At the Ankara summit, U.S. President Donald Trump signaled he would share the production license for the Patriot air-defense system with Ukraine, framing it as backing for defensive — not offensive — capabilities.
Decoding the move: Barry Pavel, Managing Director, Pavel Global Strategies, LLC, reads the gesture as more than symbolic: where American manufacturing hits bottlenecks in critical munitions, enabling allied production could become a template for the alliance.
Why it matters: The Patriot is central to shielding Ukrainian cities and infrastructure from Russia’s persistent stand-off strikes. Licensing its production abroad does three things at once:
- Eases US constraints on manufacturing high-value munitions;
- Unlocks allied co-production wherever the capacity exists;
- Strengthens Kyiv’s defensive posture without crossing Trump’s line on offensive arms.
Why he matters: Barry Pavel is a national security and strategy expert, former Vice President and Director of the National Security Research Division at the RAND Corporation, and former Senior Vice President at the Atlantic Council.
- He previously served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Defense Policy and Strategy at the White House National Security Council. He also spent 15 years at the US Department of Defense, working on national security strategy and policy planning.
Burden, not exit. Pavel situates the move within a decades-old, bipartisan Washington push for greater European defense spending. He recalls Robert Gates’s 2011 Brussels warning that American public support for NATO would erode if allies kept under-spending — a debate, in other words, far older than the current administration.
- Now, he argues, Europe is finally “picking up the baton,” with some allies on target and others closing in.
- The logic is blunt: European under-spending simply multiplied US defense requirements worldwide, and Washington “cannot do everything everywhere.”
The bigger picture: January’s US defense strategy prioritized the Indo-Pacific and homeland defense, marking a burden shift rather than a withdrawal. Washington will keep substantial forces and responsibilities in Europe; talk of leaving NATO, Pavel insists, is overblown.
- The Ankara summit, in this reading, consecrated a Europe willing to own more of its own security architecture — a stronger Europe, or at least one that wants to be.
Political fault lines. Friction persists at the top table:
- Greenland: Trump called it “a big problem” inside the alliance. Pavel voices concern at that framing but sees the strategic logic — the Arctic is thawing as Russian, and potentially Chinese, activity grows.
- Italy and Spain: High-level jabs bruised sensitivities, echoing a recent Germany episode tied to a long-planned posture realignment.
Pavel’s counsel: take a breath. Washington, he stresses, does not run policy on emotion — concrete, rational interests remain in play.
What it signals: Beyond Europe, fresh attacks in the Strait of Hormuz point to Iran’s fractured decision-making, with Pavel tracing the provocations to Revolutionary Guard incentives to keep tensions — and budgets — high. The throughline is an alliance that looks messier but arguably healthier: allies co-produce, Europe leads more, and periodic turbulence gives way to durable interests.
