NATO’s “Brain-Dead” Summit

“I think what happened here is Europeans made a lot of commitments that they don’t have any intention of fulfilling—at least in the near term—and this is all about appeasing President Trump to keep him engaged with the NATO alliance.” At the recent summit in The Hague, Netherlands, NATO allies agreed to spend a target 5 percent of GDP on defense in a win for Donald Trump, who has repeatedly expressed the belief that European NATO allies are not spending enough. Was this a mistake—and can European nations afford to follow through?CSIS’s Max Bergmann, director of the CSIS Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program, joins the podcast to discuss what really happened at the NATO summit and how defense spending will impact European economies going forward.

You can listen to NATO’s “Brain-Dead” Summit online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

NATO’s “Brain-Dead” Summit is an episode from The Truth of the Matter by CSIS | Center for Strategic and International Studies.

This episode is 24:44 long.

This episode was published on Jun 30, 2025.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from The Truth of the Matter when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.