POLICY BRIEF Toms Rostoks NATO summit in The Hague: the Baltic perspective Summary → The NATO summit in The Hague was expected to be uneventful, and it was. The allies secured US President Donald J. Trump’s commitment to Article 5, and the United States, in turn, extracted a commitment from European members to ramp up defence spending. This is a significant step forward in strengthening Baltic se­curity. A stronger alliance will be better prepared to de­ter Russia. → The concern that President Trump would attend the summit and cause havoc by undermining NATO unity and the US commitment to the Alliance did not materi­alise. Trump’s rhetoric on NATO was surprisingly posi­tive. → The commitment to spend 5 per cent of GDP on de ­fence is a milestone in NATO’s efforts to rebuild mem­ber states’ militaries. Defence spending is set to grow to 3.5 per cent of GDP by 2035, and additional 1.5 per cent will contribute to various defence- and security-related efforts. → The summit represented a kind of»victory lap« for Trump, as his efforts to cajole allies to spend much more on defence finally succeeded. The European allies went out of their way to make the summit a win for the US president. → But while defence spending overall will increase over the coming years, there will be considerable variation across NATO in terms of how much allies will actually commit to on defence. Allies who do not meet NATO’s Wales summit spending target of 2 per cent of GDP are unlikely to meet the much higher 3.5 per cent spending target. → The summit was notable for the lack of progress on NATO’s Russia strategy and Ukraine-related commit­ments. These issues were put on hold because of US ef­forts to pursue diplomacy with Russia. These efforts are yet to yield any substantive results, however. → The Baltic states have much work to do behind the scenes to ensure that the decisions taken in The Hague are implemented, while also taking an active part in pre­paring the agenda of the next NATO summit in Ankara. NATO summit in The Hague: the Baltic perspective 1