Most Summits Proclaim Their " And their participants inevitably talk about “reaching a new consensus”. But the NATO summit in Madrid can quite rightly make such statements.. Because the military alliance, which French President Emmanuel Macron called “dead” a few years ago, has regained its vitality and strategic purpose.

NATO has decided to increase its rapid reaction force to 300,000 soldiers to deter any further Russian aggression.. And, as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, it was " Director of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Jonathan Yale writes about this in an article for The Guardian.. The readiness of all 30 member countries of the alliance to increase defense spending is unprecedented. But more importantly, NATO has resumed its role as a unified organization capable of offering collective defense to the European continent..

Sweden and Finland have already received significant security guarantees as part of their EU membership.. However, both countries still decided to join NATO at the summit in Madrid.. They understand the difference between the intentions of the EU and the capabilities of NATO, backed by US military power.. At the same time, the leaders of the alliance are well aware that the challenges are still very great.. In Madrid, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the accession of Sweden and Finland would make NATO more European. But it was a very obvious statement that could be made about virtually every wave of alliance expansion.. Each new country that joined it was from Europe, which means it made it more European..

[see_also ids\u003d"

But each expansion, as well as the accession of Sweden and Finland, did not solve the same problem.. Increasing the number of allies did not reduce NATO's greater dependence on US power. The transatlantic alliance responded well to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Since March, the alliance began to increase its presence in the Baltic countries, Poland, as well as in Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Allied troops stretched from the Baltic to the Black Seas. But, despite the fact that many allies have attracted their assets to these efforts, the contribution of the United States is many times greater than that made by all Europeans combined.. If the 100,000-strong US army (the largest number of troops since the mid-1990s) had not been deployed in Europe, the alliance would hardly be acting as a united front..

Latest pledges to increase defense funding are also impressive. But right now, only 9 out of 30 participating countries spend 2% of their GDP on the military.. And among those who don't are big European countries like France, Germany, Italy and Spain.. The rest says "

NATO has calculated that allied countries have pledged an additional 184 billion euros on defense in addition to existing budgets.. And about half of this amount comes from Germany.. But the question is how this money will be spent and for how long.. The easiest way to improve European defense capabilities right now is to buy more off-the-shelf American vehicles.. But such an idea runs counter to the approaches of European countries.. French diplomats say the war in Ukraine should not turn into a goldmine of the US defense industry. NATO's internal " On the other side of the Atlantic, Donald Trump and his followers continue to claim that NATO is a scam set up to swindle American taxpayer money.. Even if Trump does not sit back in the presidency, the very notion that the US is spending more than it should protect fat and wealthy Europeans will be influential enough in the US parliamentary elections in November..

The absolute audacity of Russian aggression against Ukraine allowed the Biden administration to get the necessary funding from Congress. However, in Washington, by default, they believe that there will definitely not be a re-allocation of $ 40 billion to help Kyiv.. And going forward, the debate over financial burden-sharing among NATO allies will escalate as a parallel discussion begins about Ukraine's post-war economic recovery, which is estimated to cost around $500 billion..

[see_also ids\u003d"

NATO also promised to increase the number of rapid reaction forces to 300,000 soldiers.. However, the alliance did not give an answer to the important question whether its troops should be permanently based in countries bordering Russia in order to deter the aggressor.. If this is not done, some NATO countries will be at risk of at least temporary Russian occupation until help arrives to free them.. And this means that horrors can be repeated on their territory, as in Ukrainian Bucha. And not a single NATO country will agree to accept the prospect. But if you deploy international contingents in Central and Eastern Europe permanently, it will be very expensive.. And the promised increase in defense spending will not be enough.

In fact, all NATO did in Madrid was make promises in the hope that the substance and terms of the promise could be discussed later.. But the biggest paradox of the alliance is that the determination to resist Russian imperialist intentions remains the glue that holds it together.. But at the same time, this is NATO's biggest vulnerability.. Despite all the talk in Madrid, there is still no consensus on what to do with Russia. Everyone agrees that her aggression should not be allowed to succeed..

But does this mean that Russia needs to be physically defeated on the battlefield in Ukraine, as the UK and most of Central and Eastern Europe want Maybe enough to end the war so that Moscow cannot declare victory as the German leader would like?

Now this debate seems abstract. But when Moscow starts hinting that it wants a truce with Ukraine, all these differences in NATO views will come to the fore.. The new strategic concept adopted in Madrid consists of 71 points spread over 11 pages. This is undoubtedly a beautiful set of promises.. But when the guns in Ukraine fall silent, some will not abide by them.