NATO

Overview

In April 2025, the Trump administration fired the alliance’s own American representative to it. Three sources told Reuters that U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield — the U.S. military representative to the NATO Military Committee and the only woman on the alliance’s top military body — had been removed from her job, with allies formally notified of the decision (Reuters). The firing, first reported by Reuters, came three days after the removal of Gen. Timothy Haugh, the head of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, and weeks after the firing of Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to serve as chief of naval operations (Reuters). It was at least the ninth senior-officer firing of the second Trump administration, and officials told Reuters it appeared tied to comments Chatfield had made supporting diversity in the force — though no official reason was ever given (Reuters).

Chatfield was a three-star officer and a helicopter pilot who had commanded an MH-60S Sea Hawk expeditionary helicopter squadron in 2005–2006, and she was the first woman to lead the Naval War College, a post she held until 2023 (Reuters). Her removal was the loudest signal of an administration that had, in Reuters’ words, “taken a cool view of NATO, as well as European allies, since taking office in January” — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s first trip to NATO headquarters in February had featured a warning to Europe against treating the United States like a “sucker” responsible for its own defense (Reuters). Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the dismissal “unjustified” and “disgraceful” (Reuters).

What happened next is the part the encyclopedia summaries miss. The same administration that fired NATO’s American representative went on to steer the alliance to its most ambitious spending target in history. At the June 2025 summit in The Hague, the allies committed to spending 5% of GDP annually on defense and security by 2035 — a leap from the old 2% benchmark, split between 3.5% for core military requirements and 1.5% for broader security investments such as infrastructure and industrial capacity (Türkiye Today). The July 2026 summit in Ankara reaffirmed both that commitment and the allies’ support for Ukraine (NDTV). And in September 2026, the president who had called NATO “obsolete” in 2017 stood at the UN General Assembly and hailed the alliance: “NATO is doing things that nobody thought they would be able to do, including raising their number to 5 percent from 2 percent. That’s going to be much greater protection for them” (Hindustan Times).

The 5% target — and who is actually there

The Ankara summit’s new benchmark looks very different depending on which ally you measure. According to NATO’s latest defence expenditure estimates, reported by NDTV, only two of the 32 members have already crossed the 5% line in 2026: Lithuania, projected at 5.33% of GDP, and Estonia at 5.10% (NDTV). Both sit on NATO’s eastern flank, among the alliance’s closest members to Russia — and the countries nearest the milestone share that geography. Latvia is projected at 4.92% and Poland at 4.68% (NDTV).

The big economies lag far behind. The United States is projected to spend 3.17% of GDP — 1.83 points short of the new target — with Germany at 2.69%, the United Kingdom at 2.56%, France at 2.22%, Italy at 2.10%, and Canada at 2.13% (NDTV). For now, in other words, the alliance’s biggest spenders are not its largest economies but the countries physically closest to Russia, whose proximity to the Russia–Ukraine conflict has pushed them to commit far faster than their western counterparts (NDTV).

The new American pressure campaign has a name. At a Pentagon meeting on September 15, 2026 with German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, Hegseth framed the effort as “NATO 3.0” — strengthening the alliance’s military capabilities, boosting defense production, and shifting greater responsibility for Europe’s conventional defense onto European allies themselves — while signing an agreement to align American and German weapons procurement systems (Türkiye Today). Hegseth credited Germany with moving closer to the 5% target and leading the way on the commitment made at The Hague the year before (Türkiye Today).

The Arctic flank

NATO’s 2026 story extends past budgets into territory. On the sidelines of the September 2026 UN General Assembly, the United States, Denmark, and Greenland signed a 10-page agreement giving the U.S. control over security in Denmark’s autonomous Arctic territory (Hindustan Times). The deal reaffirmed “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark” and recognized Greenland’s “right to self-determination,” while letting Washington establish military bases at Narsarsuaq in the south and Mestersvig in the east — in addition to the Pituffik base it already operates in the north (Hindustan Times).

The agreement’s security teeth are aimed at non-allied powers. States or investors from a country that is not a NATO member, a NATO partner, or an EU member state are barred from control, significant influence, or access to non-public information that could threaten national security or public order in Greenland’s sensitive sectors — a provision reported by AFP as explicitly aimed at keeping China and Russia from gaining an Arctic foothold (Hindustan Times). The alliance that was founded to defend the North Atlantic in 1949 is, in 2026, hardening that same ocean’s northern edge.

What NATO is, in its own history

The alliance was born from Cold War fracture. In April 1949, representatives of 12 nations — the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Luxembourg, Iceland, Italy and Portugal — gathered in Washington, D.C. to sign the North Atlantic Treaty (HISTORY). President Harry S. Truman declared at the signing ceremony: “Men with courage and vision can still determine their own destiny. They can choose slavery or freedom — war or peace” (HISTORY).

The treaty’s key provision, Article 5, begins: “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all” — though the commitment left it to each member state’s judgment to decide exactly how it would contribute (HISTORY). That collective-defense clause has been formally invoked exactly once: on September 12, 2001, the day after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, in a four-paragraph resolution that passed unanimously (HISTORY). The response included Operation Eagle Assist, in which NATO aircraft patrolled the skies over the United States for seven months, and Operation Active Endeavour, the naval counterterrorism mission in the Mediterranean that ran until 2016 — alongside the alliance’s mission in Afghanistan (HISTORY).

After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the alliance opened its doors to former Warsaw Pact states and ex-Soviet republics, broadened its role to peacekeeping in Bosnia and the 1999 bombing campaign in defense of Kosovo, and tripled the NATO Response Force after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea (HISTORY). In 2014 the members agreed to the 2%-of-GDP spending guideline — a non-binding goal most failed to meet, and the one the 5% target has now replaced (HISTORY).

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not give an official reason for Chatfield’s dismissal — the Pentagon never confirmed one, and the DEI-related motive is one anonymous source’s belief, not an established fact. It does not claim the 5% target is binding on members, nor does it predict which allies will reach it by 2035. The Greenland agreement is described from AFP wire reporting, not from a full reading of the 10-page text, so this profile does not assert the agreement’s complete legal terms. It does not attempt a full accession chronology of all 32 members. And it does not claim that the Trump administration’s 2025 “cool view” of NATO has been permanently reversed — the praise of 2026 is reported as what it is, a September 2026 posture, not a forecast.