FILE PHOTO: Illustration of a miniature model of Trump with the NATO logo taken April 23, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

NATO was created in 1949 with the U.S. military as its powerful mainstay essentially to counter the Soviet Union and its Eastern bloc satellites during the Cold War.

Article 5 of NATO’s founding charter, the North Atlantic Treaty, stipulates that “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.”

NATO currently has 32 members – most of them European nations, plus the United States and Canada.

Article 5 has been activated once before – on behalf of the United States, in response to the September 11, 2001, hijacked-plane attacks on New York and Washington.

Speaking to reporters en route to The Hague summit, Trump had cast doubt over the United States’ commitment to defending its NATO partners, suggesting there were “numerous” definitions of the alliance’s mutual defence pact.

However, as we reported earlier, when asked about Article 5 on Wednesday, he told reporters: “We’re with them all the way.”

FILE PHOTO: Nauseda in The Hague, June 24, 2025. REUTERS/Toby Melville

Reaching the 5% spending target on defence by 2035 is too late and NATO’s defence spending is lagging behind that of Russia, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda told reporters on Wednesday.

He said NATO needs a frank discussion about its Article 5 mutual defence clause.

Without Trump’s engagement, NATO would only be talking about spending 2.5% of gross domestic product for defence, he added.

His remarks come after NATO members agreed on Sunday to raise their spending target to 5%.

Enshrined in Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty is the principle of collective defence – the idea that an attack on one member is considered an attack on all of them.

Trump at the NATO leaders summit, Netherlands June 25, 2025. REUTERS/Piroschka Van De Wouw/Pool

Asked about Article 5 of NATO’s charter on Wednesday, Trump told reporters: “We’re with them all the way.”

Speaking to reporters en route to a NATO summit Trump had cast doubt over the United States’ commitment to defending its NATO partners, suggesting there were “numerous” definitions to the cornerstone of the alliance’s mutual defence pact.

FILE PHOTO: Frederiksen in The Hague, Netherlands June 24, 2025. MISCHA SCHOEMAKER/Pool via REUTERS

NATO‘s 5% spending target is important and necessary because the military alliance is lagging behind in defence spending, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told reporters on Wednesday.

“The disarmament was allowed to go on for too long, so our starting point means that we are really, really, really, really, busy,” Frederiksen said.

FILE PHOTO: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, The Hague, Netherlands June 24, 2025. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann

Russia is not strong enough to represent a real threat to NATO as the alliance is “far stronger,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on arrival at the summit.

“The real threat is not security wise, it’s economic and losing our competitiveness on the global trade,” Orban added.  “NATO has no business in Ukraine. Ukraine is not member of NATO, neither Russia.”

“I think Russia is not strong enough to represent the real threat to us. We are far stronger.”

Orban also said Trump was a “man of the common sense”.

“Which means that the new wars are getting shorter and the old wars are running out of the fuel which is by which is the consequence of his activity,” he said.

Hegseth speaks alongside Rubio during a meeting between Trump and Rutte at the NATO summit, Netherlands, June 25, 2025. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Trump said the U.S. strikes on Iran “ended the war” between Iran and Israel and Tehran’s nuclear program has been put back decades.

In response to questions about the leaked intelligence, he said he believed the strikes led to “total obliteration” and the reports “really don’t know”.

He also said the intelligence following the strikes on nuclear sites was inconclusive.

“The intelligence was very inconclusive. The intelligence says we don’t know. It could’ve been very severe. That’s what the intelligence suggests,” Trump told reporters.

“It was very severe. There was obliteration,” he added.

Asked if the United States would strike again if Iran rebuilt its nuclear enrichment programme, Trump said: “Sure.”

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the bombs landed right where they were supposed to and there was low confidence in the leaked intelligence.

The Iranian conversion facility can’t even be found on the map, it is wiped out, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.

Read more here.

Speaking to reporters at the summit, Trump said the ceasefire after a 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran was a “great victory for everybody”.

“The last thing they (Iran) want to do is enrich anything right now, they want to recover.” Trump said.

“It was a very equal agreement, they both said that’s enough,” he said of the ceasefire.

Merz arrives at a dinner for NATO heads of states in The Hague, Netherlands June 24, 2025. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann

NATO allies will ramp up defence spending to counter the threat that Russia is posing to Europe’s security, not to curry favour with anyone, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Wednesday.

“Russia does not only threaten Ukraine, Russia threatens the peace and the political order on this entire continent,” he told reporters.

“We do not take these decisions to please anyone, but we act out of our own conviction that NATO as a whole, in particular the European part of NATO, must do more in the coming years to make sure we can defend ourselves,” he added.

He was alluding to Trump, who has pressed allies to step up military spending.

Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever, The Hague, June 25, 2025. LUDOVIC MARIN/Pool via REUTERS

Increasing Belgium’s core defence spending to 3.5% of GDP within 10 years is realistic, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever said on Wednesday ahead of meeting world leaders at the  summit.

“I think 3.5% in 10 years time is a realistic objective. It won’t be easy to get there, but it is what NATO has decided as necessary,” he told reporters, though adding that if capability targets can be met with less, as Spain is planning, Belgium may follow suit.

But he noted that if NATO says it takes 3.5%, “it’s probably true.”

On Sunday, NATO members agreed to raise their defence spending target to 5% of GDP by increasing the core defence goal from 2% to 3.5% and allocating an additional 1.5% for related areas such as cybersecurity and upgrading roads and bridges for military use.

FILE PHOTO: Lockheed Martin F-35A fighter jet at the Paris Airshow at Le Bourget Airport near Paris, France, June 16, 2025. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

Britain said it would buy a dozen F-35A fighter jets capable of firing tactical nuclear weapons in what it described as the biggest expansion of its nuclear deterrent in a generation.

The purchase of the Lockheed Martin jets would allow Britain’s air force to carry nuclear weapons for the first time since the end of the Cold War, Downing Street said.

“In an era of radical uncertainty we can no longer take peace for granted,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement.

The announcement was made as Starmer attends the NATO summit where European members are set to agree a new target to spend 5% of national income on defence and security.

The U.S. will supply B61 tactical nuclear weapons for use on the planes as part of a plan for Britain to take on more responsibility for European security, said a British official.

Britain said the purchase of the jets would allow it to contribute so-called dual-capable aircraft to NATO to carry nuclear weapons in the event of a conflict.

The cost of each F-35A jet is about 80 million pounds ($109 million), putting the total bill for the 12 planes at just under 1 billion pounds, according to another British official.

Read more here.

Police take position on top of a building, The Hague, Netherlands June 25, 2025. REUTERS/Toby Melville

The Hague, Netherlands June 25, 2025. REUTERS/Toby Melville

Members of the military wearing ceremonial uniforms at summit venue in The Hague, Netherlands June 25, 2025. REUTERS/Toby Melville

Kristen Michal at the NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, Wednesday, June 25, 2025. Kin Cheung/Pool via REUTERS

Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal said on Wednesday he is quite sure that NATO members will agree to implement a 5% defence spending target.

FILE PHOTO: US Army Bell helicopter lands on a field during NATO exercise, Certain Strike, in northern West Germany. September 17, 1987 REUTERS/Michael Urban

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was created in 1949 as a bulwark against the Soviet Union.

The regional defense alliance aims to enhance the stability, well-being and freedom of its members by means of a system of collective security, as defined in Article 9 of the founding treaty.

The alliance’s HQ is in Brussels.

Since it was created in 1949, it has grown from 12 founders to 32 members.

Membership is open to any “European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area”.

Its newest member is Sweden which joined the organization in 2024.

The group celebrated its 75th anniversary last year.

Ukraine has stepped up its efforts to join NATO following Russia’s invasion in 2022.

In May, Russian sources told Reuters that President Vladimir Putin’s conditions for ending the war in Ukraine include Western leaders’ pledge in writing to stop enlarging NATO eastwards to Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and other former Soviet republics.