The Current - What’s on the agenda at the NATO summit?

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

NATO leaders are meeting for a historic summit. The gathering comes as conflicts continue in Ukraine and Gaza, and as a ceasefire between Iran and Israel remains fragile. We talk to former Canadian ambassador Kerry Buck, and former U.S. ambassador to NATO, Douglas Lute, about what’s on the agenda – and what’s at stake. And what Prime Minister Mark Carney needs to do to call the meeting a success.

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A complete and total ceasefire. That was Donald Trump's social media post just yesterday saying the war between Iran and Israel would end today. But now, any ceasefire is already on shaky ground with the US president accusing both countries of violating the agreement within its first few hours and lashing out at both Iran and Israel. This after Iran attacked a US military base in Qatar yesterday but with advance notice and no casualties. Today, NATO leaders are meeting in Europe against the backdrop of those conflicts in the Middle East. We'll talk about NATO's role in just a moment. But first, we are joined by CBC's Senior

International Correspondent, Margaret Evans. Margaret, very fluid situation with a Margaret, very fluid situation with a tentative ceasefire. What's the state of it so far? Well, people are hoping that, you know, it hasn't been torpedoed, if you'll excuse the phrase, by the events of this morning. They're hoping that it will continue, certainly in Israel and certainly in Iran. But people are confused. You know, the announcement from Donald Trump came overnight, as you know, and people were awoken in Israel by air raid sirens before the ceasefire deadline of 7 a.m. by, you know,

the call to go to shelters. And there were about three of them this morning. And so that's what they woke up to. Then they woke up to the news that there was a ceasefire. to go to shelters and there were about three of them this morning. And so that's what they woke up to. Then they woke up to the news that there was a ceasefire. There was confirmation from both Iran and Israel that they had accepted the ceasefire. And then you had this news about an hour or so after that from the Israeli military saying that they had intercepted some missiles, at least one from Iran.

Ceasefires are never clean. The US president on his way to NATO this morning appeared, according to journalists in Washington, frustrated and angry, urging both countries not to drop bombs to bring those pilots home. Is there an expectation that it will be a quiet day or? It's hard to say. The Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz reacted very strongly to the apparent breaking of the ceasefire by Iran. Of course, Iran has denied that it broke the ceasefire. But the minister basically said he had ordered a full

response. He wanted hard, powerful strikes. He said hitting regime targets in the centre of Tehran. If that happens, of course, I think you can expect that Iran will respond.

So I think there will be a lot of pressure now from diplomats of the United States, happens, of course, I think you can expect that Iran will respond. So I think there will be a lot of pressure now from diplomats around the world to try to dial it back again if they can, because I think there was a feeling up to this point that both sides were potentially looking for the off-ramp. Certainly that was the expectation given that Iran had responded to the U.S. participation in strikes on Iran by launching a missile strike before all this happened overnight at a U.S. military base in Qatar.

But it was not seen as a particularly strong response, and that's why it's being interpreted as a desire by Iran to dial back. And this morning, when Israel was announcing that it had accepted the terms of the ceasefire, we had statements both from the Israeli military and from the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying this was a victory for Israel, that they had eliminated two existential threats to Israel. That is how many Israelis see Iran and its attitude towards Israel. They said that they had eliminated the threat from both Iran's nuclear capabilities and

from its ballistic missile capabilities. So both sides were heading for that exit ramp, but it's a very tense day ahead. And of course, there are a lot of questions for the future, what happens in the days ahead, particularly vis-à-vis the impact on the regime in Iran. Margaret, just on those events in Qatar yesterday, you know, obviously Iran calibrated that response and said it didn't want to inflame its, quote, brotherly Qatar nation and the noble people there. But what would that attack do to the relationship between Iran and Arab nations?

Well, you know, it would be seen as particularly egregious by Qatar, who, you know, they, one of the Gulf states to come out first to condemn Israeli attacks on Iran. But it was, it was Qatar also that it reportedly mediated this ceasefire and the communications going back and forth between Iran, Israel and the United States. Regardless of that strike, what the Gulf countries want is not to escalate. And so I think there would be a strong desire on the part of Qatar not to inflame matters worse, more I should say, because the fear of a spillover into the Gulf

countries has really been very strong and right up to the start of Israel's attack against Iran some 12 days ago now, they were, you know, using all diplomatic means to convince Israel not to go ahead. Well, it's going to be a very confusing still and complicated day. I know you're busy on your way to do your reporting. Israel, thank you so much for joining us, Margaret. Thanks, Susan. Margaret Evans is the CBC Senior International Correspondent. She is in Israel. Is drinking raw milk safe like RFK Junior suggests? Can you reduce a glucose spike if you eat your food in quote-unquote the right order? I'm registered dietitian Abby Sharp.

I host a nutrition myth-busting podcast called Bite Back with Abby Sharp and those are just some of the questions I tackle with qualified experts on my show. On Bite Back, my goal is to help listeners create a pleasurable relationship with food, their body, and themselves, which in my opinion is the fundamental secret to good health. Listen to Bite Back wherever you get your podcasts. While the conflict in the Middle East evolves, NATO leaders are meeting today in The Hague, the summit usually last days with a wide range of topics, but this year it is streamlined. One dinner, one meeting, one agenda item. It's all about the money

and whether member states are hitting their spending targets. Carrie Buck was Canada's NATO ambassador from 2015 to 2018. She's currently a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa. And Doug Lute served as a Lieutenant General in the US Army before being named as the US ambassador to NATO from 2013 to 2017. He is now chair of international and defense practices at the Washington based BGR group, a bipartisan public affairs firm. Good morning to you both. Thanks for joining us.

Good morning. Doug, before we get to NATO, of course, you're hearing about the attempted ceasefire between Iran and Israel very shaky as we speak. President Trump this morning saying both of those countries already broke it in the first few hours. What are you watching for? Well as you reported ceasefires are conventionally very uncertain, especially in the early hours and I just note that the view from Washington is that Donald Trump is 0 for 3, as we say, starting with his attempts to end the Gaza conflict, then his flurry into Ukraine and

Russia, and now with Iran and Israel. So I think the Trump administration is learning in its early days that these peace initiatives are not as easy as they might appear from the outside. Indeed. Kerry, how does Canada fit into this evolving, tense situation still in the Middle East? Well, obviously, we're very, very concerned. They're Canadian citizens in the region, of course, so we're worried about the potential impact in the region, of course, so we're worried about the potential impact throughout the region. More importantly, on geopolitics,

we're worried about spillover. And spillover can happen in a couple of ways. There could be a hot conflict that continues if the ceasefire doesn't hold, very likely. And then regardless of whether the ceasefire holds, there are always secondary effects from these sorts of incidents. So, you know, Iran's got a long history of using proxies, using terrorism as a tactic. So, you know, counterterrorism might end up being high on our NATO agenda again, for instance, energy security, if they do, if they make good on their threats to close the Straits of the fact that there is a lot of concern about the fact that there is a lot of concern about the fact that there is a lot of concern about the fact that there is a lot of concern about the fact that there is a lot of

concerns about the fact that there is a lot of concerns about the fact that there is a lot of concerns about the fact that there is a lot of concerns about the fact that there is a lot of concerns about the fact that there is a lot of and over the next few years, to be honest. Yeah, we're hearing disappointment already coming from the Hague as that NATO meeting gets underway and news of a broken truce earlier today. So how will that disrupt or derail even the intended conversation at NATO, Doug? Well, I think the crisis in the Middle East will, to some extent, crowd out

the traditional, the more conventional NATO conversations. But even having said that, without a Middle East crisis, NATO has scaled down and compressed the agenda here in an effort to try as much as possible to avoid the sort of disruption and unpredictability of the Trump administration. So they've already taken sort of mitigating steps, but I think the Middle East will prevail over the next 24 hours. Carrie, this is Mark Carney's first NATO summit as prime minister. What does he need to do here to make it sound as if it were a success for him and for our country? Well, a success for Canada, the baseline has, for all allies, all other allies than the US, the baseline's dropped.

As Doug said, the agenda's been compressed and the main focus of this particular meeting will be to get an agreement, consensus agreement on defense spending and to have no other explosions. I don't mean explosions of the type that's happening in the Middle East. I mean Trumpian explosions, right? So for Canada, a small success would be no explosions, no targeting of Canada by Trump, nothing that will reverberate negatively in our bilateral negotiations on security and trade, which is why the Prime Minister's announcement June 9th to put us in compliance well past when we should have done it, but compliance with the 2% spending target meant that we weren't sitting

out there as the only or one of the last two allies not meeting that target. So he reduced our vulnerability, but we're still vulnerable. But then there's a medium success for Canada. A medium success would include a summit communique that Reaffirms the commitment of all allies to mutual defense guarantee of NATO all for one and one for all continued support to Ukraine Condemnation of the Russian invasion threat posed by China High-level political messaging that would allow the real work to to to go on Threat the rest of the year.

You know, I can't help noticing though that that commitment by Mark Carney to increase our spending to 2%. Now they're asking for 3.5% from NATO leaders and a whole package of 5% of defence spending. So how on earth does Canada meet that objective? Well, watch for the timeline. My understanding is that there's been a preliminary agreement on NATO communique, one page, really short. And my understanding is that, without the leaders having blessed it yet, so it could fall apart,

is that the timeline is out to 2035. So that gives a good 10 years. Canada has a pretty bad track record at meeting our defense spending targets from NATO. But I think what's changing is that this prime minister, at least, has started to engage Canadians and help Canadians understand that the world has changed. It's much more insecure and that we actually have to play catch-up. We should have been investing more in our defense and diplomacy over the last many decades. This goes back decades. Yeah. Yeah, just wanting to turn to other matters, Doug, at NATO, whether they'll be discussed or not.

You know, we're hearing the focus on defense spending, but what are we expecting to hear, if anything, about commitments to Ukraine, which traditionally would definitely be on the agenda? Well, as Kerry said, we expect in terms of verbal output from the summit, a rather short, perhaps even single-page statement agreed by the leaders. The challenge here is that such an agreed statement has to be agreed 32 to zero these days. So all allies, full consensus, have to agree such a statement.

And because there are contentious issues like NATO's relationship with Russia, NATO's support for Ukraine, and so forth, I don't expect that they'll reach consensus on those topics, so they'll be excluded from the joint statement. That itself is the statement. The fact that these key issues on the doorstep of NATO, the largest armed conflict since the end of the Second World War, that NATO allies cannot agree on the status of the alliance in the face of this kind of challenge is really telling. And to Kerry's point, it signals a new reality for transatlantic relations.

Danielle Pletka Kerry, NATO's Secretary General Mark Rutte recently warned that Russia could be ready to attack NATO within five years if members don't increase their spending. What do you make of that timeline? Well, the timeline, there's a risk of a gap, a security gap in NATO for a couple of reasons. First, the US is engaging in a review of its global military and troop posture and the decisions could come out as soon as this fall. Right now, the Europeans aren't ready to mount any kind of sustained defense of Europe. Europe still relies on the US for much of its air defense, logistics, deep fire, and land maneuver. So if the US were to decide to pull out precipitously

of Europe, pull out too much and not do it in a way that isn't a gradual transition, then security gaps would be created. But the other challenge is that disunity at the table tomorrow, tonight and tomorrow at the NATO table, that goes to the heart of NATO's mutual defense guarantee, right? If potential adversaries see disunity at the heart amongst leaders, particularly around that mutual defense guarantee, it's almost like sending a message of disunity open season. So it's a today problem because deterrence relies on unity of political messaging. And it's a problem that's going to potentially get worse over the next five to 10 years, not just from Russia.

China's friendship without limits with Russia, new kinds of military missile drone and cyber tech. Allies haven't kept pace. Doug, of course, the elephant in the room is Donald Trump. He has been vocal in his dissatisfaction with NATO over the years and certainly in his first term. Mark Ruta seems to be trying to get around that saying today that there is quote, total commitment by the US president and the US senior leadership to NATO. Do you see it that way and is this the only issue for Donald Trump? Dr. Mark Ruta Well, Donald Trump enjoys being the elephant in the room. I mean, this is his whole political modus operandi. We can expect that he'll be true to form.

If last week's G7 is a prelude to the NATO summit, you can expect that Donald Trump is going to seek center stage, do something or say something to draw all the attention to himself. So I appreciate Secretary General Ruta's attempts to make this reasonable, to make this polite, to make this mutually respectful, but that's not Trump's style. We just have a minute and a half left, but really for both of you and for our listeners, how do we measure success from this very short, very focused and perilous NATO meeting?

So I think there's really one outcome that we need from the Hague Summit, and that's, as Kerry said, a sign of unity or avoiding the sign of disunity. And maybe this is best captured visually by way of what NATO refers to as the family photo. This is all 32 leaders standing together smiling in cooperative style with the Secretary General. I'm looking for that photo. Carrie? I agree entirely with Doug. No signs of disunity, no explosions. But also coming out of it, it's pretty historic if that 3.5% on defense spending is reached and the 1.5%, Europe does need to do more. And prompting them to do more to protect the European theater is really important. Also, there are areas in the 1.5%

that aren't purely military, like cyber resilience, that kind of thing, they're important. So that decision is actually historic as well, but I fear it'll get lost in the Trump noise. And the evolving Middle East today. Thank you both very much. Thanks very much. Thanks very much. Good morning. Kerry Buck was Canada's NATO Ambassador from 2015 to 2018 and Doug Lute served as a Lieutenant General in the US Army before being named as the US Ambassador to NATO from 2013 to 2017. You've been listening to The Current Podcast. My name is Matt Galloway.

Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.