THREE SHORT PIECES: NATO, RUSSIA, AZERBAIJAN
- Paul Hansbury
- 7 days ago
- 5 min read
Three short comments on recent news in lieu of longer arguments that I might have written had I more time to spare.
The annual NATO summit
On 25 June NATO leaders gathered in the Hague. The summit was carefully choreographed to avoid negative publicity. Reports suggested the agenda was purposefully short so that US President Donald Trump remained engaged and did not cause controversy. But there are always limits even with the best laid plans – but I'll come to that anon.
Short, too, was the summit declaration. A mere five paragraphs amounting to fewer than 500 words. For comparison, the 2023 summit in Vilnius offered up a 90-paragraph communique spilling over 10,000 words (I wrote about it at the time). Last year, celebrating 75 years since the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, a 38-paragraph declaration was issued along with a separate six-paragraph pledge about Ukraine.
This year NATO's European members tried to placate Trump by agreeing to lift the target for core defence spending to 3.5% of GDP, with 'up to' 1.5% more to be spent on security-related matters. The latter component is defined vaguely. The wording about what might meet the spending requirement, mentioning 'critical infrastructure' and 'civil preparedness', is preceded with an 'inter alia'; a nice touch if you do not want to commit to anything much. Alliance members agree to meet this new target by 2035. That feels far down the road.
