The recent NATO summit in The Hague may have been billed as a pivotal moment for Euro-Atlantic unity, but in practice, it bore more resemblance to an overproduced humiliation ritual than a coherent gathering of strategic minds. With US President Donald Trump at the center of the spectacle, the alliance’s supposed consensus morphed into a theater of coercion and obsequiousness, capped by a jaw-dropping agreement: a commitment by NATO members to ramp up defense spending to 5% of GDP.

For those keeping score, this marks a doubling – even a tripling – of prior targets. When Trump first took office in 2017, he berated European nations for not meeting the existing 2% guideline. Fast forward to 2025, and that complaint has evolved into a demand so extravagant it could only be accepted under duress – or delusion. European leaders, either fearing another Trump tantrum or embracing a lucrative arms-buying spree masked as preparedness, agreed to the hike like cultists nodding at a doomsday prophet.

What catalyzed this bizarre turn? Part of it lies in Trump’s bombastic lead-up to the summit, in which he declared a ceasefire between Israel and Iran – a dubious claim made exclusively on his own social media platform, hours after US missiles struck Iranian targets. It was the diplomatic equivalent of an arsonist pausing mid-blaze to wave a fire extinguisher and demand applause.

Then came the real show: Trump’s triumphant arrival at the summit, greeted with giddy fanfare by none other than NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Once the pragmatic Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Rutte has apparently embraced his new role as Trump’s hype man with unsettling enthusiasm. In a gushing private letter that quickly became public, Rutte praised Trump for........

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