2026 Ankara Summit: A Life and Death Struggle of an Alliance: A Critical Assessment of NATO’s Dysfunctionality, Its Occupation as a Tool of Hegemony, and Its Aggressive Nature (3)

The NATO Summit of Heads of State and Government, to be hosted by Ankara in July 2026, will convene under the shadow of perhaps the greatest existential questioning the Alliance has faced since its founding in 1949. While this summit is interpreted by some as the gathering of a bloc experiencing a “resurrection” under the impact of the security shock created by the Russia Ukraine war, it is also a crossroads where the contradictions gnawing at the alliance’s core, the mounting debates on its dysfunctionality, and the diagnoses of “brain death” are reignited.

NATO’s Deepening Dysfunctionality and the “Brain Death” Diagnosis

The most striking diagnosis of NATO’s dysfunctionality was the “brain death” outburst made by French President Emmanuel Macron in 2019. At that time, Macron drew attention to the alliance’s lack of strategic coordination and, particularly, the diminishing confidence in the US deterrence umbrella. This diagnosis, sadly, has not only remained valid as of 2026 but has deepened further. At the beginning of 2026, Macron reiterated his analogy, likening NATO to “a frog without a brain that gives reflexive responses to stimuli,” and emphasizing that the alliance is in a state of structural incompatibility. This analysis points to a rupture between the alliance’s decision making center and its operational limbs.

Undoubtedly, the most significant factor underlying this dysfunctionality is the changing role of the United States. Specifically, the Trump administration’s “America First” policy brought with it an approach that viewed NATO merely as a burden and accused its allies with a tone bordering on blackmail regarding defense spending. While European allies began to question the US commitment to the alliance, the quests for European Strategic Autonomy, led by Germany and France, have failed to make concrete progress under the NATO umbrella. In the absence of the Cold War’s clear threat definition, this situation has transformed the Alliance into a structure increasingly marred by internal strife, unable to unite around a common strategic vision. The decision taken at the 2025 Hague Summit to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP has, far from resolving these internal disputes, become an element of tension that makes them more visible. The Ankara Summit will be a test of whether these commitments can be transformed into concrete capabilities and whether the alliance can rediscover its strategic compass.

NATO: The Geopolitical Apparatus of US Hegemony?

One of the most frequently encountered definitions of NATO in critical literature is that it is an instrument of US global hegemony. This criticism is a debate that has existed since the alliance’s founding. However, under current conditions, this argument rests on much stronger ground. NATO’s command structures, procurement standards, and interoperability doctrines are not coincidental features; they are mechanisms through which American power reproduces itself within the defense apparatuses of its allies. According to this critical perspective, NATO is a military expression of a dependency relationship.

As frequently emphasized in analyses originating from China, the fundamental basis for NATO’s continued existence is the United States’ need to consolidate its global leadership. The alliance, a relic of the Cold War, has undergone a radical transformation and, especially through pursuing an aggressive policy of eastward expansion, has turned into an instrument serving to preserve US hegemony. With the Ukraine war, the US efforts to increase its presence in Europe and bind its allies more tightly to its own geopolitical agenda stand out as developments that strengthen this thesis. Europe, struggling to develop strategic autonomy, deepens its dependency on the US in many areas from energy security to the defense industry, which turns NATO into an “executive board” for US interests. From this perspective, the claim that NATO is not a community of allies but rather an instrument within an American led “security ecosystem” gains strength.

From Defense Pact to Offense Pact: NATO’s Interventionist Transformation

NATO is strictly defined as a “defensive alliance” by Article Five of its founding treaty. The treaty considers an armed attack against any member as an attack against all members. However, the historical practice of the alliance contains serious contradictions with this defensive identity definition. Following the end of the Cold War, NATO, rather than focusing solely on the defense of member territories, increasingly came to the fore with “out of area” operations. One of the most controversial examples of this transformation is the bombing intervention carried out against Yugoslavia in 1999. This operation went down in history as the first major NATO intervention conducted without an explicit mandate from the United Nations Security Council, and it exposed the alliance’s potential to turn into an “offensive pact” that disregards international law.

This transformation of NATO has led critics to frequently define it as a “new offensive pact.” The intervention in Libya in 2011 is another striking example; this operation, which led to regime change, dragged the country into a civil war and chaos that would last for many years. The 20 year occupation of Afghanistan is evaluated as a failed and destructive attempt at state building by the alliance in an “out of area” country. The common point of these interventions is that all of them are controversial regarding UN Security Council authorization and are military operations that go far beyond the alliance’s supposed “defense” mission, aiming at regime change. With this historical practice, NATO is subjected to criticism that it has deviated from its founding purpose, evolving into an aggressive structure that does not hesitate to use violence to protect Western interests.

Scenarios of NATO’s Death: Dissolution, Reform, or Reincarnation?

Despite all its current crises and debates on dysfunctionality, predictions of NATO’s “death” remain within the realm of possibility rather than certainty. The greatest threat facing the alliance is undoubtedly related to the degree of US commitment to the alliance. Many analysts agree that if the United States were to withdraw its military and political support, NATO would rapidly dissolve. Indeed, Polish General Koziej suggests that if the US loses interest in its European allies, NATO could disintegrate, and Europe might be forced to develop a new security arrangement.

However, it should not be forgotten that NATO has historically exhibited extraordinary resilience. Over its 76 year history, it has weathered many existential crises. For this reason, opinions predicting that the alliance will undergo a deep transformation, rather than a scenario of “death,” carry more weight. This transformation is expected to take shape along two main axes. The first is NATO’s transformation into a more symmetrical partnership as a result of Europe’s increased defense spending and strategic autonomy efforts. The second is the alliance’s attempts to no longer remain confined to the Euro Atlantic region but to open up to the “Asia Pacific” region in response to the “China threat.” Experts state that this second scenario, namely NATO’s “Asia Pacificization” efforts, is not a remedy to halt the alliance’s decline but could, on the contrary, further deepen its existing structural problems. In this context, it can be said that NATO will not experience death but a compulsory evolution or a process of “reincarnation.” This process will be decisive not only for the alliance but also for the future of the international system.

Turkey’s Crisis Ridden Membership and the Importance of the 2026 Ankara Summit

Turkey is perhaps the member with the most crisis ridden and paradoxical position within NATO. On the one hand, it provides strategic depth on the eastern flank of the alliance, while on the other hand, it has seriously unsettled its allies, particularly over the last decade, with its independent foreign policy and defense industry initiatives. The most blatant example of this tension is Turkey’s purchase of the Russian made S-400 air defense system and its consequent removal from the US led F-35 fighter jet program. This situation has led to serious criticisms that Turkey is becoming increasingly isolated within NATO and experiencing problems regarding compliance with the alliance’s fundamental standards.

In this tense atmosphere, Ankara’s hosting of the summit holds a high level of symbolic importance. For Turkey, this summit is a significant platform to re strengthen its position within the alliance, to overcome the crises experienced, and to showcase the defense industry products it has rapidly developed in recent years to all allies. However, the true success of the summit depends, beyond Turkey’s individual interests, on NATO’s ability to fill the enormous strategic void within itself. This summit could be a transformative moment where, instead of being merely a meeting to decide on a new target figure or more military buildup, the alliance redefines its role, its purpose, and even its very reason for existence in the changing world order. Otherwise, the Ankara Summit risks turning into a showcase that demonstrates the alliance’s dysfunctionality, leadership crisis, and strategic blindness to the entire world. Just as the French leader diagnosed, we may witness the last breaths of an organism that continues to give reflexive responses but whose brain no longer works.

Conclusion

The 2026 Ankara Summit is a candidate to be the arena of an alliance’s life and death struggle. In this situation, NATO, in its current state, is floundering in a quagmire of deep dysfunctionality; it functions as a geopolitical instrument of US hegemony and, through its historical practice, has evolved into an aggressive structure in serious contradiction with the definition of a “defense” alliance. Although the concrete “death” of the alliance remains a scenario for now, it is clear that if it fails to build a vision that makes its existence meaningful, it is on the verge of a series of existential crises and a possible dissolution process.

Despite this entire picture, NATO’s disappearance would trigger another process filled with uncertainties for regional and global stability. It remains uncertain whether the alliance, which has historically demonstrated the ability to weather many crises, will this time experience a strategic awakening that reverses the “brain death” diagnosis. The steps to be taken at the Ankara Summit will be a turning point in determining whether the alliance will undergo a “reincarnation” or enter a process of “slow death.” This summit, hosted by a multifaceted actor like Turkey, will be a critical week in which answers to all these existential questions take shape.

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Sefa Yürükel
Danish ethnographer and social anthropologist (MA)
Aarhus University, 1997
Independent Researcher
Fields of Research: International Politics, Public International Law, Geopolitics, Sociology, Psychology, Cultural Studies, Systems and Structures.