ANKARA, July 8. /TASS/. The decisions of the NATO summits have ceased to be binding, and there is no consensus among the members on the common goals due to the wide geography and differences of interests, said Hasan Unal, a well-known Turkish political scientist and professor at the Bashkent University in Ankara.
"The NATO summits have now become strange events. For example, Spain openly says that it is against increasing defense budgets, but does not veto it, realizing that even after making the decision, it will not comply with it. And look at the final document of the summit. In previous years, it was like an academic work containing 90 articles. And now it's a little communique. It is very difficult to expect that the NATO countries will unite for common goals due to the very wide geography of the alliance. Turkey and, say, the Baltic states have different geopolitical and regional interests," Unal told TASS in an interview.
Unal believes that NATO has turned from a "military alliance into a conversation club. For example, during the Cold War, say, during the [US President Ronald] Reagan years, the NATO summit was held, and very important decisions were made, carefully worded. And it was taken seriously," the expert believes. In his opinion, some NATO countries "currently do not take the alliance's decisions seriously, because they consider them inapplicable.
"From 2022 to 2024, the final documents of the NATO summit talked about Russia as an enemy, about sanctions against it. Turkey did not veto this. And agreeing that such a decision would be made, it was not going to fulfill it. Because Turkey does not consider Russia an enemy, does not agree with the sanctions and will not implement what is written in practice. It didn't do it."
When asked whether NATO's decision to raise defense spending to 5% of GDP could be preparation for a serious military confrontation on the continent, Unal noted that he does not see the possibility of a major war in this context. "I've talked to many high-ranking military officials. They say that the opportunities to increase spending so much vary greatly from country to country, and it is impossible to implement such a plan to increase investment across the entire alliance. In those areas where financing has already begun, the most minimal results will be achieved at least in 10 years. And it will take 30-40 years for an increase in contributions to defense to begin to produce full-fledged results," he said.