MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
A NATO summit begins tomorrow in the Netherlands. President Trump is expected to attend. The meeting with European allies comes a few days after U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites, and, of course, amid President Trump's ongoing push for allies to spend more on defense. We've called Ambassador Kurt Volker to hear more about what might or might not be accomplished at this summit and what the atmosphere might be. We called him because he served as U.S. ambassador to NATO under former President George W. Bush and as special envoy to Ukraine in the first Trump administration. Good morning, Ambassador. Thank you so much for joining us once again.
KURT VOLKER: Good morning. Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: So what's your sense of how this - these U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend changes the dynamic at this summit?
VOLKER: Well, I think it's going to grab a lot of the attention now. This summit would have been all about NATO itself, all about the transatlantic dynamic, increasing defense spending, and so forth. But now - I think that will be done, but all of the discussion and all of the attention, all the news coverage, it's going to be focused on Iran and what the next steps are.
MARTIN: So what - are there any specific goals coming out of this summit?
VOLKER: Well, the most important thing is President Trump's goal of having all of our European allies commit to spending 5% of GDP on defense. And that's broken into two categories, 3.5% we would call hard defense spending through defense budgets, arms, personnel, equipment, and then 1.5% that is related, such as infrastructure, roads, bridges, cyber defense and so forth. That is the No. 1 thing. And a lot of the other things about NATO that would normally be part of a NATO summit, all these meetings with different partners and so forth, Ukraine, for example, all those things are being downplayed and minimized just to keep the focus on strengthening NATO, getting our allies to spend more, and then having an opportunity for the U.S. to rebalance so that we are not doing as much within NATO as we are now.
MARTIN: But let's not forget about Ukraine. I mean, the war there is still going on. Does this defense spending or this pledged defense spending increase have any implications for Ukraine, or is this mainly just to - forgive me for using this term - to placate President Trump, who has been so vocal about this?
VOLKER: Well, they're not mutually exclusive. You have a major war in Europe right now, the biggest war since World War II. Lots of casualties and a threat to all of Europe. Especially if Putin were to prevail in Ukraine, it would threaten other NATO allies because he's declared his intent to retake all of the lands that used to belong to Russia. So that includes several NATO allies. So spending more on defense, having Europe able to defend itself better is absolutely essential. U.S. presidents have been asking for this for decades, but now it is, like, really critical. In addition to that, by spending more, they will be able to do more to help Ukraine. Right now, the U.S. has done the lion's share of the military support for Ukraine. European allies have done a lot, but by spending more, they will be able to do more for Ukraine as well, and that will make Ukraine better off. It will also make Europe safer.
MARTIN: So let me just pivot to Iran, given that we have about a minute left. You know, the Iranians have been very vocal about the fact that they are expecting to retaliate, and one assumes at a time and a place of their choosing. But if Iran does retaliate directly against the U.S., what would NATO's role be given the alliance's commitment to defend any member that's attacked?
VOLKER: Well, it depends on what it really looks like. My suspicion is that we're looking at localized attacks, whether it's against U.S. forces in Iraq or U.S. bases elsewhere in the world, maybe terrorist attacks against U.S. interests - could be in the U.S., could be in Europe, could be in the Middle East. And that does not typically invoke Article 5. We've seen that in the past. We've seen other allies attacked in their interests abroad in, like, a terrorist attack. That does not necessarily invoke Article 5, only if it's a real major attack on the homeland of the United States.
MARTIN: That is Ambassador Kurt Volker. He is, as we said, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO and a former special envoy to Ukraine. Ambassador Volker, thanks so much for sharing these insights.
VOLKER: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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