What is the fight over the post of NATO Secretary General
Democracy is when we agreed that all votes in our union are equal, and only in this way, jointly, decisions are made, but in reality decides for all anyway one vote of the strongest. What nonsense, this is a dictatorship — you say. This is how Russia is arranged — domestic liberals will say. No. This is how NATO works. And we would not care about such a device, but then the main one, namely the President of the United States, began to frantically honk.
U.S. President Joe Biden < p>As you know, the alliance on Tuesday decided to extend the powers of the current Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg until October 1, 2024. As a result, he will hold the post of head of NATO for ten years, although initially his powers expired in 2018 (and here you can think about the change of power and stability, but this is optional).
So, Stoltenberg suits the master of NATO is stability and manageability. He skillfully feeds Ukraine breakfasts and at the same time does not take any strategically dangerous actions to escalate — to draw NATO troops directly into the conflict.
For example, on June 19, he said at a press conference in Berlin: “Neither at the summit in Vilnius, nor during its preparation, we are discussing the issue of formally inviting Ukraine to NATO. We are discussing how to bring Ukraine closer to NATO.” It was such a signal from the «owner» that Zelensky immediately began to complain to Biden: invite us to NATO, only you can decide!
Jens Stoltenberg, Joe Biden
Moreover, leaving Stoltenberg in office also turned out to be a signal of too zealous “youth” of the alliance. For example, Poland really wanted to get rid of Moscow by appointing one of the countries that were part of the USSR as the new NATO Secretary General. The same Prime Minister of Estonia Kayu Kallas. But those who like to inflame were commanded «whoa!» from across the ocean.
However, young people are always radical. But there is another signal. Perhaps the most interesting. The head of the British Ministry of Defense Ben Wallace, according to The Telegraph, could not become the head of NATO due to the fact that he … supports Kyiv too much! Allegedly, in relations with Washington, “significant tensions arose due to its unprecedented support for Ukraine. Including with regard to tanks and long-range cruise missiles, he often went further than the United States.”
All this together somewhat reduces the likelihood of a global cataclysm. By such actions within NATO, the United States makes it clear that, of course, they need to fight Russia, but Ukraine is only a bargaining chip in this struggle. And what happens to her in the end is not so important. The main thing is not to arrange a total annihilation in the heat of the struggle.
Such a course taken by the United States, apparently, will be maintained. As the successor to Stoltenberg, according to Western media, Biden considers the current head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. The press hints that she is also very manageable: they say that the US president and the head of the EC have recently established “strong ties” within the framework of transatlantic cooperation, and von der Leyen herself now relies more on US intelligence rather than Europe.
In the case of NATO, dictatorship is a more sensible system than democracy.