U.S. Drives Europe Toward More Militarism and Pushes NATO Into the Pacific to Wage War on China

Photo from Breaking Defense

U.S. Drives Europe Toward More Militarism and Pushes NATO Into the Pacific to Wage War on China

The 2026 NATO Summit in Ankara, held on July 7–8, 2026, like the 2025 summit in The Hague, focused on a leaner but more costly and deadly agenda. With only six points, NATO's final declaration of unity continues to cement the alliance as the most heavily armed, pro-U.S. offensive military alliance in the world. In the process, it bankrupts member countries, enriches weapons and high-tech corporations, and brings all nations within the U.S.-led imperialist bloc into alignment with Washington's war strategy to confront China in Asia and the Pacific.

More than any previous summit, this one demonstrates how NATO, in pursuing its mission across the three main fronts of U.S. led war, is actively waging, and gearing up for war on these three fronts set by the U.S.: against Russia, against Iran, and against China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). In doing so, it is making the world more unsafe, unstable, and violent for the people.

U.S., NATO, and the Front Against Russia: Shifting the Burden to Europe to Contain Russia

On the first front, against Russia, the U.S. is enlisting Europe to contain the threat in Eastern Europe. A stated U.S. goal at the Ankara summit was to secure increased defense spending from European allies. Washington is holding NATO members accountable to the commitment made in The Hague in 2025 to reach a defense spending target of 5% of GDP by 2035. U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker characterized the Ankara summit as the moment for allies to deliver on these pledges.

This pressure has already produced results as European NATO members weapons imports increased by 143% from 2021 to 2025 compared to the previous five-year period, with U.S. suppliers accounting for 58% of that total. At the Ankara summit alone, over $50 billion in new arms contracts were announced, with U.S. companies such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman being the main sources of these weapons, including Germany's confirmation that it would purchase U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles and Trump's declaration that he will grant Ukraine the license to domestically manufacture Patriot air defense missiles. Ankara also marks the first time the Defense Industry Forum, previously relegated to a side event at NATO summits, was included in the official program, giving U.S. weapons and war corporations an active and official role within the summit itself.

This U.S.-driven militarism, supported by European ruling classes, has nourished the rise of fascist and chauvinist forces that feed on the worsening misery of working people. They use racist and xenophobic hysteria against migrants to manufacture consent for war against other regional powers like Russia or any nation that defies imperialist domination like Iran, all while using public revenue and austerity measures for more arms and military technology.

U.S., NATO, and the Front Against Iran and the Axis of Resistance: Normalizing Relations with Israel across West Asia towards Attempting to Weaken the Popular Resistance

Hosted by Turkey and unfolding amid the U.S.'s violation of the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran, signed only a month prior, the U.S.-Zionist war on Iran was a major topic of the two-day gathering. In West Asia, U.S. imperialism continues to attempt to design the region in the image of the Zionist entity, pushing normalization with Gulf monarchies through the Abraham Accords and using NATO to ease tensions between Turkey and Israel.Turkey's geopolitical position makes it a key player in NATO's strategy on multiple fronts, with a new naval command under construction in the Bosphorus directed toward Russia, while the new NATO Corps headquarters in Adana is oriented toward Iran. Meanwhile, Turkey continues its own brutal campaigns of repression against the Kurdish people inside and across its borders, while maintaining an illegal military occupation in northern Cyprus.

The current goal of the U.S. in West Asia is to "remake" region with Israel as the dominant power so the U.S. can shift its full attention to the Pacific, where it looks to confront China.

Beyond the shallow condemnations from European allies regarding the U.S.-Zionist war on Iran earlier in the year, Mark Rutte boasted that between 4,000 and 5,000 aircraft had been launched from NATO members' bases to support attacks on Iran as of June, 2026. In response to the military actions, Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) and its army conducted multiple waves of retaliatory strikes against U.S. military assets across the region. The summit happened as the U.S. bombed cities in southern Iran while Ayatollah Khamenei's funeral procession took place, and Rutte once again made clear where NATO stands, saying that the violations of the MoU were "extremely necessary."


U.S., NATO, and the Front Against China and the DPRK: The Pivot to the Pacific as the Main U.S. Strategy to Contain Its Self-Declared Biggest Enemy- China

The U.S. used the Ankara summit to advance its strategic pivot to the Asia-Pacific, pushing NATO to align more closely with U.S. interests in the Indo-Pacific theater. Since the second Trump administration took power, U.S. officials, including Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, explicitly declared that the era of the U.S. subsidizing the defense of wealthy nations is over. They framed this as an opportunity for European allies to take on greater responsibility for their own continental defense, thereby freeing up U.S. resources and focus for Asia and the Pacific region.

In recent years the participation of NATO's four Asia Pacific partners--Japan, the Republic of Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, in summit-related events, this marks a clear step toward deepening NATO's engagement with the region to counterbalance China, in accordance with the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy. In Ankara, discussions with these four partners focused on expanding cooperation in defense industries and advanced technologies, with the U.S. objective of supercharging the weapons supply chain and strengthening its position in the Asia-Pacific with NATO's help.

This military buildup is accompanied by weapons testing and provocations in exercises such as Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC), in which many NATO members participate alongside U.S. Pacific allies, as well as Balikatan in the Philippines and Resolute Dragon in Japan.

Wherever NATO Implements Its Strategy, the People Continue to Resist

At this year's Summit, NATO members buckled to the dictates of the U.S., putting NATO even more at the service of U.S. war strategy to fulfill its war goals of supercharging war and weapons companies' production and selling the lie that militarism will bring about peace.

In Turkey, host of this year's summit, this resistance took to the streets where thousands protested the warmongering convention. Demonstrators rallied in Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir, carrying banners with calls such as "NATO wants war, workers want peace" and "Budget for the people, not for NATO."

Continuing with its anti people agenda Turkish authorities in partnership with NATO imposed a ban on demonstrations and launched widespread crackdowns. More than 100 people were detained during an anti-NATO protest in Ankara just days before the summit began, and earlier operations saw over 200 individuals arrested, including a journalist, lawyers, an academic, and a union official, with authorities issuing warrants for 241 people.

In 2024 (Washington D.C.) and 2025 (The Hague), the Resist U.S.-Led War Movement, together with its allies, built the Resist NATO campaign that mobilized thousands across Europe and the U.S. This year, in partnership with its allies in the International People's Front and the International League of People's Struggle, we are participating in the Resistance for Just Peace and Liberation campaign. From April 2026 to November 2026, the campaign is organizing several activities, including webinars, anti-NATO actions, a Festival of Resistance for Peace, Democracy and Liberation (Brussels, 28 August), and the International Peoples' Tribunal on Cyprus (Brussels, 13–14 November), which will expose British and Turkish crimes on the island and the continued occupation of the territory by NATO forces. You can get to know more about the campaign and engage with it by following @ILPS.europe

History makes clear that as long as NATO exists, the conditions for a just peace can never develop. The only solution is for the people to resist NATO and fight for a just and lasting peace until it is achieved!

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