The NATO summit in Ankara ended on July 8 with the usual communiques about unity and burden-sharing. But the two wars that dominated the room, Ukraine and Iran, are moving in opposite directions, and the alliance is only really steering one of them.
On Ukraine, the alliance found something close to consensus. NATO leaders confirmed a 70-billion-euro ($80 billion) package of military equipment, aid and training for Ukraine in 2026, with plans to maintain at least that level in 2027. The money is mostly a repackaging of existing national commitments rather than new cash, but the political signal matters: Europe is signaling it will carry the weight as the United States pivots focus.
Finland’s President Alexander Stubb captured the mood. Ukraine, he said, is “winning on the battlefield.” Its long-range strike campaign has convinced even skeptical allies that Kyiv’s position is strengthening. Trump, meeting Zelenskyy on the summit sidelines, acknowledged the drone strategy is “an escalation that can help lead to an end.”
The most concrete outcome for Ukraine came the day after the summit closed: Trump announced the US will allow Ukraine to manufacture Patriot missiles, a capability Kyiv has demanded for years to defend its skies against Russian ballistic and cruise missiles.
Iran was a different story.
The ceasefire between the United States and Iran, already fragile, collapsed during the summit. On July 7, three commercial tankers, including a Saudi-flagged crude carrier and a Qatari LNG vessel, were hit in the Strait of Hormuz. The US, Qatar and Saudi Arabia attributed the attacks to Iran. Washington responded with strikes on more than 80 targets inside Iran and revoked the temporary sanctions waiver that had permitted Iranian oil sales.
Trump declared the ceasefire “over.”
European allies were caught off guard. The US-Israeli campaign against Iran, operation “Epic Fury”, has been one of the most divisive issues inside NATO this year. Many European governments felt Washington did not consult them before the strikes began. The tension spilled into the summit hall: the Iran war is an American-led operation, not a NATO one, and the alliance has no unified position on how to manage its aftermath.
The result is a strange asymmetry. On Ukraine, NATO is moving with purpose, spending money, building industrial capacity, preparing for the long haul. On Iran, the alliance is a bystander, watching the US and Iran spiral back toward open conflict with no common plan.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte described Trump’s criticisms of European allies as a “family argument.” But the Iran divide is not family drama. It is a structural fracture. The alliance has no mechanism for managing a war that one member, the most powerful one, is fighting on its own terms.
Where the two wars go from here depends on different things. Ukraine’s trajectory hinges on whether Europe can sustain the industrial production needed to keep Kyiv equipped through 2027 and beyond. Iran’s trajectory depends on whether Washington and Tehran can find a diplomatic off-ramp before the Strait of Hormuz becomes a permanent battleground.
One thing is clear: the Ankara summit did not resolve either question. It only confirmed that NATO is prepared for one war and unprepared for the other.