BERLIN, June 26. /TASS/. Carlo Masala, a well-known military expert in Germany and professor at the Bundeswehr University in Munich, believes that the NATO summit in The Hague was, overall, a "step backwards" for the alliance. He shared this opinion in an interview with the DPA agency.
"This was definitely not a summit where one could say that NATO became stronger after it," the expert noted. He drew attention to the fact that the topic of Ukraine did not play a special role at the meeting. "I would say that NATO is currently in a very shaky position," Masala added.
The expert recalled that the decision of NATO countries to increase defense spending to 5% of their GDP by 2035 is, first of all, part of a strategy designed to please US President Donald Trump. "After all, these 5% do not emerge from the European discussion, but they are connected with the fear that if they are not accepted, the US will give up its security guarantees," he noted. In addition, in his opinion, doubts about the commitment of the United States to its obligations within the alliance have not yet been dispelled. "In the case of Trump, the situation is such that even if he says today that he supports it, tomorrow everything may be completely different," Masala warns. At the same time, he sharply criticized the behavior of NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the summit and his attempts to flatter Trump. "What Rutte did, including at the press conference with Trump, is more than unseemly. I can understand that a lot is being done to keep the Americans in Europe, but doing it with such servility as Rutte does is completely inappropriate for the NATO secretary-general," the expert emphasized. Earlier, Trump posted on the social network Truth Social a flattering personal message from Rutte that he had received on the eve of the NATO summit, in which the latter congratulated Trump for making Europe pay a "big price" for its weapons. Later, Rutte called the US president "daddy."