The NATO summit in Ankara was designed to project unity. Leaders reaffirmed their commitment to Article 5, pledged €70 billion in military aid to Ukraine through 2027, and announced new defence-industrial initiatives.
Yet beneath the surface, Ankara revealed something far less comforting. The summit reinforced the impression that the Alliance increasingly sees the war as something to be sustained rather than politically resolved, while Europe scrambles to rearm. It confirmed that the United States is transforming NATO from a community of shared values into a transactional contract, where loyalty is measured by financial contributions rather than strategic alignment.
For Poland and other frontline states, the summit exposed a growing strategic dilemma rather than a clear victory.
The Ankara Illusion
The Ankara Summit revealed three uncomfortable truths that European governments would prefer not to acknowledge.
First, Russia has not been strategically defeated. Whatever long-term costs Moscow continues to bear, Ankara demonstrated that NATO’s assumption of imminent Russian exhaustion has not materialized. The country’s armed forces have gained unique experience in conducting large-scale combat operations, which is now being incorporated into the military training system and military doctrine. The war has shifted from a conflict Russia was supposed to lose quickly into a prolonged contest of attrition.
Second, Europe has not emerged stronger from the war. The continent has spent billions on rearmament, yet its industrial base remains fragmented, its defence production insufficient, and its political cohesion uncertain. The rearmament programmes announced by European governments will take years to implement and, even then, will depend on American technology, American supply chains, and American political will. Europe is not rebuilding its military capacity. It is rebuilding its dependence.
Third, the United States is redefining the rules of the Atlantic alliance. President Trump did not question NATO’s existence, but he fundamentally changed its terms. Alliances are no longer presented as permanent political communities bound by shared values. They are increasingly presented as contractual relationships based on measurable contributions, reciprocal obligations, and strategic utility. The public confrontation with Spain over defence spending was a reminder that security has become transactional. Loyalty is no longer assumed. It is purchased.
The Paradox of European Victory
These three realities lead to a question that most European governments would prefer to avoid: can Europe emerge from this war stronger, regardless of the outcome?
If Ukraine achieves a favourable military outcome, Europe will still depend on American guarantees, American logistics, American intelligence, and American industrial capacity. The war may end, but the strategic dependence will remain. Even such an outcome would not translate into European strategic autonomy. It would merely confirm that Europe cannot manage its own security without American leadership.
If Ukraine is forced into a less favourable settlement, the consequences are even starker. Europe will have spent hundreds of billions on a war it did not win. Its eastern border will remain unstable. Its industrial base will have been drained. Its political cohesion will have been tested. And it will still depend on the United States for its security.
In either scenario, Europe emerges weaker relative to the United States. The war has accelerated the continent’s strategic dependence, not reversed it. Europe has spent four years trying to weaken Russia while failing to strengthen itself. That is the strategic failure Ankara made visible.
Turkey: The Real Winner of Ankara
If Ankara produced one clear geopolitical winner, it was Turkey. President Erdoğan emerged with enhanced strategic leverage after securing Trump’s signal that Washington would consider restoring Turkey’s access to the F-35 programme and lifting CAATSA sanctions.
Turkey’s strength lies precisely in the fact that it is indispensable without being fully aligned with any single geopolitical camp. It controls the Black Sea straits, maintains working relations with both Moscow and Kyiv, and projects influence across the Eastern Mediterranean, the Caucasus and the Middle East. Few NATO members possess comparable geopolitical flexibility.
For Europe, this creates an uncomfortable reality. Many European governments continue to disagree with Ankara over democracy, migration and regional disputes, yet they also recognise that no coherent strategy for the Black Sea, the Eastern Mediterranean or the Middle East can succeed without Turkish cooperation. Ankara therefore left the summit stronger, while Europe left it more dependent.
Europe’s Strategic Irrelevance
The most alarming aspect of Ankara was not what was decided, but who was absent. Not physically, but strategically. European governments attended the summit, but they did not shape its outcomes.
The decision to sustain the war through 2027 was made in Washington. The offer to restore Turkey’s F-35 access was made by Trump. The new Defence, Security and Resilience Bank was launched by a coalition of states on the margins of the summit, not by the EU or NATO as a whole. Europe participated, but it did not lead.
This is not a new phenomenon, but Ankara made it unmistakable. Europe has increasingly become a consumer of security rather than a shaper of it, reliant on American guarantees while failing to develop its own strategic autonomy. The rearmament programmes announced by European governments will take years to implement, and even then, they will depend on American technology, American supply chains, and American political will.
For Poland, this is a particularly bitter lesson. Warsaw has positioned itself as Ukraine’s most loyal ally, spending billions on military and humanitarian aid while hosting millions of refugees. Yet its influence over the strategic direction of the conflict remains minimal. Poland is a frontline state, but it is not a decision-maker. It bears the costs without sharing the power.
The Legacy of Ankara
Ankara may ultimately be remembered not as the summit that strengthened NATO, but as the summit that revealed how little strategic initiative Europe still possesses within the Alliance it helped build. Europe often speaks about strategic autonomy. Ankara demonstrated something very different. Europe today finances its own security but still does not define it. Until that changes, every new NATO summit will strengthen the Alliance while weakening Europe’s ability to shape its own future.
The real legacy of Ankara is not that NATO became stronger. It is that Europe became relatively weaker while every other major actor increased its strategic flexibility. Turkey gained leverage. The United States rewrote the rules of the Alliance. Europe alone paid more while deciding less.
The real question after Ankara is no longer about the course of the war, but whether Europe can emerge from it stronger. Four years into the conflict, the answer remains deeply uncertain. NATO left Ankara with new funding, new industrial initiatives, and new military commitments. What it did not leave with was evidence that Europe itself has become a more independent strategic actor. That may ultimately prove to be the summit’s most important legacy.
Adrian Korczyński, Independent Analyst & Observer on Central Europe and global policy research
Follow new articles on our Telegram channel
