Will Ben Wallace be the next head of NATO?
After the peppermint smiles and chummy handshakes of Rishi Sunak’s Washington knees-up with Joe Biden, one topic has left an equivocal note hanging over the revitalised special relationship: who will be the new head of NATO? writes Mattie Brignal.
Jens Stoltenberg, who has been a steady hand at the alliance’s tiller since 2014, is due to stand down in September, and the race to replace him is on.
Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, has made it clear he’d like the job, and Sunak is almost certain to have made the hard sell for Wallace during his tête-à-tête with Biden on Thursday.
Yet the President was cryptic when asked by the press whether it was time for a British secretary-general for the first time in 20 years.
“Maybe, that remains to be seen,” Biden said, adding: “We’re going to have to get a consensus within NATO to see that happen.”
“They have a candidate who’s a very qualified individual… we have a lot of discussion between us in NATO, to determine what the outcome of that will be.”
Is Wallace the “very qualified individual”? Or does “they” refer to the Danes, whose prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, is also thought to be in the running for the NATO job. It’s not entirely clear. Either way, Biden was hedging his bets.
Wallace is thought to be something of a long-shot, while Frederiksen, who pipped Sunak to a meeting with Biden in Washington earlier this week, is considered one of the frontrunners if Stoltenberg is replaced. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas are two other names doing the rounds.
Still, there’s plenty to recommend the defence secretary. Wallace has proved himself immensely competent since the Ukraine war began, spearheading Britain’s robust response and drumming up international support.
Edward Hunter Christie, a senior research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs and a former NATO official, believes that in a straight shoot-out between Wallace and Frederiksen, Wallace would be the best bet.
“I think it’s a good time for NATO’s top role to favour a candidate with greater military expertise and credentials,” he says. “Wallace is a safe pair of hands and he can do consensus politics. But with an added gravitas that Frederiksen doesn’t have.”
From the point of view of NATO members, Wallace’s big advantage is that the UK is putting its money where its mouth is on defence – at least compared to the Danes.
In his statement to the press from the White House yesterday, the PM trumpeted the UK’s record of consistently spending more than the NATO target of 2 per cent of GDP on defence. This is being interpreted as a veiled swipe at Denmark, which did not meet the target last year.
Yet there’s a chance neither hopeful will get the chance to stand. Stoltenberg’s term has already been extended from March 2022 following Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine the month before, and many officials believe that a further extension is a serious possibility – and the right call at a perilous moment in the alliance’s history.
Others are pushing for a breath of fresh air. Stoltenberg is a former Norwegian prime minister and his most recent predecessors were Danish, Dutch and British. The French are thought to be in favour of a candidate from an EU country, and there is a strong argument for the new head to hail from a central or eastern European state, given the renewed focus on Russia. NATO has never had a secretary-general from any of the former Soviet countries which joined the alliance since 1999.
Whoever takes over will face a tough balancing act: bolstering NATO’s defences and boosting Ukraine’s war effort without becoming directly involved in the conflict. The alliance must ensure their man – or woman – is up to the task.
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