avoid national programmes and projects that do not align.

Third, the role of UK nuclear weapons should be emphasised. The UK, unlike France, assigns its nuclear forces to NATO, and in a more dangerous world and with the risk of a disengaged US, Europeans are putting more emphasis on nuclear deterrence. The UK’s nuclear capability should also be better used as a bargaining tool within the NDPP, rather than an added extra.

America First

Despite the multiple European elections this year, it is only the US election that really matters for European security. Former President Trump was not at the summit, but his spectre loomed large. Next week is the Republican National Convention, where he will officially become the nominee. If he does win the election, the 2025 NATO summit in The Hague will be very different to Washington, and it will force NATO to face the hard choices that it continues to defer.

The views expressed in this Commentary are the author’s, and do not represent those of RUSI or any other institution.

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