Hello from Ankara for a special NATO summit edition of Foreign Policy’s Situation Report.

Here’s what’s on tap for the day: NATO spends big bucks, Ukraine wins more admirers, and Belgium’s defense minister discusses that World Cup victory.

Hello from Ankara for a special NATO summit edition of Foreign Policy’s Situation Report.

Here’s what’s on tap for the day: NATO spends big bucks, Ukraine wins more admirers, and Belgium’s defense minister discusses that World Cup victory.

‘Billions, Literally Billions’

U.S. President Donald Trump likes big numbers. He also doesn’t like NATO—as he has repeatedly made it known ahead of the alliance’s annual summit in Ankara, Turkey, which began on Tuesday.

So NATO put out some really big numbers just hours before Trump touched down in the Turkish capital, announcing defense investments worth “billions, literally billions” (in the words of NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte) by countries across the alliance. That includes a commitment to invest $40 billion in counter-drone capabilities over the next five years, investments in integrated air and missile defense worth more than $26 billion, and new strike capabilities worth $1.6 billion.

While several of the companies making those deals were from the United States—including established bigwigs Lockheed Martin and Raytheon as well as emerging bigwigs Palantir and Anduril—there were also several European companies such as Germany’s Rheinmetall, France’s Airbus, Sweden’s Saab, and Turkey’s Aselsan.

Rutte presented the investments as starting to deliver on the spending targets that member countries committed to under pressure from Trump at last year’s NATO summit in The Hague. “One year ago in The Hague, allies committed to invest a lot more in defense—5 percent of GDP by 2035,” Rutte said while announcing the investments. “And here we are now, one year later in Ankara, already delivering results.”

This year’s summit is “about making sure that all the allies put their money where their mouth is,” Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson told SitRep. “What we need right now, the absolutely most crucial thing, is to ramp up production so we can transform this massive defense investment into combat power,” he added.

A ‘good start.’ But the persistent question is whether it will be enough to keep Trump onside. The U.S.........

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