How Trump took us to the brink of World War 3 and back again
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I think it's a wow factor for the world to say, wow, America really has amazing capabilities. But it's also America's back.

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I'm Venetia Rainey and this is Battle Lines. It's Friday, 27th of June, 2025. It's been another mad week in Trumpland, where we've essentially been taken to the brink of World War III and then pulled back again. So let's start with a quick recap. On Saturday night, Trump bombed Iran. For analysis of that hugely significant attack, please do go back and listen to our Monday episode.

On Sunday, Trump declared Tehran's decades-old nuclear programme had been "obliterated". On Monday, he shrugged off Iran firing missiles at the largest US military base in the Middle East, Al Udeid in Qatar. On Tuesday, he announced a ceasefire between Iran and Israel. And on Wednesday, he presided over the annual NATO summit in The Hague, where a staggering new defence spending target of 5% of GDP was formally adopted by the alliance.

OK, so Trump hasn't woken up yet, and we're going to use that time to reflect a bit on the significance of everything that's happened. Later on, I'll be joined by our Brussels correspondent, Joe Barnes, who is at the NATO summit. He'll be explaining the key takeaways from Trump's speech, how real that 5% commitment is, and why the Ukraine war wasn't on the agenda for the first time in years. But first, let's get into the fallout from the Iran-Israel war.

It ended suddenly on Tuesday morning after Trump forced a ceasefire on both countries. Still, that peace was briefly in peril after an apparently errant Iranian missile landed in Israel shortly after the ceasefire deadline on Tuesday morning. Israeli planes were literally in the air on their way to exact revenge when Trump apparently had a very forceful call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and told him to turn them around.

When asked about it by reporters later on Tuesday, Trump pretty much echoed what the rest of the world was thinking with his characteristic bluntness. Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs, the likes of which I've never seen before. The biggest load that we've seen. I'm not happy with Israel. You know, when I say, OK, now you have 12 hours, you don't go out in the first hour and just drop everything you have on them. So I'm not happy with them.

I'm not happy with Iran either. But I'm really unhappy if Israel is going out this morning because the one rocket that didn't land, that was shot, perhaps by mistake, that didn't land. I'm not happy about that. You know what? We have, we basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing. Do you understand that?

Somehow, the ceasefire is still holding as of Thursday. There are even reports of the US holding direct talks with Iran next week. It's really unclear how much permanent damage has been done to the Iranian nuclear programme by the American attack. And in the US, there have been fears that America might be dragged into another Middle East forever war, especially among his isolationist MAGA base. So was it all worth it?

To discuss that, I'm joined by Katie McFarland, a former deputy national security advisor to Trump during his first administration and a regular Fox News commentator. Katie, what do you make of the events of the last week? Trump has painted this as a huge victory for America, something that has made America safer, the world safer. They've obliterated, according to him, Iran's nuclear arsenal. What's your reading on how successful this operation was?

Oh, I think it was a thousand percent successful. And, Venetia, there are really two aspects to it. One is Iran's nuclear program. And that has been obliterated. And as President Trump said, the campaign promises, you know, he makes a promise, he keeps a promise. He said Iran will not be allowed to get nuclear weapons. So that's been dealt with.

Iran had a choice to do it the easy way, the hard way. They chose the hard way, so it's been obliterated. The bigger picture, though, is what does this mean going forward? For example, at the NATO meetings he's having now or in our U.S. bilateral relationships with China, with Russia, with the rest of the world. And I think what it shows, the symbol of the United States power, military power,

back. The United States is the only country that could have pulled off the attack with the B-2 bombers and the bunker buster bombs against Iran. I mean, the only country that had the equipment, that had the capability, that could do a precision global attack. Remember, Centerville aircraft went east, some west, and they went halfway around the world to achieve this.

to achieve this victory. And so I think it's a wow factor for the world to say, wow, America really has amazing, extraordinary capabilities. But it's also America's back in the sense of we've always had those capabilities. And we now have a president who has the guts and the persistence to use our capabilities, whether it's our military capabilities in ridding the world of Iran's nuclear weapons program,

Whether it's using our energy resources, our oil and natural gas, which make the United States the dominant energy supplier in the world. We can set the global price of oil and natural gas. Whether it's using our trade dominance to rewrite our trade agreements with every country in the world. And whether it's our technology advantage and the President Trump's emphasis on high-tech technologies

On AI, the United States will be the global leader in technology going forward. So when you take all those things together, military capability, trade capability, economic growth, which we already have and will have now in great numbers, great percentage of economic growth when our tax bill passes, technology advantage, and then a leader who's willing to use all those capabilities to America's advantage.

I think it's just an extraordinary period that we're looking forward to for the next generation. It's going to be a real golden age for America, but frankly, it's going to be an age, we hope, of peace and prosperity for the world.

I've just been listening to Donald Trump give a press conference at the NATO summit in The Hague, and he has been getting a lot of questions about the extent of damage that has actually been caused to Iran's nuclear program. Of course, this was the rationale for doing everything. So if it's only set the program back by a few months, as according to this leaked US intel, and I know that's been disputed by the president who said that it's rubbish, basically, and that it's actually been set back by decades.

But expert opinion seems to suggest that decades is pretty far off and it certainly hasn't completely destroyed it. No, I think that's wrong.

No, I think, Venetia, I think that's wrong. If you listen to the head of the IAEA, he said that it's been a significant change. And the leaked intelligence report, which hasn't been confirmed, by the way, and is considered apparently on the top headline of the report, is from the Defense Intelligence Agency. We have 17 intelligence agencies. The Defense Intelligence Agency is the one with sort of the least information.

credibility in these subjects. They've been wrong on most things in the past. But on the top of the leaked document, it apparently says low confidence in this intelligence. Now, low confidence in our intelligence? I mean, that's basically you overheard a rumor at a bar.

This is something that's not confirmed by satellite technology, not confirmed by human intelligence, not confirmed by us listening in to conversations between those leaders. So you might as well just dismiss that. I would go with what the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has given. And then I spent all day yesterday listening to briefings by nuclear experts, nuclear weapons experts. I taught nuclear weapons at MIT, so I know a little bit about the topic. And sounds to me like they've set it back

significantly is an understatement. And remember, 14 of their 15 nuclear scientists and businesses and engineers have been assassinated in the last week by Israel. So even if they try to rebuild it, they don't have the personnel to rebuild it. You mentioned the IAEA and their chief, Rafael Grossi, and he has said that there's been significant damage, you're right, but he's also said that it hasn't completely destroyed their nuclear program, that they will be able to rebuild, that expertise is there. So was it worth it?

Of course it was worth it. And they can rebuild it. Well, you know, let's see what Iran wants to do. Iran, as President Trump said, you do this the easy way, you do this the hard way. And if Iran wants to rejoin the community of the nations, if Iran wants to have peace and prosperity for its people, it doesn't build its nuclear...

It doesn't go down the same road, a failed road that it's already going on now. Let's assume that there is some kind of a negotiation, that Iran does go to the negotiating table. They've asked to go to the negotiating table. So what kinds of things would they give up? Well, they would give up their nuclear programs. They would give up their centrifuges. They would agree to International Atomic Energy Agency inspections, for example. I think that one really promising indication is

that Iran is looking to, let's say, join the community of nations once again, is that yesterday, President Trump said that he would allow Iran to sell oil to China. Now, Iran has sanctions against sales to other countries. Other countries are not supposed to buy Iranian oil, and President Trump said he'd let it go forward. Now, what does that mean? That means that China is completely dependent upon Iranian oil. That's good for China. So we've given China a great opportunity

advantage, and that it's good for Iran because without those oil sales, Iran's economy is in shatters. So I think we're already seeing early steps in what a negotiated solution might be. And I'm not giving a lot of credence to the people who just can't seem to think anything Donald Trump does right is good.

And those people who say, well, you know, it was a big mistake, a big mistake. Like we'd have a very different conversation right now, Venetia, if we were talking about Iran has just detonated a nuclear weapon and proved that there are nuclear weapons power. It would be a really different world. I know you've been in the situation room with Trump. He's often depicted or comes across as quite instinctive, quite unfiltered.

How much thought do you think he will have put into making this decision when it finally came last Saturday night? Well, first of all, Donald Trump has extraordinary instincts. You know, I study all the journals. I go to all the lectures. I come out at a certain place and I find out he comes out at the same place, but he kind of gets there by instinct. So his instincts are good. But I have been in the Situation Room with him and he's a very, I was surprised because I've been in the Situation Room as a very junior person in the Nixon and Ford and Reagan administrations.

And as a senior person in the Trump administration. So I've seen presidents in action making those war and peace decisions. And I wasn't sure that Donald Trump would have the ability to. He'd never been in government before. He'd never dealt with military deployments before. But I found when he was faced with the decision, for example, bombing the Syrian airfields to stop their chemical weapons attacks, he was very a sober person.

thoughtful leader. He would go around the room. You know, the White House Situation Room is like a great big dining room and they're like a big dining room table and he sits at one end and he would go to the guy on the right, the guy on the left, go around the table. So he'd ask the Secretary of State, you know, what are the prospects of, you go to,

a negotiated solution here. He'd ask the military, the Secretary of Defense, what are our vulnerabilities in the region if Iran would counterattack? And then he'll ask the intelligence chiefs, what are you hearing about what's going on inside Iran? He'd ask the American ambassador to Israel, what do you hear about what's going on in Israel? So he goes around and takes like a situation report from everybody. And then he will then say, well, what do you think? What are the options that I've got here? And then they would give the options. And then he makes a very calculated decision. My guess is that early on, Afghans

After Israel had taken out all the Hamas and the Houthis and the Hezbollah and the air defense systems and that they had done their surgical strikes against Iranian military capabilities and facilities and officials, that we already had a plan. And it would be sort of a small, medium or large plan. And Trump will weigh those things. He'll ask. I mean, I've heard him say, what could go wrong? You know, a lot of leaders get in the situation room and all they can think about is what goes right.

And they never think about the sort of unanticipated consequences of a military action. We know the military action would be successful, but they don't think through what would happen next. Trump always asks, OK, what could go wrong? What could really go wrong? What are the unanticipated things we're not thinking of? And he usually

thinks of a lot of the stuff himself. So when he makes a decision, it's a very thoughtful, calculated decision. And then he lets the military carry it out. Now, what he may do is sort of sound like he's coming off the fly. But that's in a lot of ways his secret sauce to his success. He keeps him guessing.

But I have found him in time and time again to be very thoughtful and very deliberate and extremely responsible and, if anything, a reluctant warrior. What do you make of the rationale behind this strike? It can't just be about the Iranian nuclear program. We've had warnings about this for years and years. Do you think he's been strong-armed to an extent by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister? Or is this about sort of grabbing the attention after this long Israeli campaign against Iran? Well, Donald Trump...

Anybody who's met him, you understand he's not strong-armed by anybody. So that's not what happened. I think that he had made a promise, as had many American presidents, you know, going back to George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Iran will not be allowed to get a nuclear weapon. And yet they did nothing to stop Iran's nuclear program.

They have feckless negotiations. There was a seriously flawed Iran nuclear deal which did nothing to stop Iran's nuclear program. And Trump was the only president who had the guts to do it. And again, America had the technology to do it. And the situation was as good as it was ever going to get, largely because of what Israel did first, as I said, of taking out Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, the missile defense system.

Israel was isolated in the region. President Trump's first trip as in his second term was to go visit all the Gulf Arab countries, the Saudis, UAE, Bahrain, etc., and kind of cement that U.S. alliance. So they were not going to enter a fight.

We had close relations, obviously, with Israel pre-standing. And then in addition, China and Russia, supposedly Iran's great allies, sat it out. They did not get involved. They didn't resupply. If anything, they were more conciliatory towards President Trump. If they came in on any side, it was on the Trump side. So I think that all the conditions were there. Iran had no ability to protect itself.

against anybody because its missile defense system was gone inside of Iran and outside of Iran. Iran had a very limited and degraded capability of offensive capability, in other words, of attacking U.S. interests or anybody else. Their missile systems had been degraded. Israel had bombed a lot of their missile launchers and missile depots. So that was degraded. Their economic situation was struggling. They have a population

80% of their population is thought to be against what the mullahs are doing. And not for military purposes, not for Israel or nuclear purposes, but because the mullahs have been such incompetence about managing the economy. So the situation was, it was now or never. And it was an ideal situation where the risk to the United States was there, but it was a greatly reduced risk. And so Donald Trump took the shot.

To what extent do you think the American public agrees with him on all of that? You know, he came into power on the promise of ending wars, not starting them. And this did carry a significant risk of starting, frankly, World War III. We know a recent YouGov poll found that only 16% of Americans think the U.S. should get involved in the conflict between Iran and Israel. And, of course, the MAGA movement says

They have this restrainer element. You know, Steve Bannon has been on his War Room podcast repeatedly saying we're about to be dragged into another forever war. How has he managed to sell this to his base and to the American public? So I think he's threaded the needle. So on one hand, Iran is not going to be allowed to have nuclear weapons.

And on the other hand, the United States is not going to be dragged into another forever war, especially one in the Middle East. How do you sort of make sure that both of those things pertain? Okay, so he did a one and done attack against Iran's nuclear sites. And again, as I just explained, he minimized the risk of retaliation to the United States or anybody else.

And it's a bombing campaign. It's a one and done the same way he attacked and bombed the Syrian airfields and early in his first term, the way he assassinated Salam Qasem Soleimani in his first term. It was not let's send in the Marines. And remember, Donald Trump has been very careful to talk about regime change.

Not American-led regime change or not. We're going to overthrow your government and then we're going to rebuild a government for you modeled on American Jeffersonian democracy. He's always said, whether it was in his initial address to the United Nations in 2017 or even later.

A month ago when he was talking to the Saudis and other countries, he's always said, you choose your own way. The United States is no longer in the business of telling you what leaders you should have or what system you should have or how you should worship your God. You do that on your own.

But what we will do is prevent like a nuclear threat to the world. And so I think he's threaded that needle very well. We're not getting involved in a ground war in the Middle East. There's no need to get involved in a ground war in the Middle East. We've achieved our objective, which is to destroy the Iranian nuclear capability and then missile and uranium enrichment and nuclear weapon capability.

And so now it's up to Iran. Does it want to rebuild, try to rebuild? Good luck with that. Most of your scientists are dead. Most of your senior Revolutionary Guard leadership has been assassinated. So if you want to go down that road, I guess you can. But, you know, we know where they live and we know how to destroy their military equipment again.

Has this exposed a fault line within the Republican Party? It's been a very fine balancing act. And I agree with you that Trump has managed to thread the needle, but just and the risks were huge. You know, Iran attacked the US airbase in Qatar, but there was no damage. Clearly, it was signaled beforehand. Iran didn't want to start something. But that calculation could have gone a different way. And we've heard a lot of discussion this week of this civil war within the Republican movement between the restrainers and the neocons. How bad is that civil war?

Oh, I think that once President Trump did a successful one and done attack, the people who were worried about, you know, U.S. getting dragged into another Middle East war, it does not seem the case that we are going to be dragged into another Middle East war. I mean, even the Iranians have asked to negotiate with us. So I think it's highly unlikely that that's a risk. You know, there's no risk free foreign policy.

I mean, I've been at this for 50 years. Everything carries risk. How do you reduce the risk? How do you increase the likelihood of success? How do you make it a less risky operation? President Trump, along with Bibi Netanyahu, had reduced the risk to about as small as the risk was ever going to be. And then they did it. And again, think about what the alternative was. The alternative was an Iran, the world's most pro-terrorist country.

the most troublemaker in not only the Middle East but in the globe saying that they wanted to have nuclear weapons so they could use them to destroy the big Satan and the little Satan so to me that's a far riskier proposition and when people say oh you're going to start another war frankly they've been at war with us for 45 years it's really ending the war were you among those who are hoping that there might be spontaneous regime change that the Iranian people would rise up

I would agree with President Trump. Let him do it. You know, if the Iranian people conclude that they're not great and they want to make Iran great again, you know, it's up to them if they want to change their regime. I'm agnostic about it. President Trump has said, could do it or not, but we just want to make the deal with whoever is in charge, but we're not going to tell you who's in charge. You know, if you look at the United States history, going back to Vietnam, we're not very good at nation building. We're not very good at regime change.

when the regime change has really been effective is when, after the Iron Curtain came down and countries in Eastern Europe, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, East Germany, they chose their own leaders. They chose their own government and their own leaders. And now they're close allies of ours. So that's the kind of regime change that works. It's bottom up, done by the country and the people themselves. You've written that you think both Putin and Netanyahu are scared of Trump. Yeah, I think they're even more scared of him this week. Yeah.

President Trump's actions with Iran are important because of the Middle East and important because of taking away nuclear weapons. But it's really important to sort of reset the geopolitical chessboard because China, for example, is getting oil, access to oil from Iran because the United States says it's OK.

Russia didn't get involved. Russia supposedly has great allies to Iran, great allies to Syria. Russia's not gotten involved in any of this. So I think what it's done is to show the world, OK, we all knew that America had these capabilities, but America has not used them. America has been

is sort of shy about exercising his power. And now there's a president who is willing to exercise American power. He's not shy about it at all. He's proud of it. And he's putting American interests first. And so if we have anybody in the world to fear, it's an America under Donald Trump, not because he's going to do anything erratic or bad. It's because he's going to put America's interests first. How do you rate his chances of ending the two major wars that have been ongoing since he

took presidency in Ukraine and in Gaza? What are the big problems that the United States has to sort of intractable issues? One is China, Taiwan. The other is Russia, Ukraine. And the other is Iran's nuclear weapons, Iran, Israel, shall we say. And Gaza, I would say, is a subset of that. And of the three, which is the easiest one to sell, they're all almost impossible to sell. But the first one and the one that...

could be solved is the one that I think he's working on now, which is Iran nuclear weapons. Again, Gaza is a subset of the Iranians. Once Iran stops supporting Hamas, Hamas has really no choice. And if I were somebody advising Hamas, I would say to them, look, you've got some hostages.

You better darn well make sure they're in good health and good spirits because that's your only trade. That's your only card left. And the United States and Israel wants its hostages back. So don't harm a hair on the head of any of those if you want to have a long life experience, shall we say, wherever it is in the Middle East. So once Gaza and Iran are solved, and again, they're hard, but not impossible, then I think

Putin and Ukraine, then Putin understands, okay, new sheriff in town, and that's Donald J. Trump. And he wants a deal. And then I think Xi Jinping particularly understands new sheriff in town. One final question. Do you agree with some of Trump supporters like Marjorie Taylor Greene that

Trump is focusing too much on foreign policy and not enough on solving problems at home. You know, President Trump is trying to do everything all at once. And that's because things have gotten so bad. Certainly, Iran was a ticking time bomb. Not a bad joke, not a bad pun, but literally a ticking time bomb. Time was running out to deal with it. So he dealt with it. At home, we have something called the big, beautiful bill, which is a tax budget bill. When it is passed, it's already passed the House of Representatives.

has to pass the United States Senate, which is thought to be happening in the next couple of days. And then it goes to the president's desk for signature. And then it becomes law. And what that does, well, it'll just give the United States economy a boost, a huge boost. We're already the fastest growing economy in the developed world. But once this bill happens, it's going to be

economic growth, some project 3-4% economic growth, which is huge when you look at Britain's flatline, right? You have no economic growth. I think Germany's had a negative economic growth. Who knows about China? They say it's a couple of percent, but nobody believes them. And so the United States then would be in a very powerful

powerful positions at home, domestically at home, President Trump, his party would run re-election in the midterms. And it'll give President Trump the sort of political capital he needs to pass the other bills that he's looking at, which is to take Elon Musk's recommendations and to turn them into law. Great. Thank you so much for joining us on Battlelands, Katie McFarland. Thank you, Vanessa. Pleasure. Coming up after the break, how Trump turned NATO around and why Zelensky was sidelined at the annual summit.

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Now, the other big story this week in world news was NATO. The transatlantic military alliance held its annual summit this week in The Hague and quite frankly it was all about Donald Trump. From NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte calling him "daddy" to journalists being described as "scum" to a surprisingly compassionate exchange with a Ukrainian reporter, here are some of the highlights.

In a very historic milestone this week, the NATO allies committed to dramatically increase their defense spending to that 5% of GDP, something that no one really thought possible. And they said, you did it, sir, you did it. Well, I don't know if I did it, but I think I did. We have scum that's in this group, and not all of you are. You have some great reporters, but you have scum. CNN is scum.

MSDNC is scum. The New York Times is scum. Now, even they admit that it was hit very hard, okay?

But it wasn't. It was hit brutally. It was obliteration. The hole where it hit is black with fire. Vladimir Putin really has to end that war. People are dying at levels that people haven't seen before for a long time. My husband is there. Wow. And I can see you're very, you know, it's amazing. And me with the kids. Is your husband a soldier now? He's. He's there now? Yeah.

You have to use a certain word.

Mark Rutter, the NATO chief, who is your friend, he called you daddy earlier. Do you regard your NATO allies as kind of children? No, he likes me. I think he likes me. If he doesn't, I'll let you know. I'll come back and I'll hit him hard, okay? He did. He did it very affectionately. Daddy, you're my daddy.

But look, Trump circus aside, something massive happened at this summit. Something that frankly will reshape European security for decades to come. NATO formally adopted a new defence spending target of 5% of GDP. That is a huge increase from the previous target of 2%.

And okay, only 3.5% of that needs to go on hard defense items such as weapons and the rest can be spent on infrastructure, cybersecurity and so on. But still, 5% seemed insane just a few months ago when it was first reported shortly after Trump took office. And now it's a reality. I'm joined by our Brussels correspondent, Joe Barnes, who is at the summit.

Joe, how significant is this new 5% target? First of all, absolutely historic. I remember, even when Trump was president, and Rutter and others were speaking about defence spending on what's known as core defence, buying fighter jets, tanks, drones, long-range missiles, etc. People were saying to meet the next set of targets that NATO's generals believed would be needed to deter a Russian invasion,

it would have to creep north of 3%. NATO leaders have agreed to 3.5% on this core defence and 1.5% on, as you said, other infrastructure. And quite frankly, if you had told me this 12 months ago, even six months ago, I would have gone, absolutely not, you're insane, it's never going to happen. But lo and behold, 32 allies walked into a room, they signed on the dotted line,

a statement which was only about five paragraphs long in the end that was basically entirely dedicated to the idea that they would raise defense spending to five percent so really really remarkable stuff and yeah honestly

For the last few weeks, we've known it's coming. But if you had asked me six months ago, I would have been, no, never, not in a million years. And how much work has Rutter had to put in to get people to sign up to this? Because this is an enormous amount of money for most European countries are not seeing massive growth and are experiencing cost of living crises. Yeah, Rutter has played an absolute blinder by convincing European allies and Canada to take the next step. He has been...

Well, first of all, let's look at this 5% number. This 5% number is not just being plucked out of the sky. It's a number that Donald Trump has been insisting on ever since he won the election and took office for the second term. But what Rutter has done is carefully craft it into something that's achievable.

He's split it, the 3.5 and 1.5. It's largely understood that every NATO ally already spends 1.5% of its GDP on things that can contribute to NATO's defence and resilience, so cyber security, strengthening bridges so people can move taxis more easily, etc. That's already done. That's in the back of the net. So that's a really clever way of getting that 5% number

and making it more achievable. The 3.5% is going to be slightly trickier, but I think he just made the argument that if Europe wants America to come and defend it from a Russian invasion, they have to do something to win over Donald Trump because he entered this summit in The Hague talking...

Quite interestingly about Article 5, NATO's mutual defence clause, the idea that an attack on one is an attack on all and everyone will club together and help each other out. He basically said it's open to interpretation, essentially casting doubt over whether America would defend its allies. But he walked away signing a statement which said America is ironclad in its commitment to Article 5.

He used words like, I'm all in, I'm with Europe, I'm with Canada, departing the summit. So ultimately, whatever Mark Ruther has done in his sort of diplomatic tightrope walking to sort of please Donald Trump and get European leaders to please Donald Trump has worked because Donald Trump has left almost in love with NATO. It's given him a swan song. Every leader sort of walked around the table. I think there was 32 leaders in the room.

Everyone spoke and the majority of them praised Donald Trump for their decision to move defence spending to 5%, saying things like, no other president in the history of the United States could have convinced Europe to spend this big on defence. Sort of all-out flattery, but it worked. And now Donald Trump is in love with NATO, which is something, again, I would have never thought would have happened. So that's the sort of...

the public face of this NATO summit, right? But you were there and you cover Europe and security in the Ukraine war and the way different European countries feel about the Ukraine war and European involvement in it on a regular basis for us at The Telegraph. What was going on behind closed doors? We know that Spain was publicly called out for trying to get some kind of exemption from the clause. We know that places like Poland already spend 4% on

hard military spending and presumably want things to move a lot faster than the decade time limit that this has been given. On the divisions, really interesting stuff. So before the summit, the only one outlier in the public eye was Spain. Pedro Sanchez essentially said, look, we're not going to sign up to this 5% target. We want an exemption from it.

Mark Rutter sent a letter back in response to Pedro Sanchez's letter asking for this exemption, saying, look, everyone is going to have to sign up to this. Everyone's in agreement. But what is largely believed to be the significant point here is Spain thinks it can meet the capability targets that have been set by the alliance. So those things that are needed to deter a Russian invasion, Spain thinks it can hit it by...

staying at its 2.1% of GDP projected target for defence spending. Rutgers basically said, well, fine, sign the statement and we'll check if you're doing that in 2029, which is a date that was inserted in the text as a review point. So if Spain is satisfying all of its capability targets that have been set for it by spending 2.1%, everyone will probably go, you know what, it's their play. Maybe we can do that too.

There are obviously a few other countries who don't want to spend money. You could say, look at the Italians, the Belgians. The Belgians said, well, if look, if Spain has an exemption, we want an exemption too. But everyone rode in behind the figure of 5% knowing what was on stake, Donald Trump's support for NATO. And interestingly, Pedro Sanchez, while in the room,

speaking to leaders, did not mention the issue of percentages at all. He just said, he spoke about how important it was for NATO allies to hit their capability targets. But he reinforced on the idea, let's be as strong as possible and hit these targets the generals have set.

so that we can deter a Russian invasion. And were there any countries that feel like there's too much wiggle room in there for European countries? You know, places like Poland, the Baltic states, where they're already spending a lot of money and take the threat of imminent Russian aggression much more seriously? Yeah. So actually, there are countries, as you mentioned, Poland, the Baltic states. I think the Lithuanian president was saying that the set date of this, which is a decade's time, 2035, is not...

quick enough. They cited a recent sort of intervention by Germany's top general who said Russia could be ready to invade a NATO country within five years. And they said, look, you're too slow. Let's hit it quicker. Let's hit it faster. But ultimately, I think to build that consensus...

NATO had to throw in some wiggle room and Britain was actually one of the countries that was pushing for this extra wiggle room. Before the summit, before the text was essentially agreed, the envisaged date for hitting this 5% target was 2032. Britain, from the very beginning, had been pushing for 2035. Italy was looking for 2035. Basically, they were saying, we need as much flexibility to hit this target as

because our public finances don't really allow for us to spend 5% of GDP on defence and defence-related stuff that quickly. And ultimately, their argument came across, and it basically allowed other countries to say, look, we want that flexibility too, but

A lot of them are going to try and get it faster. So Germany said it was going to hit its 3.5% of GDP on hard defense and 1.5% of GDP on defense-related spending by 2029. That's what, six years ahead of Britain hitting 5%, which I thought was really interesting because Britain has always been considered the European leader of NATO, and it's now forfeited its position

as Europe's top spender on military to Germany, which is a country since the Second World War, since the Cold War, has been an absolute European laggard when it comes to defence spending. And now suddenly it's going to be producing what is likely Europe's toughest and hardest army. The threat underlying all of this, as we've mentioned, is Russia. But Ukraine, the country that was invaded by Russia in 2022 and is still fighting a war for its own survival today, Ukraine was

basically absent from the NATO summit. And Trump had a behind closed doors meeting with Zelensky. Zelensky didn't speak like at previous summits. What was the thinking behind all of that? And how were European members reacting to it? Zelensky's invitation to The Hague and the way that he interacted with certain parts of the summit was carefully choreographed

Because of the reality of what happened in the Oval Office and that spat between President Trump and President Zelensky, which ended up with Donald Trump withdrawing military aid, intelligence support for Ukraine, Mark Rutter and other sort of Europeans were insistent that Zelensky had to be there. But they said, look, Vladimir, as much as we like you, as much as we support you, we think we should limit your interactions with Donald Trump

because you know what could happen. And we don't want a NATO summit, which is all about sort of NATO unity, support for Ukraine, basically descending into a row, into a fight. And we want to really limit the chance of that happening. So Vladimir, you're going to sit this one out, which is different because in Washington, in Vilnius, and I think via video link in Madrid, the last three NATO summits, Vladimir Zelensky has addressed leaders,

in what is known as the North Atlantic Council format. That's all 32 NATO allies. He either videoed in or was in the room and able to address leaders. This time, didn't happen. He attended the dinner with the King and the Dutch royal family the night before, but he was then solely left to have bilateral meetings on the fringes of the summit, not actually involved himself. But that didn't stop him from having. He met with Keir Starmer and other European leaders

He had that meeting with Trump. And actually, if you look at Donald Trump's words in his post-summit press conference, he was full of praise for Zelensky. And he said the meeting went really well. He said that while Zelensky was hard work, he was a brave guy fighting a really tough war. He said, look, I'm going to get on the phone to Vladimir Putin. So I think Vladimir Putin's been with difficult pasts. So actually, whatever happened...

there is some positive outcomes for Zelensky to take away. Because BB, Donald Trump is siding with Ukraine at the moment rather than Russia in his effort to sort of bring an end to this three-year crisis.

more than three year war now. No condemnation of Russian aggression in the final NATO communique, right? I mean, it mentions the long term threat posed by Russia to Euro-Atlantic security, reaffirms the need to provide enduring support to Ukraine, but doesn't condemn Russian aggression, which is different from previous NATO summits. How did that go down? Yeah, really, really interesting. And this I could actually say was a Telegraph exclusive. I managed to get hold of the

communique, just as it had been put under the noses of leaders. A source of mine managed to snap a picture and send it to me. Just put it on a table in front of one of the leaders in the North Atlantic Council, which was very helpful. And yeah, what stuck out was it reaffirmed that NATO allies were squarely behind Ukraine, but it did not make any reference why they were supporting Ukraine. And that was simply, again, a concession to

by Europeans because they needed to get Donald Trump to sign up to a statement that says he is squarely behind Article 5 and this mutual defence clause. If we look back to other international statements since Donald Trump has taken office, and I think most notably a statement at the United Nations, he refused to sign off on it, or America refused to sign off on it, because it basically put the blame on Russia for the invasion. And he

refers to it as the Ukraine crisis. He doesn't want to blame Russia for the invasion because he feels that will scupper his diplomatic efforts with Vladimir Putin. So it's a very important nuance there. Even if the Europeans didn't like it, they had to go along with it.

because they wanted to get Donald Trump on side to make sure that they had his support for Europe rather than Ukraine, which ultimately Ukraine is not a NATO ally. I wouldn't say quite throwing Ukraine under the bus, but they are acknowledging how much they need America to protect them from Russia. And it might take a little bit more of an importance than him blaming Russia for the invasion.

So leaders' language after the summit. So Keir Starmer said, look, we haven't changed. We still think Russia's to blame. Mark Rutte said the same. But Donald Trump didn't call it the Ukraine crisis, but he did say Vladimir Putin.

had to do more to stop the war, and he would get on the phone to him to do that. I mean, this omission of Russia having caused the Ukraine war, you know, these sort of financial commitments that are 5% but not quite, Rutter's fawning text message to Trump, you've achieved great things, you'll achieve more great things. It was very much the Trump show, right? Did it make the NATO summit feel like a little bit of a farce?

It was called the Hague Investment Pledge, but we could have renamed it and called it the Trump Investment Pledge. It was all about Donald Trump, but it was quite sick and bizarre at times. You and many of our listeners will have probably already seen that at one point, Mark Rutter and Donald Trump were having a sit down and there was this normal sort of press huddle around them. And Donald Trump was speaking about Israel and Iran, fighting it out, sort of comparing their war

The two children having a fight in the school playground, the need to let them fight for a couple of minutes before you split them up. And at one point, Mark Rutter actually interrupted and said, yes, daddy sometimes has to use tough language. So it could be described as the Daddy Trump Summit. That was just really bizarre. But ultimately, whatever...

and sort of ultimate top-level, top-shelf flattery of Donald Trump, it has worked. And it will be hailed a success because as sick and bizarre as it is, he has left...

doing something that he didn't do before, and that is saying that he supports Article 5. So whatever language leaders use to preen Donald Trump and allow him his peacock moment has worked. And I can't really say as weird as it is, it's worked and it's a diplomatic tactic that I'm sure many others will employ and deploy in the future going forward now because it is clearly seen as the tactic

for handling Donald Trump. Do you think NATO is now safe? We've heard so many veiled threats to NATO's relevance from Trump and other American officials, even the spectre that the US might pull out of NATO at some point. Has Mark Rutter saved NATO? For now. The problem is, as we all know, Donald Trump can wake up on one side of the bed, get out, and then on the next day, it will be completely different.

But the perceived wisdom is that if countries in Europe, Canada, continue to steadily increase their defence spending each year, year on year, that will be enough to keep Donald Trump interested and supportive of NATO. Jo Barnes, our Brussels correspondent. Thanks very much for joining us on Battlelines. That's all for today's episode of Battlelines. We'll be back again on Monday. Until then, goodbye.

Battle Lines is an original podcast from The Telegraph created by David Knowles and hosted by me, Venetia Rainey and Roland Oliphant. If you appreciated this podcast, please consider following Battle Lines on your preferred podcast app. And if you have a moment, leave a review as it really helps others find the show.

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