Five things to know about the NATO summit in Madrid in 2022

This week, the NATO 2022 summit will take place in Madrid, where the leaders of the largest defence alliance in the world will meet.

This week, the NATO 2022 summit will take place in Madrid, where the leaders of the largest defence alliance in the world will meet.

The high-stakes meeting from June 28 to 30 is happening when tensions around the world are high because Russia is at war in Ukraine.

Here are five things you should know about the summit, which security experts say could change the way countries in the West and around the world think about defence and security.

What's going on and why does it matter?

At the NATO summit in Brussels last year, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that relations between the alliance and Russia were at their "worst since the end of the Cold War."

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, his words came true, making things even worse between NATO and the Kremlin.

Harry Nedelcu, who is in charge of Rasmussen Global's Free Ukraine task force and is in charge of policy, said that at the summit, NATO is likely to agree to increase its presence on its eastern flank.

"At the Warsaw summit [in 2016], it was already agreed that there would be a stronger presence in Poland and the Baltic states, with battalions that would move around. At the Madrid summit, allies will agree to a stronger and maybe even permanent presence in the east, he said.

Stoltenberg told reporters on Monday that NATO plans to "increase the number of our high readiness forces to well over 300,000."

Elisabeth Braw, a senior foreign policy and defence fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said that NATO has been very united since Russia invaded Ukraine, and this must continue.

"But this show of unity hasn't been easy because different alliance members are in different parts of the world and have different ideas about how the world works," Braw

"Right now, if they start fighting or disagreeing about what to do to help Ukraine, that would be a big setback and a sign of weakness that NATO's rivals would use."

It was thought that Sweden and Finland would join NATO quickly. Does it still make sense?

Braw says that Finland and Sweden's plans to join NATO will be the cherry on top of this year's summit.

In May, both countries ended decades of military neutrality and said that joining the alliance would be a good idea in light of the new political situation after Russia invaded Ukraine.

But the process of joining has stopped because Turkey said that its Nordic neighbours were giving safe harbour to the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which Turkey and its allies call a "terrorist" group.

Stoltenberg told reporters during a recent trip to Sweden that NATO was working hard to solve Turkey's worries "as soon as possible."

"That's very unlikely to happen because Turkey is still against it, so it's unlikely that Sweden and Finland will be invited to join the alliance at the summit," Braw said.

"Turkey doesn't mind being a stumbling block. But it is clear that Turkey has been worried about the Kurds in terms of national security. "Sweden wants to make the most changes in this area," she said.

Will Ukraine ever join NATO?

The Kremlin has been against NATO's expansion in eastern Europe for a long time.

As part of his security demands to NATO, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine couldn't join the military alliance.

In March, at a meeting of the Joint Expeditionary Force, where some NATO countries meet to talk about how to handle crises, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he knew Ukraine could no longer join NATO.

"For years, we've heard about the door that seems to be open, but we've also heard that we won't go through it. These are facts that must be accepted," he said.

Braw said that in the near future and with the way things are now, it was more likely that Ukraine would want to join the European Union than NATO.

She said, "That is a very important goal for them to reach, but it will take a lot of work to get there."

For Nedelcu, "the biggest and most powerful way to make Ukraine safe" was to make sure the country was so strong militarily and had such a strong defence industry that it "would become a porcupine impossible to attack."

Increasing spending on defence

How much each country spends on defence is one of the most talked-about topics among NATO allies.

In 2006, members of NATO promised that each country would spend 2% of its gross domestic product on defence. But members have had different ideas about who spends the most on defence.

The ongoing war in Ukraine has made this debate about how to spend more important.

Nedelcu said that more and more NATO countries are getting close to the 2 percent mark.

"After the war, we saw countries like Germany really boost their spending on defence. So, at the Summit, there will be a big push to keep this trend going and make sure allies are serious about increasing their defence spending, he said.

Is China on the list?

Stoltenberg said at the NATO summit last year that "China was getting closer to the alliance" and that it was important for NATO to take a clear and united stance toward Beijing.

Nedelcu thinks that Stoltenberg's request for a position on China will be emphasised in Madrid because China continues to hide the truth about the Kremlin's war in Ukraine and makes threats against Taiwan and other countries in the Indo-Pacific region. It is important to listen for strong language about China at the summit.

"The alliance's members will talk about China as a potential strategic competitor. This will also raise the question of what role NATO will try to play in Indo-Pacific security and how it will try to have a say in security in the Indo-Pacific or the Taiwan Strait, since security in these areas is becoming more and more linked to security in the North Atlantic, as Nedelcu put it.

Nedelcu said that the world is becoming more divided between autocracies and democracies with similar ideas because Japan and South Korea are also planning to attend the summit.

Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a professor of international relations at King's College London and a regional envoy for East and Southeast Asia, said that if Japan and South Korea were there, they might say something about North Korea.

He said, "That's important for South Korea because it shows that other countries in Europe and the US also think North Korea is a threat."

"And this can lead to real cooperation, especially when it comes to cyber security and sharing information, which is where NATO is strongest in the Asia-Pacific region."