NATO's eastern flank deterrence measures, including multinational forward deployments and enhanced air and missile defenses in Poland, the Baltics, and Romania, have helped contain spillover risks from the Russia-Ukraine conflict without producing direct armed attacks on alliance territory. The July 2026 Ankara Summit Declaration reaffirmed allies' ironclad commitment to Article 5 while characterizing Russia as a persistent but manageable long-term threat, consistent with U.S. national defense assessments that emphasize European-led burden-sharing. No qualifying incidents have occurred in 2025–2026 to trigger the clause, whose only prior use followed the 2001 attacks on the United States. Traders therefore assign high probability to no invocation before the end of 2026, reflecting the alliance's calibrated response posture and absence of escalatory breakthroughs.