WASHINGTON, July 6 — The 2024 NATO summit, scheduled for July 9-11 in Washington, D.C., will mark the 75th anniversary of the alliance, but the technical reality of its agenda suggests a gathering under strain.
Leaders from all 32 member states, including newly admitted Finland and Sweden, are expected to attend. The summit’s core items — defence spending commitments, support for Ukraine, and deterrence against Russia — are familiar fare. Under the hood, however, the detail that matters is the reported exclusion of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from addressing the alliance.
This would be a notable departure from previous summits, where Ukrainian leaders were given a platform to speak directly to the assembled heads of state. The alliance was founded on April 4, 1949, with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty; as ever, the anniversary brings with it a reaffirmation of Article 5 collective defence principles.
The summit’s timing is awkward. The US political calendar is crowded, and the alliance’s expansion to 32 members — Finland and Sweden both joining after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — has reshaped the strategic map. Yet the absence of a speaking slot for Zelensky, if confirmed, will be read as a signal: that the alliance is wary of escalating rhetoric, or that internal dynamics are shifting.
One wry observation: the alliance that was designed to deter Soviet tanks rolling through the Fulda Gap now finds itself managing a war of drones, electronic warfare, and artillery attrition on Europe’s eastern flank. The technical reality of modern conflict — precision munitions, satellite intelligence, and cyber operations — will sit awkwardly alongside the traditional language of treaty commitments.
The summit will reaffirm Article 5, the collective defence clause that has been invoked only once, after the September 11 attacks. That invocation led to NATO’s deployment in Afghanistan; the current threat environment is different, with hybrid warfare and energy coercion replacing conventional invasion as the primary tools of Russian pressure.
What to watch next: whether the final communiqué includes specific language on Ukraine’s future membership path, and whether the reported exclusion of Zelensky holds. If it does, the alliance will have to explain why a partner under active invasion is not given the floor at its own anniversary celebration.
