It is now a security policy truism that since the Russian attack on Ukraine nothing, really nothing at all is the same as before. This statement is not entirely wrong. However, there is one place where the war has not brought change, but consistency. This place is the office of the NATO Secretary General in Brussels.
That’s where Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg was sitting when the war started in February 2022. Just a few weeks later, in March, his term, which was supposed to end last fall, was extended to September 2023. And when the heads of state and government of the alliance meet in Vilnius this Tuesday and Wednesday, they will be stuck for another year – Stoltenberg is to lead the western military alliance until October 1, 2024. Assuming he actually leaves office, Stoltenberg will have held the post for more than ten years.
According to a NATO representative in Brussels, Stoltenberg decided “out of the goodness of his heart” not to abandon the alliance at a time when war is raging on the eastern border, Russia has become a real enemy again and the alliance must be held together. However, the ironic undertone with which the diplomat pronounces the word “kindness of heart” reveals that this is at most half the truth. Stoltenberg certainly cares a lot about NATO. But it’s also no secret that the 64-year-old wanted to return to Norway, where he was once finance and prime minister, where his family and a new job as head of the central bank awaited. Nothing will come of this for the time being.
The general secretary comes from Europe, the military commander-in-chief from the USA
Because the other half of the truth is that the governments of the 31 NATO countries have simply not been able to find a successor for Stoltenberg in the past few months. That may sound surprising, because there is only one official condition for the office of NATO Secretary General: the appointment is decided by consensus, and all NATO members have to agree. And there is one unofficial stipulation: Traditionally, the post goes to a non-US person. America provides the military supreme commander of the alliance, the “Saceur” (Supreme Allied Commander Europe). The highest-ranking civilian representative of NATO, on the other hand, has always been a European.
But despite this not very extensive list of criteria, the NATO countries have not been able to agree on a new man or – for the first time – a woman for the post. There were candidates – from Canada and Denmark, from Great Britain and Estonia. Some names were more compelling than others. But in the end, no person who was traded does not have a profile that would mean that all countries said yes. Above all, the United States, which as NATO’s leading power has the greatest say in this matter, even if it cannot submit an applicant itself, has never really committed itself to a candidate. That made the search pretty aimless, it ended where it began: with Jens Stoltenberg.
That doesn’t mean, however, that Stoltenberg is only staying for a lack of alternatives. It’s more like this: because Stoltenberg does his job so well, there was little urge to replace him. “We are very happy that he is continuing,” is a sentence that is often heard in Brussels at the moment.
Important successes can be attributed to Stoltenberg
No wonder: The Norwegian has led the alliance with great skill through the difficult years in which Donald Trump was the US President, who considered the European allies to be freeloaders and was about to terminate America’s membership in NATO. Stoltenberg held the alliance against Russia together with similar bravura in the last few months of the war – not an easy task when you have members like the Balts, for whom the attitude towards Moscow cannot be hard enough, but at the same time Hungary is also sitting at the table, whose prime minister is always there announced that Ukraine should finally make peace. And finally, the Secretary General managed to organize Finland’s admission in a hurry.
However, the problem of having to find a successor for Stoltenberg does not disappear with the extension of his term of office. It’s getting more complicated: In the summer of 2024, the top posts in the EU – the presidency of the Council and Commission and the position of foreign affairs representative – must also be filled. There will be a great temptation for the European heads of state and government to include the office at NATO in the personnel merry-go-round that will then turn.