Despite its well-advertised tensions and tectonic geopolitical changes, this week’s NATO summit demonstrated that NATO has survived and is resilient. It remains committed to reinforcing US hegemony across Europe and globally. Not a lot has changed since former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote that US global dominance relies on controlling the periphery of Eurasia: NATO in the West, in Southwest Asia to the South, as well as its Asia-Pacific allies from South Korea and Japan through the Philippines and Australia. In the 21st century, military planning as well as trade is deeply integrated across these three regions.

The Summit served to reinforce what is emerging as a new bloc system for our yet to be named era. Threatened by the US and NATO, as John Mearsheimer remarked, Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea each see the US as a mortal enemy. While each of these nations’ situations and ambitions are vastly different, they share an interest in fending off threats from the US. They are thus increasingly binding themselves to one another economically, militarily, and diplomatically.

There were four major dimensions to the summit: 1) NATO’s survival despite its fault lines, 2) the first day’s focus on expanding and integrating European and US military production infrastructures and weapons sales contracts. 3) The final declaration celebrated and committed to still more European military spending. And 4) support for Ukraine was manifest.

The move to what is termed NATO 3.0, with European nations assuming greater responsibilities for the European theater, reflects the United States relative decline, something which has been glaringly demonstrated in its failed war against Iran. Trump and his coterie understand that US “leadership” is only possible with NATO. Despite his rhetoric, Trump and company value NATO because it allows them to do what they want to do elsewhere, especially in the most economically dynamic part of the world: the Indo-Pacific.

The transatlantic and increasingly global NATO alliance remains strong despite its fault lines due to what the elites understand as overlapping US and European shared interests, if not values.

NATO Secretary General Rutte and his allies insulated the alliance from Trump, from his madness, his dementia, his claim that US ships have been attacked by the Islamic Republic of Japan, demands for Greenland, and his complaints that European nations didn’t deliver all that he wanted in his war on Iran. Toward that end, the summit was convened and adjourned in less than a day, and the final declaration was limited to just six paragraphs, leaving little room for debate.

In fact, although not widely reported, during the war European allies have allowed US warplanes and ships to operate from bases across the continent, and they have provided access to their facilities for repairs and refueling.

As we could read in Carnegie Europe, “…trans-Atlanticism was never only a values project. It was—and remains—a convergence of security, economic, and technological interests between two regions that together account for roughly 43 percent of global GDP and comprise the world’s most capable alliance.”

The best way to understand what transpired in Ankara may be to use the lens of transactional dealmaking among Mafia families. Trump and Colby got what they wanted: European elites signed onto NATO 3.0 with increased European military spending and preparations to militarily contain and press Russia, so that the US can focus on containing China’s ambitions and reinforcing its 21st century Indo-Pacific hegemony. Remember, this has been a US goal that began with Obama’s “pivot to Asia.”

With NATO 3.0, the US intends to gradually reduce its ostensible role in guaranteeing European security. It is worth noting that European NATO members already massively outspending Russia on their militaries. They have conventional military superiority over Russia. And with NATO 3.0 these differentials will only become greater.

In time, the US will provide only what its European allies cannot: nuclear threats and high-tech intelligence. But it is also worth noting is that Trump said nothing in Ankara about pulling more troops out of Europe. The announced 5,000 troop reduction in Germany has yet to begin, and a commitment for increased US troop rotations in Poland was made. The Hegseth-Colby campaign for major US force reductions in Europe has been slowed by the two-month review won by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. In the end, Trump, and no one else, is the decision maker. Remember too that despite Trump ranting about NATO’s limited support for his war against Iran, the US would be very limited in its Southwest Asian and North African power projection without it bases still in Europe.

The West wasn’t shattered. In the transactional exchange, the US joined the dominant European narrative forged by the Baltic states and Poland about Russia and signed onto the summit’s final declaration with its commitments to support Ukraine in the war with Russia. This includes blessing Ukrainian debilitating attacks on Russian energy infrastructure deep within Russia. The declaration identified Russia as a long-term threat and reinterred the Treaty’s Article V commitment to come to the aid of any NATO member that is attacked. Ukraine won’t be joining NATO any time soon, but its advanced military technologies and warfighting experience make it an increasingly powerful adjunct to NATO.

In fact, the arms sales announced as the summit began serve as glue for the alliance’s future. Fifty billion dollars in weapons contracts were signed, with commitments made to Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Palantir, Anduril, Germany’s Rheinmetall, French Airbus, Sweden’s Saab, and Turkey’s Aselsan. Even Denmark, despite Trump’s Greenland threats, will be buying US Hellfire missiles and ships to patrol the Arctic.

NATO 3.0 makes it possible for the US to reinforce its lattice-like military alliance system and its military buildup across the Indo-Pacific. Note that the RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific) naval show of force was held at the same time as the NATO summit. It includes the forces of 10 of 30 NATO nations. Almost one-third of all NATO countries sent military forces: land, air, and sea to Hawaii to participate in the RIMPAC 38-day war drills.

The summit also demonstrated Turkey’s increased role in NATO, both in relation to Southwest Asia, but also via its increased weapons production capacity for the alliance. Trump tossed........

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