Nato’s Ankara summit was a pantomime – serious leaders saying absurd things
The alliance avoided disaster in the Turkish capital – but it is becoming increasingly irrelevant, writes Edward Lucas.
Nato
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The Nato Ankara summit in five Trump quotes: Iranians are peverse, Spain is a lost cause, Nato does not make me happy
Nato pledged billions more for Ukraine and vowed to contain Russia and Iran. Although Donald Trump’s musings about quitting Europe militarily and strong‑arming allies over Greenland underlined how dependent the continent’s security still is on a single, volatile, leader.
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Erdoğan bets on Nato again at Ankara summit, as Europe looks away from Turkey’s political crackdowns
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s pivot back toward Nato has brought drones, missiles and Black Sea leverage to the West. For this price, Europe is quietly tolerating rigged party leaderships and pre‑summit mass arrests at home.
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Czech Republic’s Babiš U-turns on ‘not a single crown’ for Ukraine weapons on eve of Nato Ankara summit
The same Czech government that vowed “not a single crown” for Ukrainian weapons is now moving budget lines into the US-led Nato Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List fund, as leaders head into a high-stakes Ankara summit.
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False flags and a war of nerves. Russia is too weak to fight Nato militarily. But it can attack in other ways
Russia is too weak militarily to invade any Nato country. It is building some military infrastructure, notably on the border with Finland, but it has no soldiers to put there. Whatever Russia is planning is in a different domain, a war of nerves, aimed at our brains, not our territory.
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An attack on Poland would be Putin’s last failThe US has warned Poland that Russia was plotting to attack it in a “few months” time, which would be the fastest way to end the Ukraine war, in president Vladimir Putin’s ultimate fail. The Russian emperor would go home from Poland not just naked, but also with a broken nose.
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Nato Ankara summit to test if EU can rearm fast enough as US demands more ‘burden‑shifting’
Officials say that, to appease the US, ‘burden-shifting’ rather than simply ‘burden-sharing’ will be one of the main themes in Ankara as the EU and others face pressure to ramp up their own production of defence and security equipment.
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At Ankara, Nato has to admit a hard truth: its most vital AI infrastructure is built for business, not war
Data centres are mostly not built to withstand hostile attack, and the Iranian drones that struck Amazon’s sites in the Gulf showed that threat is no longer hypothetical. Cybersecurity incidents are also rising, and they tend to target data centres’ power and cooling systems and their interface with the grid.
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Belarus protests failed to topple Lukashenko – now we should try Finland-style neutrality
The best way forward for Belarus is an often misunderstood but ultimately promising strategy known as “Finlandization” – a policy of strict neutrality.
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Europeans are no longer angry at Trump’s irrational incompetence. They’re exhausted
The casual cancellation last week of the long-planned nine-month rotation of a brigade combat team to Poland exemplified everything that European allies find baffling and repellent about the Trump administration. ‘Irrational incompetence’ seems best to sum up Trump’s Europe policy, writes Edward Lucas.
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Slovakia’s schizophrenia: defending Nato’s eastern flank, but PM courts the country threatening it
Slovak defence minister Robert Kaliňák announced Bratislava wants to join the Baltic Air Policing mission with its new F-16 fighter jets — mixing up the confusing cocktail of Robert Fico’s government foreign-policy messaging.
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[Interview] Alexander Stubb: ‘Ukraine will not lose the war’ but Europe must build its own defence
Nato remains strong despite current tensions, says Stubb as he calls Europe to take on more responsibility for its own defence.
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On the front line of Estonia’s multi-million euro defence build-up
Estonia is one of Nato’s smallest members, but its experience of Russian occupation has contributed to high spending on defence and preparedness for attack.
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With Nato’s car-crash Ankara summit looming, the West needs a new survival strategy
A Post-Nato Manifesto: Given that no country can defend itself alone, the priority is to make new alliances — flexible, capable frameworks of threat-aware allies that are willing to take risks and make sacrifices for themselves and for others. The most promising group of like-minded states includes the Nordic five (Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden) and the Baltic three (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). Together with Britain and the Netherlands they are part of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF).
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![Kaupo Rosin, director general of the Estonian foreign intelligence service: 'Most [Russian] soldiers have a low IQ level; they are convicts from the lowest strata of society. This is not an army you could use for sophisticated operations. Instead, they keep sending in troops blindly, sending them to their deaths'](https://static.euobserver.com/2026/04/1.webp)
[Interview] Estonia’s spy chief: Russia cannot replenish fallen soldiers – they have a serious battlefield problem
Estonia’s foreign intelligence service chief Kaupo Rosin reflects on a whole-of-society approach to defence, one unexpected threat to Europe, and what he realised at 16.
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EU officials sidestep ‘Pentagon memo’ on booting Spain from Nato
“We don’t discuss internal issues of Nato”, said the EU’s Costa in Cyprus on US threat to Spain, as most EU leaders also ignored Trump ‘squeaky toy’ Pentagon memo.
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Inspired by Macron’s speech, Czechia’s Babiš wants in on nuclear deterrence initiative
In a strategic about-face, the Czech Republic is looking to join French President Emmanuel Macron’s initiative to build a pan-European nuclear deterrent.
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71 years without a military strategy, Germany just wrote one
Responsibility for Europe reads differently from Bratislava than from Brussels. The new German defence strategy is worth reading carefully, particularly from the capitals whose security still depends on German territory. Responsibility for Europe will be defined in the next decade by what Berlin does if Washington no longer underwrites European defence at previous levels. Germany has now stated, in writing, that this is the planning horizon.
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Nato chief fails to charm Trump, as Israel risks wrecking Iran deal
Nato chief Mark Rutte spent two hours in the White House and left without the usual press conference or photo opportunities, calling the talks with US president Donald Trump “very frank”.
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Europe’s future after Trump leaves Nato
In less than three months’ time, Nato delegations will be packing for the alliance’s summit in Ankara. The agenda is empty, and the attendance of the most important guest, US president Donald Trump, is unclear. European allies will have time aplenty to ponder their alarmingly short list of security options, writes Edward Lucas.