What to Watch for at NATO’s 75th Birthday Bash

Welcome to a special edition of Foreign Policy’s SitRep. Dozens of world leaders are descending on a hot and muggy Washington this week for a major NATO summit. We’ll be reporting on the ground here and feeding your inbox with a daily dose of insights, tips, and scoops all week, starting today.

Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: The agenda for NATO’s annual gathering in Washington, the fallout from France’s elections, and Iran boosting ballistic missile production.

NATO Mania

Jens Stoltenberg attended his first NATO summit in 2001 as prime minister of Norway. George W. Bush was in the White House, the twin towers still stood, and the West was still basking in the peace dividend that followed the end of the Cold War. Stoltenberg was allotted just three minutes to make his remarks that year.

This year, Stoltenberg, now NATO secretary-general, said, “I will speak and do more.” He chatted with a small group of reporters on Sunday evening as he prepared for his last summit as head of the alliance following a tumultuous and eventful decade. Outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte will be taking over at NATO in October.

This summit marks the 75th anniversary of NATO’s founding. (Stoltenberg even tossed the opening pitch at a Washington Nationals baseball game on Monday to ring in the summit.) But the birthday celebrations will be muted as Russia’s war in Ukraine continues unabated and European allies simmer in quiet anxiety over the U.S. elections, President Joe Biden’s frailty, and the prospect of a second term for former President Donald Trump.

Here’s what to watch out for this week:

A new Ukraine command. Allies are expected to agree to a new five-point plan to establish a new command, based in Germany, that will coordinate security assistance and training for Ukraine, taking over from the U.S.-led defense contact group established in the war’s early days. The new command will be led by a three-star general and staffed by some 700 personnel, Stoltenberg said on Sunday. It will have a “robust mandate” with no need for consensus decision-making on arms deliveries, he added.

Allies agreed last week to commit 40 billion euros in military aid next year, intended to provide predictable support to Ukraine and insulate it from the kind of political hand-wringing in member states that led to disruptions in weapons supplies over the winter. Stoltenberg said on Sunday that the new plan effectively constitutes a “bridge to membership”—one of the buzz phrases for this week’s summit.

Ukraine’s future membership. Ukraine’s staunchest supporters in the alliance pushed hard for Kyiv to receive a formal invitation to join NATO at the Washington summit, but the United States and Germany quashed those plans early on. Instead, NATO is expected to roll out a new “bridge” to NATO membership, a collection of other bilateral and NATO-centric agreements that amounts to a consolation short of the ultimate prize.

While the text of the NATO summit communique has largely been hashed out in advance, debate over final language about Ukraine’s eventual membership was still under discussion as of Sunday evening, as significant disagreements remain among allies as to how and when Kyiv would ever join the alliance—a question at the heart of why Russian President Vladimir Putin first launched his invasion of Ukraine.

Biden under the microscope. Biden is under increasing pressure from congressional Democrats and wide swaths of the party to abandon his reelection campaign and pass the torch to another candidate—such as Vice President Kamala Harris—after he appeared to show all of his 81 years in a disastrous debate loss to Trump almost two weeks ago.

All eyes will now be on the U.S. president as he hosts the summit and meets with his European counterparts for three intense days of diplomacy, with everyone watching to see whether Biden still has the vigor and mental acuity to effectively lead the United States through the remainder of his term, let alone for another four years.

But U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith, who was once Biden’s national security advisor when he was vice president, said she’s not worried about the president’s fitness to carry out another term after recently briefing him. “He ended up peppering me with loads of questions that were tough to answer,” Smith recalled. “I don’t have [any] concerns. I know he’s looking forward to this week in Washington.”

China. The alliance has increasingly turned its attention to the Indo-Pacific in recent years, particularly as China has emerged as a key partner for Moscow. “Europe’s security affects Asia, and Asia’s security affects Europe,” Stoltenberg wrote in Foreign Affairs last week. A reflection of the region’s growing importance, leaders and senior officials from South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, and Japan will attend the summit for the third year in a row.

Language about China in the draft communique is “very solid,” according to a senior Biden administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity. But with Ukraine likely to dominate the agenda and disagreement among allies about how to handle the China challenge, the summit is likely to remain true to the alliance’s name in focusing on concerns around the Atlantic, not the Indo-Pacific.

Let’s Get Personnel

Lt. Gen. Jennie Carignan is set to be the Canadian military’s first female chief, the Canadian government announced last week. Carignan, who previously commanded combat engineering forces, is currently the Canadian military’s chief of professional conduct and culture. She will take over command on July 18.

David van Weel is now the minister of justice and security in the Netherlands. Van Weel had been NATO’s assistant secretary-general for innovation, hybrid threats, and cyberdefense since 2020.

On the Button

What should be high on your radar, if it isn’t already.

View from the chairman. U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul has been in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s ear with one message: You need battlefield victories to maintain U.S. public support for Ukraine’s cause.

“Without a victory, if all they have is a stalemate and a war of attrition, long term that is not good and they’re going to lose the will of the American people,” McCaul told Jack at FP’s Security Forum event today. McCaul said the U.S. defense industrial base is also struggling to hold up under the stress of helping allies in two wars—Israel and Ukraine—while preparing for the potential of a third in the Indo-Pacific.

But back in the United States, both McCaul and Rep. Jake Auchincloss, a Democrat, said that support in Congress for Ukraine was holding strong, even after a bruising six-month fight to get some $60 billion in additional U.S. military aid to Kyiv through Congress. In fact, McCaul said, the backlash that Republicans got in their home districts was far less than expected. “We thought that the backlash politically was going to be far more severe than it actually was,” McCaul said. “I talked to so many members of the ‘yes on Ukraine’ [camp] thinking they’d have to go home and take a little bit of a beating, and they surprisingly did not.”

The show must go on. French President Emmanuel Macron has refused Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s resignation after a leftist coalition appeared to come out of Sunday’s runoff elections with the most seats in parliament. Attal, who criticized Macron’s decision to push for earlier-than-expected snap elections, has been asked to stay on for the time being, as none of the three groupings—the leftist coalition, Macron’s grouping of centrist parties, or Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally—had an immediate path to form a new government. Macron’s position is not affected by Sunday’s runoff. He is still in power for another three years.

Iran boosts missile production. Iran is making major expansions to two critical ballistic missile production sites, according to satellite imagery seen by Reuters. Iran has added about 30 buildings to two sites, both near the capital of Tehran. Iran has boosted missile deliveries to Russia for its war in Ukraine as well as to proxy groups including Yemen’s Houthis and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Snapshot

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (second from right) greets Canadian Ambassador to the United States Kirsten Hillman to participate in the upcoming NATO summit after arriving at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on July 8.Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images

Put on Your Radar

Monday, July 8: Austin and Stoltenberg meet at the Pentagon. Meanwhile, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is in Beijing to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping for a previously unannounced visit. Paraguay continues hosting the Mercosur/Mercosul leaders’ summit.

Tuesday, July 9: NATO summit begins in Washington. Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are set to meet in Moscow.

Quote of the Day

“It feels like we’re Slytherins in a Hogwarts full of Hufflepuffs .”

—Spectator political reporter James Heale catches an anonymous Conservative British member of Parliament remarking on their first day back on the job after losing last week’s elections to the Labour Party.