This is predictable.

The most successful and persistent in the world, the North Atlantic Alliance, thanks to the Americans, faced the threat of a transatlantic disaster, holding the first full-fledged NATO summit in Brussels on July 11-12.

Unless President Trump learns to think and act differently by this time, a toxic political division risks undermining the fundamental goals of the summit: demonstrating unity and willingness to cooperate, to which diplomats and military leaders of all participating countries have produced impressive "evidence".

If American officials prepare for the summit in their own way, Trump can well use the usual strategy of "sudden switching", and turn to a positive path. He has something to praise himself for, if you look at the current situation in the Alliance. If desired, Trump could take advantage of this, to at least partially compensate for the damage inflicted last week at the G7 summit when he accused Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his closest allies of "weakness and dishonesty".

The facts could well be interpreted in favor of the American president. There would be a desire.

Despite all of Trump's statements at the very beginning of his presidential term that NATO has become obsolete as an organization, the Alliance has significantly improved its efficiency, mobility and combat readiness, strengthened its presence in Afghanistan and set out on the way to creating a permanent training base in Iraq. To contain the Russian threat, the rotation of forces and the building up of a military presence in Poland, the Baltic States, and also on the Black Sea coast. Only this year the United States has allocated more than $ 4.8 billion to strengthen its positions in the European deterrence program. At the same time, more and more allies are taking part in the NATO forward-expansion program, where the UK, Germany and Canada play the main role.

President Trump can also credit himself that his pressure on the allies has led to a significant increase in their defense spending. And although only eight of the twenty-nine countries have reached the NATO target of two percent of GDP, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis has already announced that over the next four years, Canada and the European members of the Alliance will steadily increase these costs. Last year, the growth was 5.21%, and in this - 3.82%.

In addition, during the summit, the Allies will probably take a number of decisions on further improving the combat readiness and confirm their intention by 2020 to create 30 motorized infantry battalions, 30 air squadrons and 30 warships ready to be deployed within 30 days. At the same time, the Allies have been busy for some time optimizing the decision-making process and developing the most reliable and flexible schemes for conducting military operations and deploying NATO forces.

The defense ministers also formally approved the creation of three new structures in the overall command structure of NATO, which entails the creation of 1,200 new cantonment sites for servicemen. In Ulm (Germany), a new command of the rear command will be created to respond more quickly, and in Norfolk (Virginia) - the command center of the combined group to protect the sea strategic lines of communication, as well as the center of cyber operations, designed to integrate hybrid and special methods of warfare in the security structure of the organization.

In addition, at the NATO summit it is planned to discuss the enhancement of the role of the alliance in enhancing the combat capability of the forces providing security in Iraq. And here Trump can also write down on his own account the fact that NATO is yielding to its demands in the area of ??a more active fight against terrorism. The alliance can even talk about progress in cooperation with the EU: significant efforts have been made to eliminate diplomatic and other obstacles that hampered the free movement of troops across European territory.

Unfortunately, much of this runs the risk of escaping President Trump's attention, who seems to have got used to trusting only his "instinct" and accepting only those facts that play into his hands. Indeed, 13 of the 29 allies do not have specific plans to achieve the notorious 2% by 2020, and at the moment only eight states have overcome this line. For Trump this, of course, can mean that the glass is half empty, and not half full.

The president left the G7 summit, annoyed that it was the greatest stupidity on the part of the US to sign the North American Free Trade Agreement and the treaty on the creation of NATO. The same thing he repeatedly repeated in the presence of US officials. He is convinced that the United States pays too much to protect allies that do not value this and profit from the US, thanks to the foreign trade deficit.

Those close to President Trump - given his recent comments on NATO and trade duties against Europe, Canada and Mexico - warn that in a month the builder will arrive in Brussels not with new building plans but with a ball ram to demolish everything that was built earlier.

According to internal sources, one of the signs of this is Trump's insistent desire to arrange a meeting in Vienna with Russian President Vladimir Putin before the NATO summit and a visit to the UK scheduled for July 13. The advisors would prefer to delay this meeting and organize it later, so that Trump arrives on it fully armed, after consulting with NATO allies. But there are considerable fears that everything will go in a different scenario - and this can set up against even America's most loyal friends. The Vienna meeting will be perceived by the British as a slap in the face, if one recalls the provocation of Russian special services, who in March committed an attempt on Salisbury against their former employee Sergei Skripal and his daughter, using a nerve agent.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg hoped that after the Brussels summit this year, the 70th anniversary of NATO will be celebrated next year in the United States, with a demonstration of the organization's strengthened unity and its increased combat readiness.

However, there are fears that the upcoming summit risks shaking the very foundation on which all these seven decades the alliance was based: its political cohesion.

The danger that the transatlantic split entails is so great, and the certainty that this is what President Trump is seeking is so ingrained in many minds that the American leader, in the remaining days before the summit, simply needs to write a script with an unexpected ending: the recognition of the full and absolute support of the union , in the creation of which his country has invested so much energy.

He can take a positive agenda and assign to himself all the merits to increase defense spending among European allies, as well as for NATO's increased readiness to confront any challenges, both in the south and in the east. He could state that it was his directness in statements and constant pressure on his allies that led to such convincing results, and NATO has strengthened and increased its political role in the world.

This story can still be a fairy tale with a happy ending. Or the story of a train crash.

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