Who can unite the allies?

Jan 22nd 2009

From The Economist print edition

THE world’s most successful military alliance is looking for a new boss. On January 26th, NATO ambassadors will start talking about who should replace Jaap de Hoop Scheffer as secretary-general when he steps down this summer. The decision could be made at the 60th-anniversary summit in April, though that may be too soon for America’s new administration.

Poland’s foreign (and ex-defence) minister, Radek Sikorski, is an early front-runner. An Oxford-educated refugee from communism, he would symbolise the continent’s unification, say his supporters. He runs Poland’s newly emollient foreign policy fairly convincingly and knows Afghanistan from cold-war days. But west European countries with good ties to Russia, particularly Germany, worry that his appointment would irritate the Kremlin.

Another eastern possibility is Solomon Passy, the Trabant-driving former foreign minister of Bulgaria. He has already headed the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, a broad security forum that includes Russia. That could make him more acceptable to the Kremlin. But he may be too obscure: many allies want a secretary-general with political clout, “somebody whose phone calls will be answered when he calls European leaders”, as a NATO insider puts it.

Clout is Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s strong suit. As Danish prime minister since 2001, he sent his country’s troops to serve alongside American ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Mr Fogh Rasmussen is thought to be more interested in becoming the EU’s first permanent president, if that position ever materialises. Radical Islamists’ ire over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in Danish newspapers might be another problem: a Danish connection might not help NATO to pacify the Taliban.

Two Canadian possibilities are Peter MacKay and John Manley, defence and former foreign ministers respectively. Canada has transformed its armed forces and fought hard in Afghanistan. But NATO may prefer somebody from an EU country to help overcome the friction between the two bodies. If so, that would rule out another possible European, Norway’s foreign minister, Jonas Gahr Store.

One contender is Britain’s soft-spoken former defence secretary, Des Browne. But Britain is detested by jihadists even more than Denmark. Mr Browne lost his cabinet seat last year, and a Briton, George Robertson, was secretary-general as recently as 2003. A French candidate might seal that country’s re-entry into NATO’s military structure, which will be confirmed at the April summit. But many allies will want to wait to see more evidence that France has really given up being the leader of NATO’s awkward squad.

That role is passing to Germany, which places big restrictions on what its forces can do in Afghanistan, and has ties with Russia that irk former Soviet satellites. Some NATO insiders think the best way to stop Berlin from becoming the new Paris might be to appoint a senior German with solid pro-American credentials to NATO’s top job—in effect, not Germany’s man at NATO, but NATO’s man for Germany.