Insights | Scholar: Hague Summit underscores NATO's inevitable divisions and uncertain future
(ECNS) -- The NATO Summit held in The Hague, the Netherlands, from June 24 to 25 unfolded amid internal divisions and rising geopolitical tension. Li Haidong, a professor at China Foreign Affairs University, analyzed the summit in an article, arguing that it underscores NATO's increasingly fractured direction and inevitable decline.
Li pointed out that this summit was the most divisive among member states, lacking fundamental cooperation consensus since the end of the Cold War.
He added that the event fully exposed the internal division and estrangement within NATO, as well as the inherent destructive characteristics of NATO itself towards the European and global security, indicating bleak development prospects of NATO in the future.
Against the backdrop of the prolonged Ukraine crisis and dramatic changes in the Israel-Iran conflict, NATO convened its summit in The Hague, the Netherlands, from June 24th to 25th, 2025. Notably different from the Washington Summit Declaration issued at last year's NATO summit, which consisted of a lengthy 38 paragraphs plus a special 6-paragraph section on aiding Ukraine, the Hague Summit Declaration issued this year is extremely brief, comprising only 5 paragraphs. Observing from multiple angles, including the core issues discussed by NATO member states at this summit, the interactions among participants, and the response of international public opinion, this summit fully demonstrates the deepening internal divisions and estrangement within NATO, as well as NATO's inherent destructive impact on the security situation in Europe and globally.
First, the "Trump Shock" phenomenon has led to a widespread expectation that NATO's future trajectory is not optimistic.
The current U.S. government, which views NATO's functions from a transactional perspective, believes it is a "negative asset" for the U.S. and a tool for it to pay the "security bill" for European countries. If other NATO members do not increase their military spending to 5% of their respective GDP, the U.S. will substantially reduce or abandon its "protection responsibilities" toward them. As the leading country within NATO, this unprecedented U.S. policy has caused numerous member states to face heightened security anxiety and significantly increase military spending.
Furthermore, the U.S. seeks to improve relations with Russia and reduce the importance of its relationship with Ukraine, which clearly contradicts the stance of European countries that insist on aiding Ukraine and opposing Russia, and also runs counter to the rationale for NATO's existence as a military alliance. The "Hague Summit Declaration" reached through compromise among NATO countries does not mention Russia and Ukraine at all. Evidently, the concept repeatedly emphasized by NATO in recent years that Russia is its "greatest threat" is no longer a solid consensus within NATO, and there are obviously serious divisions within NATO on this issue.
What's more, the U.S. has seriously expressed its stance over the past five months of intending to make Canada the so-called 51st U.S. state and annex Greenland, the semi-autonomous Danish territory, which has placed the U.S. in opposition to Canada and Denmark, two founding member states of NATO. The traditional pattern of NATO uniting forces to confront external enemies is gradually being replaced by hostility among its own members.
The abrupt and systematic adjustment of U.S. policy toward NATO due to the "Trump Shock" has placed NATO itself in a situation of more internal fragmentation and loss of external vitality. This summit has revealed the bleak development prospect of NATO's future.
Second, the Hague NATO Summit significantly raised the military spending of each member state to 5% of GDP, touting it as the core "achievement" of the summit. However, realizing this goal will be very difficult.
Spain has explicitly stated that it is difficult to achieve this goal and has obtained a "special exception" approved by NATO, while other member states have also expressed some difficulties in reaching the target. It can be anticipated that forcibly increasing military spending would plunge NATO members' social- economic plans into a predicament, which, in turn, will trigger strong public dissatisfaction and resistance towards NATO within these countries. As a result, the ultimate outcome may not be an enhancement of NATO's overall military capability, but rather, a tragic erosion of internal cohesion and domestic consensus of the political foundation of NATO. In the long run, this will backfire as a "boomerang" within NATO.
Of course, the 5% GDP target also reveals NATO's basic expectation that the overall security situation in Europe and regions beyond Europe is extremely chaotic, with continuous conflicts and confrontations. Indeed, the survival strategy of a military alliance relies on crises, conflicts, and even wars, and NATO is no exception. The Ukraine crisis seems to have not met NATO's willingness to fully strengthen its functions. On the contrary, higher military spending indicates that NATO is attempting to create greater crises and confrontations in regions beyond Europe. This will inevitably lead to the exacerbation of inherent conflicts among the already tense U.S.-Europe relations.
Regarding the geographical scope where NATO should play a role, there is obviously an increasingly evident divergence between the U.S. and Europe. For European countries, NATO should focus on security challenges mainly from Russia in the European region, while for the U.S., NATO must be adjusted according to its own strategic planning, shifting to gradually focus on geopolitical competition in the Asia-Pacific region. This significant difference in the understanding of NATO's strategic value between the U.S. and Europe will inevitably become more pronounced with the substantial increase in their respective military spending. The history of the U.S. manipulating NATO's transformation over the long term indicates that NATO can hardly avoid being positioned as a destroyer of global peace and stability.
Third, the absence of leaders from South Korea, Japan, and Australia at the NATO Summit conveys the message that NATO's extension of its reach to the Asia-Pacific region is widely questioned.
In 2022, NATO established a mechanism to invite leaders from four Asia-Pacific countries—South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand—to attend its summits, aiming to demonstrate NATO's future direction and its so-called "global nature". However, NATO's numerous bad records of creating division and intensifying confrontation in Europe have made many Asia-Pacific countries, including those mentioned more alert and resistant.
The U.S. policy of "abandoning allies when they are no longer useful" is obviously no longer acceptable to countries like South Korea, Japan, and Australia. Over the past five months, the U.S. policies of imposing high tariffs on its Asia-Pacific allies and forcing them to increase military spending have fully exposed its hegemonic behavior. Such policies have also prompted these countries to reassess the unpredictable impact of the U.S. drawing NATO into the Asia-Pacific region. The U.S. practice of strengthening alliances by creating crises in the Asia-Pacific region for its own hegemonic self-interest is obviously difficult to accept even by its allies. These allies expect that the Asia-Pacific region will remain the most economically vibrant and long-stable regional pattern in the world. It can also be expected that the pace of NATO expanding to Asia will be a process filled with more internal disputes among NATO itself and the U.S.'s Asia-Pacific allies.
Fourth, the Hague NATO Summit followed the narrative of hyping up the "China threat theory" that NATO has used in recent years, continuing to expose its obsession with great-power strategic competition and confrontation tactics.
During the summit, the NATO Secretary-General went to great lengths to play up the growth in the number of Chinese naval vessels and nuclear warheads, and expressed so-called concerns on the Taiwan question. The NATO Secretary-General also called on NATO to be prepared, and shifted the blame for the intractable Ukraine crisis to countries like China, North Korea, and Iran. Such remarks show that NATO itself is not satisfied with strengthening its role as a regional security organization by creating confrontation with Russia and dividing European security. It also aims to accelerate the process of establishing its "global" functional positioning by creating frictions with China in the Asia-Pacific region.
Against the backdrop of globalization and mutual dependence among countries, NATO has placed the key to its "survival" in creating great-power confrontations and forcing countries to take sides in an "alliance-oriented" manner, which is indeed a true portrayal of its potential for harm.
The Hague NATO Summit may be the most divisive among member states lacking fundamental cooperation consensus since the end of the Cold War, fully demonstrating the awkward position and poor status of this organization in the current international security landscape. The world needs lasting peace and stability, and NATO, being out of step with the general trend of the times, will eventually be buried in the historical tide.