Greenland gambit & Iran tensions: Nato parliamentarian shares how the alliance is navigating tough world order

For years, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) was a rock-solid bloc known to ensure the defence and security of the West. However, cracks within the group soon became apparent with the rise of US President Donald Trump.

Recently, the group has been facing a host of challenges, with a war raging on in Ukraine for the past four years and escalating tension in West Asia. Even Nato members have been seeing the ripple effects of the conflicts. Since last year, Eastern European nations have been dealing with frequent Russian drone incursions, and even Turkey has been targeted by Iran.

This turbulent global environment has compelled the organisation to rethink its defence spending and security infrastructure. Since returning to the White House, Trump has been pushing Nato allies to increase their defence spending. Last year, at the Hague Summit, the alliance agreed to hit 5 per cent defence targets by 2035. However, there have been disagreements over this issue as well.

In an exclusive conversation with Firstpost’s Bhagyasree Sengupta, Dr Benedetta Berti, Secretary General, Nato Parliamentary Assembly, shared her take on the disagreement brewing within the alliance, and how it is navigating the turbulent world order.

Tussle over defence spending

One of the most contentious issues within Nato has been the defence spending by member states. For the longest time, the Trump administration has been pushing Nato members to increase their defence budget. Last year, the target was set to reach 5 per cent by 2035. However, several countries have opposed the initiative.

While Spain in the past has rejected the target, calling it “unreasonable”, countries like Belgium and Slovakia have also expressed concern. When asked about the persistent tussle over the matter, Berti recalled how the need to increase defence spending has been realised since 2014.

The trajectory in which all Nato allies have recognised that there needs to be an increase in defence spending really started in 2014. In 2014, there were only three Nato members that spent 2 per cent of their GDP on defence. And back then, allies agreed that within 10 years they would all have to get to 2 per cent," she told Firstpost.

“That was an assessment based on the fact that the security environment was getting more dangerous and we had spent decades investing too little in our armed forces, so we didn’t have the capabilities to match the trends,” she added.

Dr Berti highlighted that the good news now is that most nations spend 2 per cent of GDP on defence. However, she admitted that the current security environment in the region has continued to deteriorate. “On that basis Nato agreed new defence plans and then based on these defence plans new targets for capabilities, which essentially means agreed what capabilities each country needs to provide to be part of the collective defence effectively,” she explained.

“Based on all this, in 2025, allies agreed that actually we will need to get to 5 per cent. That 5 per cent is 3.5 per cent for core defence expenditure linked to those targets, and 1.5 per cent on resilience, cyber defence and really the broader set of security-related expenses.”

She pointed out how many of the Nato member-states have already surpassed the 5 per cent target, especially in Eastern Europe, central and the Baltic states, pointing to the steady upward trajectory of the spending.

“So some allies, as you said, have recognised that it’s not easy to increase the defence budget that much, especially in a fiscally restrained environment. However, all allies agreed that we must do it at the last summit in 2025, and I expect when Nato allies meet again at the summit in Ankara, Turkey, in 2026, they will look very carefully at what progress has been made,” Dr Berti said.

The Greenland question

The transatlantic ties took a major hit when Trump and his administration laid out their ambition to take over Greenland, a self-democratic island that belongs to Denmark. When asked about the issue, Dr Berti maintained that the Nato parliamentary assembly believes in Denmark’s democratic sovereignty but also stated that the alliance agreed to increase the security infrastructure in the Arctic.

“Let me start with what I think all Nato allies agree with, and that’s, I think, an important starting point. Nato allies agreed that the high North, the Arctic region, has become much more important for European security. Firstly, after Finland and Sweden became Nato members, essentially, if you look at the Arctic Council, all Arctic Council members except Russia are also Nato members,” she said.

“Then, of course, Russian military presence in the Arctic, Chinese commercial and other interests in the Arctic region, when you put it all together, everybody says we need to do more in the Arctic to ensure that our posture is strong,” she added.

Dr Berti went on to lay out the strategic significance of Greenland. “There was an agreement within Nato to increase Nato presence in the Arctic, including Greenland, with a new Nato activity, Arctic Sentry, which added to our defence and deterrence posture,” she said. The delegation from Italy also noted that there is also support for political engagement between the Kingdom of Denmark, Greenland and the United States over how to make sure Russia and China “never make economic or military foothold in Greenland”.

“Our Nato Parliamentary Assembly issued a statement on this, supporting more deterrence and defence in the Arctic, supporting that political process, and also affirming that all of this needs to be done in full respect of Denmark’s democratic sovereignty,” she told Firstpost.

Trump’s impact on transatlantic ties

When asked whether Trump has upended decades-old established transatlantic ties or changed the nature of the ties, Berti maintained that the nature of the transatlantic ties has been changing for many years. “We know that there have been structural shifts in the international order. One of those structural shifts has been the rise of China and the growing geopolitical and geostrategic importance of the Indo-Pacific region. I think that’s a trend that is not linked to politics,” she said.

“It is only fair that Europeans do more for their own continent. I think the process started before President Trump. has now accelerated, and it will continue irrespective of who sits in the White House, because the reality of geopolitics will force Europeans to take more responsibility and eventually take a leading role in conventional deterrence and defence in Nato. I think it’s not the end of the transatlantic relationship. Actually, it’s a transformation that will make it stronger,” she explained.

Russia & the outliers

Since last year, several Nato member-states have witnessed Russian drone incursions, as sabotage operations. Dr Berti maintained that tackling Russia is crucial for the alliance. “Nato, being a political-military alliance with essentially one job, which is to ensure the security of the territory and the citizens of its members, right now, Russia is for us the most direct strategic threat, because of its activities and its war in Ukraine,” she said.

“This pattern of what I would call destabilisation campaigns, whether it’s drone incursions, whether it’s cyberattacks, or sabotage of critical infrastructure. Definitely set out an aggressive pattern. Nato, as a defensive alliance, responds by having a strong deterrence and defence posture, by investing strongly in the resilience of our critical infrastructure, so it becomes much less vulnerable to attacks, but also by increasing our deterrence effects,” she said.

“To respond to Russian Shadow Fleet activities or potential disruption of undersea cables, for two years now, Nato has in place the activity called Baltic Sentry, which is really focused on patrolling and helping European Baltic countries to protect their airspace and their maritime domain, of course. And then, since September, we also have Eastern Sentry, another activity that essentially looks at how to augment our integrated air and missile defence in our eastern flank.”

“So what we’re doing is defensive, proportionate, and very much focused on making sure that we identify and neutralise threats,” she furthered.

However, there have been some Nato members like Hungary and Slovakia that have been inclined towards Russia due to their energy demands. Both nations have been toying with the European Union’s sanctions on Russia for a while. When asked how Nato sees these outliers, Dr Berti kept an optimistic stance on the matter.

“Nato is, of course, an alliance that has now been in place for 76 years, and it’s an alliance now of 32 democracies. Disagreements are never an exception; they’re actually part of how Nato operates. We have different sovereign nations, different geographies, histories; they share the same broad strategic outlook, but they may prioritise threats differently,” she told Firstpost.

“That’s actually why you have a platform like Nato. We sit down in the North Atlantic Council and find a consensus. The point I would like to emphasise is that every single time there is a disagreement, it doesn’t mean that Nato is in crisis, because otherwise, Nato would have been in crisis since 1949,” she said.

“Disagreements and sometimes very strong interactions are part of how we work as a democracy. And at the end of the day, when you look at the end of every year when allies meet at the summit and agree on their main priorities, you see that in the end, there’s always a consensus on the things that matter the most. In our case, boosting defence spending, increasing our defence industrial base, and building more resiliency. In the end, we all pull together,” she explained.

How Nato is looking at the West Asian tensions

Earlier this month, the United States joined hands with Israel to strike Iran, leaving Nato member states surprised and in a dilemma whether to outrightly support Washington’s aggression towards Tehran. When asked how Nato is looking at the ongoing tension in West Asia, Dr Berti reiterated what the alliance’s Secretary General Mark Rutte said.

Secretary General of Nato Mark Rutte has clearly said Nato as an alliance is not directly involved in the current military operations conducted by the United States and Israel against Iran. However, of course, Nato as an alliance is fully engaged in ensuring the protection of all its allies," she said, pointing out how Iran targeted Turkey, a Nato member state, last week.

“Secretary General Rutte called this a very serious situation, but one that does not challenge Nato’s deterrence and defence posture. We have the assets, the plans, and the authorities in place to make sure that we deal with these threats. At the same time, Nato allies have also said that this type of indiscriminate attacks that Iran is launching across the region negatively impact Euro-Atlantic and global security.”

“Iran’s behaviour in the region historically has been one, in the past decades, of destabilisation through support of terrorism, through its proliferation activities. And therefore, there is certainly support from many Nato allies for neutralising the military threat from Iran. But Nato is not directly involved,” she asserted.

It is pertinent to note that not all Nato members were in favour of the American operation in Iran. For example, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has maintained that the European nation would not allow its air bases to be used to strike Iran.

In light of this, Dr Berti reiterated that Nato as an alliance is “not involved directly, if the US requests of individual member states certain access to bases, that would be done on a bilateral national level.”

“It is Spain’s sovereign choice to decide how to handle that particular request. A very different scenario is when a Nato ally, for example, like Turkey, is directly threatened or attacked. For that, we have defensive plans, ballistic missile defence assets deployed,” she said.

“We have assets, capabilities, and plans in place to make sure that those threats would be identified and neutralised. So I would keep those as two different situations.”

Expectations from the Ankara Summit

When asked about her expectations from the Ankara Summit, Dr Berti said that she is expecting a strong signal that commitments made in 2025 about defence spending are being met. “I would expect a continuous upward trajectory in defence spending. I also expect that we will continue to work together as allies to procure more together and to strengthen our defence industrial base,” she said.

“Ukraine will remain high on the agenda and how to continue maintaining military support for Ukraine today as a defence itself, tomorrow in a potential post-conflict situation, and also to ensure it can negotiate from a position of strength. Finally, I would also expect that we continue to keep the focus on how to ensure civil preparedness through higher resilience over critical infrastructure,” she concluded.

Firstpost spoke to Dr Berti on the sidelines of the Raisina Dialogue 2026. The 11th edition of the Raisina Dialogue was held from March 5, 2026, to March 7, 2026, in New Delhi. Firstpost has partnered with the Raisina Dialogue to bring exclusive conversations with global leaders to you.

The Raisina Dialogue is India’s flagship conference on geopolitics and geo-economics, hosted by the Observer Research Foundation in collaboration with India’s Ministry of External Affairs.