CIVICUS discusses the 2025 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) summit with Francesca Grandi, Head of Defence and Security at Transparency International, a global civil society organisation that fights corruption and promotes transparency and integrity in public life.
While the summit put on a show of unity among member states and made extensive defence commitments, it failed to address a fundamental lack of strategic coherence on Russia, Ukraine and emerging security threats such as cyber and hybrid warfare. NATO faces the challenge of moving beyond headline commitments to create genuine alignment between strategic objectives and implementation timelines, between military power and democratic accountability, and between states and citizens. Transparency in defence spending is the crucial element that binds these together.
