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If Jens Stoltenberg had protested more vigorously in Oslo as a teenager in the 1970s, the now 64-year-old might not have had so much to do. “We, we sing Norway out of NATO”, he trumpeted in unison with his pacifist colleagues from the socialist youth movement.
But the protest was futile. Norway is and will remain an important member of the Defense Alliance. And Stoltenberg, who has led the organization as secretary general for nine years, simply cannot get the rest he deserves.
For the second time since 2022, the former Norwegian prime minister had to extend his NATO treaty last week. Last year – he had already been appointed as the new head of the central bank in his home country – the Russian attack on Ukraine thwarted his plans. And more than a year after the outbreak of war, NATO is still struggling to find a viable alternative to the wiry economist with the dry and crystal-clear announcements.
Stoltenberg’s response to Breivik’s murder made him world famous
Stoltenberg is not the only one who could play the role, Karl Mueller, a military expert at the US think tank Rand Corporation, told SonntagsBlick. “However, right now it is extremely important that NATO is seen as a militarily and politically united alliance.” And a crisis-tested and experienced leader at the top is not a bad idea.
Tried and tested in crises, that’s what the former journalist and statistician Stoltenberg is all about. As head of government, he had to comfort his homeland when terrorist Anders Behring Breivik (44) shot dead 69 participants in a socialist youth camp on Utoya in the summer of 2011. The Social Democrat Stoltenberg, who himself once participated in the youth camps on this island, opted for caution rather than retaliation. “If one man can show so much hate on his own, imagine how much love we can show when we stand together,” he told his grieving nation.
The phrase made him famous worldwide. And perhaps it was this tentative moment that then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel (68) had in mind when she brought up Stoltenberg in 2014 as a possible new Secretary General of NATO.
Declaration of War for Christmas
Stoltenberg remained sober in 2018, at that near-fatal dinner with the frothy Donald Trump (76). At the time, the US president openly threatened with NATO that America would leave the alliance if the other members did not finally adjust their defense budgets upwards. Stoltenberg remained sober, as always. In Brussels, where he manages more than 4,000 civil servants, they call him a “talking machine”.
Wrongly one must say when one looks at that moment just after Christmas 2022 remembered when Stoltenberg drew all his rhetorical weapons and launched the unmistakable rallying cry against Russian terror in Ukraine. “The currency in which we have to pay is money. Ukrainians pay with lives every day. We must immediately stop complaining and step up our support. That’s all I have to say,” he thundered into the microphones.
He has visited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (45) in Kiev several times since the outbreak of the war. But he does not want to give Ukraine false hope. Joining NATO before the end of the war is out of the question, he stressed in May. At the same time, he will do everything to bring about the Ukrainian victory.
With rainbow flags to the electropop concert
Not an easy task. Stoltenberg must combine diplomatic interests from Amsterdam to Ankara and from Vancouver to Warsaw. Erdogan, Macron, Biden and Scholz: they all talk to him. The Turks quarrel with the Swedes. The French criticize the overall strategy. The Balts want more troops. Western Europeans do not want to pay. The Poles are against it, as are the Hungarians. The Ukrainians want in. The Russians threaten nuclear strikes. Goddamnit!
Stoltenberg strikes a balance between all the geopolitical madness at home in nature. “Finally sun again,” he beams into the selfie camera and shows his 140,000 Instagram followers the Norwegian mountains. He goes cross-country skiing, jogs around Washington early in the morning before visiting the White House, and occasionally attends a concert by the electro-pop duo Smerz, with whom his daughter tours Europe with rainbow flags.
He only has to wait a while before he goes to Shanghai, where his son is studying Chinese. The NATO chief would not be a welcome guest in China.
These are the bottlenecks in Vilnius
Next week Stoltenberg will be in the spotlight again. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the heads of government of all 31 NATO member states will meet in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius for the annual strategy debate.
What promises can you make to Ukraine? Should one open an office in the third country Japan and possibly provoke the Chinese? How can the Turks stop blocking Sweden’s accession? These questions will cause hot heads in the Baltic summer.
Stoltenberg will enter into discussion everywhere, look for answers, work out solutions, build up a lot of frustration and take many hurdles. And he will secretly look forward to next year when he will try to quit his job for the third time and finally have more time for summers on the Scandinavian fjords and winters on the local trails. Unless, of course, the colleagues cannot find anyone to replace him.
Source: Blick
I am Amelia James, a passionate journalist with a deep-rooted interest in current affairs. I have more than five years of experience in the media industry, working both as an author and editor for 24 Instant News. My main focus lies in international news, particularly regional conflicts and political issues around the world.
