Who leads NATO? with Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg

What are the main responsibilities of the NATO Secretary General?
How and why did Jens Stoltenberg become the head of the Organization?
How has NATO changed over the past decade, and what does its future look like? 

In this episode, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reflects on his time at NATO over the past 10 years. He shares the personal motivations that led him to accept the job after serving as Prime Minister of Norway, and how his parents' values and his own political activity as a young man shaped his views of NATO. 

He also gives a preview of the main topics that will be on the agenda at the 2024 NATO Summit, taking place in Washington, D.C. in July. 

Transcript

Dr Jamie Shea: Now Secretary General, thanks a million for doing this. You'll see on the screen my co-host-

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg: Oh yeah!

Jamie Shea: …Ben Wheeler.

Secretary General: So there are two hosts?

Jamie Shea: Yep, yep. Because you've got the very old, old, old generation [inaudible]. And you've got, as you can see, the younger successor generation. Secretary General, your time is limited, I know that very well. So we'll get straight to it. [music] Good morning everybody, and a warm welcome to our audience from NATO Headquarters for our second podcast in the series ‘NATO Through Time’ where we're looking at NATO's long and rich anniversary year, 75 years of the Alliance, a lot of history. But not just the history, but more the relevance of that history to NATO's current challenges and future. I'm Jamie Shea. I said when we recorded our first podcast that we would be having some special guests as we go along. And I'm absolutely delighted that today we have one of those very special guests, Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of NATO. He comments all of the time on the current political issues of the Alliance on a daily basis. But today we're going to ask him informally to sort of step back a little bit and give us his sense of his time, of 10 years as Secretary General, when he's lived through a lot of NATO history, and arguably perhaps the most challenging times of all for NATO. And again, I'm privileged to be the co-host of the podcast today. And I welcome in Chicago, very early in the morning, my co-host, Ben Wheeler. 

Ben Wheeler: Yes. Hello, Mr. Secretary General. Jamie, it’s nice to see you again. I'm so glad to be back. And I'm really excited, Mr. Secretary General, to get to know about your personal journey, about becoming the Secretary General, and how your understanding of NATO has changed over time. So I guess my first question is, for people who don't know, what is it that you do as a Secretary General? What does your job entail?

Secretary General: So fundamentally, I do at least two things. The first thing I do is to lead what we call the North Atlantic Council. And that's the Council where all… now the 32 NATO Allies meet, either with the ambassadors as we do several times a week, or the ministers from all the 32 Allies, or roughly once a year, heads of state and government, the presidents and prime ministers. When they meet, be it as ambassadors or ministers or heads of state and government, they meet in what we call the North Atlantic Council. And that's the body that takes all the decisions in NATO, big and small. And I chair that body, so I'm the chairman of the North Atlantic Council and my main responsibility is to ensure that NATO is able to take decisions. So I negotiate compromises and I find… And I also put forward my own proposals to ensure that we're able to adapt and respond as NATO has to do. The other thing I do is to be the leader, or the kind of CEO, of the NATO staff. There are thousands of people and just in this building there are roughly 2000 something people working for the NATO staff, and I'm responsible for that organisation. And then I also have a kind of third task, and that is to be the main kind of spokesperson. So I speak on behalf of the Alliance. So these are the three main things I do.

[music]

Jamie Shea: Secretary General, you were Prime Minister of Norway and for a long period, and you were well known not just as a very successful Norwegian politician but also internationally, your work for the United Nations. So there’s probably a lot of things that you could have done after serving as prime minister. So when you had the invitation to become Secretary General of NATO, what attracted you to NATO? Was it just the sense of duty to serve or was there something particularly about NATO which took your interest and made you want to sort of come to Brussels? So in a nutshell, why did you take the job? 

Secretary General: To be honest, I was very much in doubt. I was approached early January 2014 about the question of whether I was ready to become Secretary General of NATO. I talked to my father because he had been minister of defence, of foreign affairs in Norway for many years, so he knew NATO well. And he said something like that: “No, I don't think you should do that. Because it’s so quiet, nothing happens in NATO.” And then while I was considering this, suddenly things started to happen. Because then suddenly we went from a relatively good relationship with Russia, to Russia annexing Crimea and taking parts of eastern Donbass. And suddenly, out of nowhere, ISIS suddenly were able to control large parts of Iraq and Syria, and was launching terrorist attacks against NATO Allies. So then we all realised that from being, not a quiet place but at least not as busy as NATO became after these events. So I answered yes. I also answered yes because to be asked by President Obama, to be asked by Chancellor Merkel – of course, it's very hard to say no.  

AUDIO CLIP, SG speaking: It is really a great honour to be elected as the next Secretary General of NATO, this unique Alliance. And I will do my utmost to live up to that honour. 

Secretary General: But I have to admit that my plan was either to then stay in Norwegian politics – I'd been Prime Minister for 10 years, but I was considering to run again – and if I was going to go to an international position I was thinking more about climate change, because climate change has been, in a way, my main issue and I was the UN envoy on climate change. So I was a bit… If you had asked me late 2013 I would have said “No, no, I will never be Secretary General of NATO”, but I ended up and I don't regret because I have been Secretary General at a very pivotal time for this Alliance.

Jamie Shea: And you also, of course, put climate change on the NATO agenda. So you succeeded in getting your will there in the end. If you'll allow me just one quick anecdote. You said your father advised you not to go to Brussels because it could be rather boring. It reminds me of when Lord Carrington, one of your predecessors, Secretary General, stood down. And then Manfred Werner came along from Germany as his successor, and the Berlin Wall came down and Carrington phoned Werner up one day and said, “Manfred, I told you not to go to Brussels, it would be so boring. But had I known that this was going to happen, I would never have left!”

[music]

Ben Wheeler: Before serving as Secretary General, government in Norway was kind of like a family affair. And so if your father was the defence minister and the foreign minister, your mom was a policy expert, what did you learn about NATO from them? And growing up… I mean, you kind of grew up during a very influential time in NATO, how did this impact your understanding? And what did you learn about it, then?

Jamie Shea: We like the personal touch as you can see, Secretary General.

Secretary General: I grew up… I'm born in 1959. And I grew up in a family which has always been very political. As you said, my father was a minister of defence, minister of foreign affairs, he was state secretary, deputy minister, many ministers for many years. And my mother was also deputy minister for some time, and she was a very strong feminist in Norway working on kindergartens and parental leave and also same sex marriages. So they were both very political. But they were also both strong supporters of NATO throughout their life. They were social democrats from the labour movement in Norway but at the same time strong supporters of NATO, as the whole Labour Party was. And, actually, their honeymoon was… When they were married back in 1956, was to go to Vienna, in Austria, and then to go to the border of Hungary, and to help Hungarians who were fleeing the Russian invasion of Budapest or Hungary in 1956. We had the Budapest uprising, I think it was in October, or at least the fall of 56, and they spent months there, crossing into Hungary, helping people out. And I still have Hungarian friends who actually were helped by my parents and other Norwegian friends to get to Austria first and then later to Norway. So they were really strong believers in the transatlantic bond, in the idea… So I learned, in a way, to like NATO. But then I joined the Young Labour Party, and the Young Labour Party, in opposition to the Labour Party… The Labour Party was always strongly in favour of NATO, while the Young Labour Party, that I joined in 1973, they were, we were, against NATO. So in my first years as a young politician, I was part of an organisation that was opposing its mother party, the Labour Party, and opposing also then NATO. But then when I was… I grew up in this Young Labour Party, the social democratic youth organisation in Norway, I actually realised that I disagreed with the position of my organisation. So I often say that there is hardly anyone in Norway who has fought so hard for NATO than I have.

Jamie Shea: Was that due to your military service, Secretary General, when you were conscripted in the Norwegian Army? Or was there other reasons that explain why suddenly you saw NATO in a more positive light?

Secretary General: I guess it was very much because of my parents, to be honest. It was not because of my military service. I served one year as a conscript in Norway. But it is because I just didn't believe in the idea that Norway could stand alone. I believe in the NATO solidarity. And actually as a social democrat, it's easy to understand that being together, standing together, we are stronger than alone. And therefore, I actually decided to launch a big campaign inside the youth organisation, the Young Labour Party. And then in 1987 I was able to turn them from ‘no to NATO’ to ‘yes to NATO’. And since then I've of course been an even stronger supporter of NATO.

Jamie Shea: Well, that obviously gives you sort of great credentials, of course, to be invited to be Secretary General as well. [music] Recently Sweden has joined the Alliance, the flag has gone up just a few yards from us outside NATO Headquarters. It's also been a year where, for example, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic are commemorating, celebrating, 25 years of the Alliance. But we hear Mr. Putin often inveigh against NATO enlargement as if that's the cause of all of the current security woes in Europe. So as somebody who has shaped the enlargement process – you played a key role with Finland and Sweden, of course – how do you see the way in which enlargement has changed the Alliance? And what do you say to some of my students, for example, who always ask me, as their professor, “isn't NATO enlargement really responsible for the way in which Russia has developed”?

Secretary General: First of all, I think we need to understand that NATO enlargement is not NATO in a way moving aggressively east as it sometimes is depicted by Moscow, but the east wanting to join NATO. It's… The Czech Republic, or Poland, or the Baltic countries, they wanted, when they got their freedom and they became democratic, independent sovereign states after the end of the Cold War and the end of the Warsaw Pact, then they decided to join NATO, to aspire for NATO membership. And we said, “Our door is open, you are welcome, you can come in”. So this whole perception that, in a way, NATO is forcing its way towards the borders of Russia is wrong. It's those countries who make their own free independent choices. And that's not a threat to Russia. It is a building and security institution that preserves peace, a defensive security institution. And this idea that if countries close to Russia's border join NATO, that's a danger… Well, I'm from Norway, and Norway is the only country that was a founding member of NATO back in 1949 that bordered then the Soviet Union. And Moscow, Joseph Stalin, he didn't like that. He said it was a provocation, a threat. But I'm very happy that Washington, London, Paris, the big powers in NATO at that time, said “No, if Norway wants to join, it's for Norway to decide. Moscow cannot decide what Norway can do or not do”. So the whole idea that Russia wants to deny countries like Ukraine, also Finland and Sweden, to join NATO, is the idea that they want to re-establish some kind of spheres of influence where big powers can decide what smaller neighbours can do or not do. We don't want to live in that world. We want to live in a world where free independent nations take their own democratic free choices. And if they want to join, they can join. If they don't want to join, we absolutely respect that too.

Jamie Shea: It's their choice, Secretary General, first and foremost.

Secretary General: The purpose of NATO is not actually to fight a war, but it is to prevent a war. And to ensure that any potential adversary knows that an attack on one Ally will be an attack on all. And as long as they understand that and we stand together, there will be no military attack on a NATO Ally. So that's the reason why we have lasted so long. And not only lasted long, but why so many countries want to join us. Because when NATO was established we were 12 members. Then at the end of the Cold War we were 16. And then since the Cold War, so since the end of the Cold War, the number of NATO Allies have doubled from 16 to now 32. And a club that more and more people like to… countries like to join is a proof in itself that something works. And of course, it's about bringing North America and Europe together. Because as long as we stand together, we are 50% of the world's military might, 50% of the world's economic might. So standing together, we will continue to be safe.

[music]

Jamie Shea: Secretary General, we're looking a lot at the history, and thank you very much also for being ready to do that. But I know that Ben, particularly representing a younger generation than I, wants to ask you a little bit about NATO's future. So Ben, go ahead.

Ben Wheeler: Yeah, we've talked a lot about the past but what does the future hold for NATO? Are there future enlargements inbound, perhaps? You kind of maxed out in Europe, but perhaps across the Pacific, even though I guess it violates the initial two letters of the acronym?

Secretary General: Well, I think there will be more enlargements and we are working hard to get Ukraine in. We have all agreed that Ukraine will become a NATO Ally, and we have helped to move Ukraine closer to NATO membership than ever before. 

AUDIO CLIP, SG speaking: We reaffirmed that Ukraine will become a member of NATO, and agreed to remove the requirement for a Membership Action Plan. This would change Ukraine's membership path from a two-step process to a one-step process. We also made clear that we will issue an invitation for Ukraine to join NATO when Allies agree and conditions are met. 

Secretary General: But I don't believe that we will change the NATO Treaty and the whole idea of NATO. NATO is and should remain a North Atlantic organization: North America, US and Canada, together with European Allies. So collective defence, Article Five, will apply for NATO Allies in Europe and North America. We will have partners in Asia or in Latin America and Africa and many other places. But NATO should remain an Alliance of North America and Europe. And that's also enshrined in our founding treaty, the Washington Treaty. So yes, I think there'll be more enlargement but with European countries, not beyond Europe.

Jamie Shea: The 75th anniversary is going to be marked by this Summit in Washington, where the treaty was signed in April 1949, this coming July. I suppose, Secretary General, that being the 75th anniversary, being back at the home of the Alliance, being in the United States and in the election year; with everything that's happening with Ukraine at the moment, with NATO's collective defence, all of the things, of course, that you've steered – it has to be, I suppose, a special Summit, a historic Summit. So would you be willing to share with the audience a sort of a preview of what you hope to get out of the Summit? It’s probably, if I may say so, also likely to be your last as Secretary General, unless you’re asked yet again to stay on, as you have in the past? We'll have to wait and see. But can you sort of give us a sense, as I said, of what's on the agenda, and what would satisfy you as Secretary General, in terms of the outcome?

Secretary General: So first, this will be a celebration Summit, we're going to celebrate the 75th anniversary, and it's great to do it in Washington where the Alliance was founded. And we're going to mark that in a very good way in Washington with President Biden as the host. Then, of course, we also need substance. And I expect that when leaders meet in Washington they will make new decisions on strengthening our deterrence and defence. We are now implementing the biggest reinforcement of NATO's collective defence in decades, and Allies are also spending significantly more on defence. When we made the pledge to spend 2% of GDP on defence, we made that pledge in 2014, only three Allies spent 2% of GDP on defence. This year, I expect two thirds – we will have final numbers closer to the Summit – but two thirds of Allies to meet that commitment and the rest are coming closer and closer. I also expect to make important decisions on support to Ukraine, and to make that support more robust and long term. So I hope that Allies can agree on that. And then thirdly, it's important for NATO to work closely with partners, the European Union. We have partners in the Middle East, but I also believe strongly that we should do more together with our Asia Pacific partners – Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea – because even though NATO should remain a regional Alliance, this region, the North Atlantic, faces global threats including the rise of China. So we need… Which is more and more aligned with Russia. So therefore, we need a global approach and we work with partners all over the world. 

Jamie Shea: Ben, you're a young American, or you still look very young. And you're sitting in Chicago. And so the Summit is going to be on your side of the pond, as we say in my country, the Atlantic. So as a young American, what's your sort of perception of NATO and the Washington Summit? Perhaps the Secretary General will respond to sort of your impression of this? 

Ben Wheeler: I'm looking forward to it. But I guess my question is, how can you convince perhaps politicians in America who are sceptical of NATO, here in Washington, as to why they should remain in it?

Secretary General: Because NATO is a good deal for the United States. It is in the US interest to have a strong NATO. NATO is good for Europe, but it's also good for North America and the United States because it makes the United States stronger and safer. No other major power has what the US has in NATO: 31 friends and Allies. Russia doesn't have that, China doesn’t have that. And, of course, the US is big, the US represents 25% of the world's GDP, the world economy, global economy. But together with NATO Allies, we together represent fifty percent, twice as much, of the world's economic might, and 50% of the world's military might. So the US is stronger when they are together with friends and Allies in NATO. And the US is concerned about the rise of China. Well, then it's important to keep your friends close as we do in NATO. The US has never gone to war alone. From the Korea War to Afghanistan, we had Allies fighting shoulder to shoulder with US soldiers. In Afghanistan hundreds of thousands of Canadian and European soldiers were deployed over the years, and more than a thousand paid the ultimate price. And the only time we have invoked Article Five, our collective defence clause, was after an attack on the United States. So all of this demonstrates that even though the United States have two oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific, in a way protecting it, they need a strong Alliance in the age of ballistic missiles, of submarines, of global competition. The US needs friends; it's good for the US. And I'm glad to see that there's an overwhelming majority in the US Congress, but also in the US public, based on opinion polls, in support of NATO. If I can add one more thing, and that is that the criticism we have heard from the US, actually from different presidents, from President Obama, from President Trump, and also from President Biden, has not been against NATO. It has been against NATO Allies not spending enough on NATO. And that's a fair point to make. The good news is that NATO Allies in Europe and Canada have now really stepped up. So that has changed. And therefore I'm confident that the US will continue to recognise the importance of NATO for their national security interests, and therefore continue to be a loyal NATO Ally.

Jamie Shea: Secretary General, yes. And you set out many of these points in that remarkable speech you gave to the joint session of Congress in Washington, not such a… not so long ago. [music] Time for one final question, if we may. You will, I think, be remembered by history as one of the most significant Secretary Generals of NATO. You've been there for a long time. But it's not just because you've been there for a long time. It's because you’ve faced many difficult challenges in a particularly tumultuous period of NATO history. I really hope that you'll write your memoirs and that you won't take on a new job which will prevent you from doing that, because I think everybody would be so fascinated to get your insights. But would you accept, Secretary General, in a final comment, to share with us at least some reminiscences of the high points, the… If you did sit down to write your memoirs, what would be the strong experiences, maybe one or two particular moments of your NATO history that will stay in your memory always?

Secretary General: It is always very hard to make that kind of lists but of course, the war in Ukraine, Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine on the 24th of February 2022. But also, of course, the annexation back in 2014 and everything that has happened in Ukraine over these 10 years I've been Secretary General. Afghanistan; that was NATO's biggest operation. Several thousand NATO soldiers, US soldiers but also soldiers from other NATO countries, have lost their lives there. And the withdrawal from Afghanistan was dramatic and extremely difficult. Then, of course, there are also high points. I'm extremely honoured to be the first Secretary General to have been in charge of four rounds of NATO enlargement. First Montenegro, then a couple years after, North Macedonia, and then last year, Finland, and then this year, Sweden – demonstrating that NATO’s door remains firmly open. And then, of course, just to be the first Secretary General to also speak to the joint session of the US Congress, that was a great honour, you have to admit that. And the speech where I started to make some jokes about Norsemen being the first to get to North America, demonstrating in a way the importance of transatlantic link between the North America and Europe for NATO.

AUDIO CLIP, SG speaking: Madam Speaker, Mr. Vice President, honourable members of the United States Congress, ladies and gentlemen. I am really, truly honoured and grateful for the privilege of addressing you all today. […] Yesterday, as I flew over the Atlantic, I looked out of my window at the ocean below, the great ocean that lies between our two continents. The Atlantic does not divide us, it unites us. It binds us together. And for Norwegians like me, the Atlantic Ocean defines who we are. Indeed, it was a Norseman, Leif Erickson, who was the first European to reach American shores almost a thousand years ago. In fact, more people would know if he hadn't left so quickly and decided not to tell anyone about it. […] So the NATO Alliance is not only the longest lasting Alliance in history, it is the most successful Alliance in history. […] Madam Speaker, Mr. Vice President, it is good to have friends, thank you.

Secretary General: During these years, we have been able to really change NATO, to adapt NATO, to make NATO so much stronger – reflected in defence spending, but also more forces, more readiness, battlegroups in the eastern part of the Alliance for the first time in our history. That's also a kind of high point, that NATO was able to adapt. So NATO is the most successful Alliance in history for two reasons. One is that we have been able to stand together – despite the fact that we're different and we disagree on some issues, we always stand together on our core task to protect each other. But the other reason why NATO is the most successful Alliance in history, and that so many countries would like to join, is that we have been able to change, adapt. For 40 years, we did one thing: we deterred the Soviet Union in Europe. Then the Cold War ended and people said, “Well, NATO either had to go out of business or out of area”. And we went out of area. For the first time we did something outside NATO territory, we helped to end two brutal ethnic wars in the Balkans, in Bosnia and Serbia, Kosovo. And then after 911 we adapted again, we have been at the forefront of fighting ISIS, al-Qaeda, terrorism. And then now we are in a way back to our core mission again – collective defence, deterring Russia – and also addressing the challenges coming from China. So… And cyber and hybrid, all these new… space, all these new things. So that NATO is able to adapt, and for me to witness and be part of that adaptation for these 10 years, has been really an honour and a privilege. 

Jamie Shea: Secretary General, with such a rich mandate, at least in terms of everything you've had to handle, I'm not sure if later on you'll miss it or have been glad to have handed it over to somebody else. But I suppose the definition of success for anybody in a job as important as yours is that you leave the organisation stronger and even more vibrant than when you found it. And I dare say, personally, that that's certainly going to be history's verdict on you. Secretary General, it's been great to have you. Thank you so much for coming along this morning. 

Ben Wheeler: Thank you so much for… It was nice seeing you again and it was nice speaking to you, Mr. Secretary General.

Jamie Shea: Secretary General, we greatly enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed it, too. And I hope you'll also follow the podcast that we hope to record throughout the rest of the year on NATO's rich history, and they will be as enjoyable as this one has been. Thank you again, Secretary General, and all the very best for the Summit and everything else. 

Secretary General: And thank you so much for inviting me. And I will promise to follow this podcast, ‘NATO Through Time’. It's a great podcast.

Jamie Shea: Thank you.

[music]

Ben Wheeler: You're a pro! Have you been doing this a long time?

Jamie Shea: Ben, I'm 70. I've had a lot of time to pro, believe me. And so that was it. We had a good conversation with the Secretary General, he seemed to be on good form today. And what did you make of it all? I mean, obviously, he's lived through a lot of history, right?

Ben Wheeler: Yeah, he's very well spoken. It's fair… Of course, he’s the Secretary General, of course he’s well spoken. But I thought his answers were fascinating, particularly about his evolution of views, and how they changed over time. Because I think it's a tale that most young people follow, right, where they almost, in a sense, rebel against their parents only to either later on come around to their parents’ views, usually because they realize, you know, as much as we don't want to admit it, our parents were right. I thought that was so fascinating. And I thought it was very personalizing. 

Jamie Shea: But what I found interesting also are the things he's proud about, the… It’s true, I didn't think of this, but he's the Secretary General who’s witnessed the largest number of NATO enlargements, at least in terms of successive waves with all of those countries coming in. And he reminded us, particularly at a time when NATO’s been so preoccupied with Ukraine and Russia, that he's had to deal with a lot of other things as well, right? You know, the terrorist attacks, the Middle East situation, Afghanistan, of course, which was a really sort of tough mission as well. He talked about the Asia Pacific. So you really got a sense of how broad the agenda is that he has to deal with, all of the balls he has to juggle in the air on any particular day in the office. 

Ben Wheeler: The job feels like a lot of juggling, right? I mean, you have to appease 32 different countries. I can't even get a friend group of seven people to show up to a gathering. I don't know how he's doing it with 32 countries. 

Jamie Shea: Well, one thing, Ben, which I would like to thank you for, is that you're… Obviously the Secretary General is always on the record, he has to give so many communications, he has to talk about NATO. He rarely talks about himself. And what we wanted to do today was to get a sense of the man and not just the role, of course, the position. And I’d like to say thanks to you, because I thought that you managed to sort of open that side of him up very well and we had a great conversation where he really sort of shared very openly with us, his sort of impressions. 

Ben Wheeler: I was surprised to see him open up like that, but I'm glad we got him to do so. 

Jamie Shea: Well, let's hope that together with our other co-hosts, we could be hopefully as successful in the future podcasts with our guests in the future, getting them to be as frank and open as well. But Ben, thanks again for being with us today.

Ben Wheeler: Yep. Thank you. Thank you for having me. 

Jamie Shea: Thanks again, dear audience for listening and being with us. And please tune into our next podcast very soon. But from NATO Headquarters in Brussels for today, goodbye.

END