As NATO leaders head into this week’s annual summit, the alliance increasingly resembles a marketplace defined by defense spending and procurement as much as shared values, analysts said.
US President Donald Trump has pushed allies to invest in their own defense or risk losing American support, shifting the focus from collective security to financial pledges.
That pressure has helped drive commitments of nearly $120 billion in defense spending over the past year, with about half expected to go toward American-made equipment.
The summit in Ankara will test whether those commitments can be translated into military capabilities.
NATO’s secretary general is pushing to make it a “deal-making event where companies announce collaborations,” a European diplomat told Politico, highlighting the alliance’s business-oriented turn.
