As NATO leaders meet in Washington from Tuesday, they will celebrate the strength of their alliance on its 75th anniversary while facing deep uncertainty about its future.
In recent years, Russian aggression against Ukraine has given NATO, which was created after World War II to defend Europe against the Soviet Union, a renewed sense of purpose. But the alliance also faces serious threats, including from right-wing skeptics coming to power in countries such as Germany and France.
And the possible return to the White House of Donald J. Trump, who has ridiculed NATO and even contemplated withdrawing the United States from the alliance, has raised alarm among its members.
Here’s what to watch for during the three days of NATO meetings in Washington this week.
Putin staring
Perhaps the main purpose of the summit will be to send a signal of unity and strength to Moscow.
Officials say President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is counting on NATO’s efforts to counter his aggression to wane, potentially allowing him to conquer much more of Ukraine and even turn his sights to other countries.
Therefore, a central theme of the summit will be demonstrating not only a long-term commitment to Ukraine, but also the endurance of NATO itself.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said last week that the “main goal” of the summit would be to highlight the value of spending on Europe’s collective defense. He noted that recently concluded security deals between dozens of NATO members and Ukraine would help “tell Vladimir Putin that he cannot wait for Ukraine, that he cannot wait for all Ukrainian partners.”
Nevertheless, NATO leaders remain cautious about allowing Ukraine into the alliance, something first promised to Kiev in 2008. Most member states say this is impossible while Ukraine and Russia are at war.
A wild card this week is the possibility that Putin pulls a stunt to disrupt the party.
“Senior Biden administration officials are concerned that Russian President Vladimir Putin has more surprises in store for them on Ukraine, at the right time to host NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington disrupt,” said Frederick Kempe, president of the Atlantic Council. wrote last month.
Russian sabotage
This year, U.S. and allied officials have said, Russian military intelligence began a covert sabotage campaign across Europe, setting fire to warehouses and other sites linked to the effort to supply Ukraine.
Most of the attacks had the potential to slow the flow of supplies to Ukraine, but some were simply strange: one target was an Ikea in Lithuania.
NATO is taking the attacks seriously, issuing warnings and calling in senior US intelligence officials to brief ambassadors.
As Ukraine has used a flood of new weaponry to attack Russia and Russian military targets in occupied Crimea, the Kremlin has increased its threats. After an attack on Crimea using an American-supplied ATACMS missile, the Kremlin warned that the deaths of Russians ‘must have consequences’.
In response, the US military has raised the alert level at bases across Europe.
A big question for NATO leaders is whether Putin is willing to escalate the war beyond Ukraine’s borders. Western intelligence services don’t think so. But the alliance is likely to warn Putin that it will respond if he continues or escalates covert attacks on Europe.
Ukraine’s weapons wish list
At the top of Ukraine’s weapons wish list are two familiar demands: more air defense and more air defense missiles.
The Biden administration announced a $2.3 billion military aid package for Ukraine last week. About $150 million of this munitions, including air defense interceptors, artillery and mortar shells, and anti-tank weapons, will be withdrawn from Pentagon stockpiles and immediately sent to Ukraine.
Of the remainder, the Pentagon will buy $2.2 billion worth of Patriot and other air defense missiles from defense contractors, which will be delivered to Ukraine in the coming months. The Biden administration said last month that it plans to accelerate the delivery of these Patriot interceptors to Ukraine by delaying certain weapons shipments to other countries.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has said he urgently needs at least seven Patriot batteries. President Biden has promised that five Western air defense systems will soon be delivered to Ukraine.
Besides manpower, Ukraine’s greatest need on the battlefield remains air defense, both on the front lines and in defense of critical infrastructure, including the country’s electrical grid.
Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Russia and Eurasian Program who recently visited the front, said Ukrainian air defenses are struggling to deal with a flood of Russian drones flying behind Ukraine’s front lines.
Ukraine is also dealing with large numbers of Russian glide bomb attacks, which are becoming increasingly accurate, he said.
“The growing number of Russian drones that can fly far behind the Ukrainian front lines is one of the biggest problems,” Mr. Koffman said. “The most pressing, however, is a shortage of air defense systems to defend infrastructure, and the need to address shortages in the Ukrainian power grid before winter.”
Patriots and HAWKs
Ukraine’s urgent need for air defense weapons was underscored Monday by a wave of Russian missile attacks across the country, including one that damaged a children’s hospital in Kiev.
A topic of discussion at the summit will be about how many countries can send air defense weapons to protect the airspace over Ukraine.
The United States is sending more missiles for its most modern system, the Patriot. It will also provide a US system long out of service at the Pentagon, called HAWK, for Homing All the Way Killer, which is still in use by several allied countries.
“The HAWK system was developed by Raytheon in the 1950s and first deployed by the Army in 1959,” Marc Romanych, a retired U.S. Army air defense officer, said in an interview. “The United States has never fired a HAWK missile at an enemy target, but other militaries have and have been quite successful.”
Mr. Romanych commanded a HAWK unit while on active duty and wrote a book about the weapon in 2022.
The HAWK, he said, is built to shoot down low-altitude Soviet fighter planes flying at twice the speed of sound and would be able to shoot down much slower-moving drones used by Russia in Ukraine.
According to the Washington Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Missile Defense Project, the missiles have a range of about 45 miles.
In October 2022, Spain announced that this would happen provide four HAWK launchers to Ukraine. Less than a month later, the Pentagon said it supplied the missiles for those launchers and would start refurbishing more rockets from stocks to ship later.
The Pentagon said it would send two more HAWK launchers to Ukraine in February 2023along with more launchers and missiles for them in June that year. In the past month, the Pentagon announced two more shipments of HAWK missiles.
At the same time, the US military announced a major new purchase of the most advanced Patriot missiles, many of which have been sent to Ukraine.
Which Zelensky?
Last year, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine fired off angry messages on social media before flying to the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, angry that the allies were discussing an invitation to Ukraine, rather than a timetable for membership.
The post said the lack of a timetable would embolden Russia “to continue his terror.” At the time, White House officials grumbled that Mr. Zelensky seemed ungrateful, a bad impression considering the billions of dollars the West had spent to help him defend the country.
Diplomats now acknowledge that NATO offered Mr Zelensky a “word salad” rather than a strengthened statement on alliance membership. So this time, the United States and other countries are pushing for a clear statement on Ukraine’s future membership.
There has also been intense diplomatic pressure to advance Mr Zelensky’s expectations in the run-up to the summit. During visits to Kiev, NATO allies reinforced their commitment to supply more weapons, improve training and provide security guarantees to Ukraine. The message is that membership of the alliance will happen one day and that in the meantime, no priority for NATO is higher than supporting Kiev.
Will this diplomatic whirlwind succeed in bringing out Mr Zelensky’s grateful version? Diplomats admit they have no way of knowing. Mr Zelensky is one of the world’s greatest communicators and only he will decide what message he will deliver to allies in Washington this week.
The 2024 US elections
Looming over the top is uncertainty about whether Biden will remain the Democratic presidential nominee — and the possibility of Donald J. Trump’s return to the White House.
Mr. Trump has declared NATO “obsolete” and threatened to leave the alliance, though some European officials say privately they believe he would not follow through on those threats if elected. He has long complained that NATO members are not spending enough on their collective defense, which is one reason why the alliance has trumpeted increasing membership spending in recent years.
Mr Trump has also pledged that if elected he would negotiate a quick peace between Russia and Ukraine, although he has provided few details about his plan. Such negotiations would likely force Ukraine to give up its territory and its ambitions to join NATO.
But the spotlight at the summit will be on Mr. Biden, who will be closely watched for any new signs that his health or mental acuity might be faltering. Should Mr. Biden not remain on the Democratic ticket, it is unlikely that any other Democratic candidate would call for major changes in NATO or U.S. support for Ukraine.
