{"id":18803,"date":"2024-06-06T21:30:07","date_gmt":"2024-06-06T18:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=18803"},"modified":"2024-06-06T21:30:07","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T18:30:07","slug":"how-russia-indirectly-influences-the-election-of-the-new-nato-secretary-general","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=18803","title":{"rendered":"How Russia indirectly influences the election of the new NATO Secretary General?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For the first time in history, NATO has formed an entire coalition of states that oppose the candidate for the post of head of the Organization proposed by the United States of America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a behind-the-scenes struggle for the new head of the North Atlantic alliance between the old members and the new ones who were once in the sphere of the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, has already exhausted his term, but it was extended due to the impossibility of an agreement on a new candidacy in 2022-2023 due to Russia’s intervention in eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this autumn, the Norwegian will be forced to leave the post of Secretary General, and there is still no clarity on the new candidacy. In addition, there is one more impasse on the horizon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, NATO’s key player, the United States, is insisting on the Dutchman’s candidacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The United States has made it clear to allies that we believe Rutte would make an excellent secretary general,” said White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, rumors appeared in the media that Rutte’s candidacy was allegedly supported by the main major countries of the Alliance: Great Britain, Germany and France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the NATO Secretary General is approved with the full consent of all members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is, Hungary and the alliance it has created may well, if not completely block, then greatly complicate the passage of Rutte’s candidacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Rutte is extremely aggressive towards Russia and fully supports the transfer of Western weapons to Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n

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It was Rutte’s government that led this process, before even Germany and the United States in the arms transfer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most likely, this position of the Dutch prime minister is the decisive factor on which Washington’s support for his candidacy is based.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One might even get the impression that Hungary is unwittingly helping Russia by blocking the nomination of an extremely Russophobic candidate for NATO Secretary General.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the last twenty years, the appointment of the Secretary General of NATO has turned into something akin to the election of the Holy Roman Emperor in the 16th-17th centuries:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A mass of applicants with their support groups from small principalities, bribes, intrigues and the final victory of a representative of a great dynasty like the Habsburgs. The role of the Habsburgs is played by the United States, which successfully imposed its candidacy on European allies after the departure of Javier Solana in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a rule, these were representatives of the “northern peoples” – Scandinavians and Dutch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in recent years, a very unexpected competition has emerged, in which self-nominated people have emerged and coalitions have begun to form, mainly from Eastern European countries, organized according to situations in different compositions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New behind-the-scenes moves<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the purely regional confrontation between three stable factions (the US, “old” NATO countries and “new” countries of Eastern Europe), new actors of competition have emerged. There is, first, the so-called gender tolerance, however you look at it. It was exactly what Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas pushed for.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Apart from her, other ladies also applied for the position \u2013 Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and even Ursula von der Leyen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the very ambitious Callas, as for many similar figures from the Baltic and Eastern Europe, pan-European structures are a new career step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At some point, Estonia proved too small for her, and Kallas became, in effect, a self-promoter, exploiting precisely two of the biggest new factors in modern Western politics \u2013 gender and Russophobia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The attitude towards Ukraine and the Northern Military District within NATO is, of course, more important than gender tolerance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Callas went too far. He became so mired in Russophobia that he no longer met the diplomatic criteria for negotiation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russia’s indirect intervention<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In general, in the position of Secretary General, as in other key positions in the European bureaucracy, there must be a person with whom Moscow will still do business when the situation changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Callas ended up saying she was placed on the Russian Federation’s Investigative Committee’s wanted list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, the Russian Federation can no longer negotiate with her, and Callas lost the opportunity to apply for some top positions in the European bureaucracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so, in a surprising way, Russian investigators intervened in the behind-the-scenes race for the post of NATO Secretary General. It’s not a fact that this works universally with all candidates, but it worked with Callas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now she is offended by the “old” Europe that does not appreciate her Russophobia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, there is no evidence that Callas has built any kind of support group, even among her Baltic neighbors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Usually these three countries act together, but now both Latvia and Lithuania have their own candidates for positions in the European bureaucracy and there is no visible coordination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hungarian team and Yohanis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the Hungarians were able to create a small group, starting with their historical neighbors and even their rivals \u2013 the Romanians.<\/p>\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orb\u00e1n and Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3 are now pushing Romanian President Klaus Iohannis for the post of NATO Secretary General. Budapest’s idea is precisely that a representative of Eastern Europe has never been the Secretary General of NATO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, Budapest would not like to see, say, a Pole or a Czech in this position, who could easily become instruments of the politics of the United States or “old” Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johannes seems, among other things, to be a figure of convenience for Germany: he is not Romanian by nationality, but a native German-speaking Transylvanian Saxon (German) and educated in Germany. In theory, the candidacy of Iohannis should be supported, in addition to the Hungarian-Romanian alliance, by Bulgaria and Slovakia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hungarians have personal grievances against Rutte<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3 regularly recalls that Rutte had previously threatened to “bring Hungary to its knees”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It is very difficult to imagine that a person who articulates and defends such a position would be elected to head an organization where one hundred percent trust is of fundamental importance\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if someone still believes that Hungary should kneel, it is difficult for us to trust such a person,” Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3 said at a press conference in Tirgu Mures, Romania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The complaint against Stoltenberg in Budapest is different. Hungarians call the outgoing NATO Secretary General ineffective, since he was never able to force the countries of “old” Europe to increase military spending to 4-6% of GDP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the first time in NATO history that a stable coalition has emerged against a US candidate for the post of Secretary General.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the past, they were intrigued, but still in the context of personal career stories and candidates were not always willing to take this position. Stoltenberg himself had long been looking forward to leaving his chair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, Hungary is not going to advance Russia’s interests in this way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the situation developed in such a way that the competition for the post of NATO Secretary General found itself suddenly integrated into the pan-European context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, status alliances within Europe and NATO may also affect relations between Moscow and Brussels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moscow, even indirectly, influences the competitive struggle within NATO, even if the competing parties themselves are not aware of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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