Breuer will take over from Dragone next July and will serve a three-year term.
The rest of the votes were kept secret to avoid the risk of breeding disloyalty and divisions over the result, said one NATO official, who was granted anonymity to speak freely.
The German four-star general beat Canada’s chief of defense Jennie Carignan for the role. He was seen as the favorite given Berlin’s status as Europe’s top defense spender and implicit backing from Washington. Breuer had campaigned on Germany’s leading role in defense spending as European allies come under U.S. pressure to take control of their own defense.
Carignan, Ottawa’s top general since 2024, made her pitch about reinvigorating the role of the military committee and signaling enduring transatlantic unity inside NATO. Strained bilateral ties between Canada and the U.S. were seen by NATO officials as making Carignan’s case more difficult.
The result underscores Berlin’s growing role in the alliance, as it takes over senior military roles and assumes greater operational responsibility for protecting frontline states with a regional army command focused on Estonia and Latvia and a permanent deployment in Lithuania.
The chair of NATO’s military committee is expected to give honest military advice to allies — helping assess the feasibility, financing and capabilities of operations. They oversee dozens of working groups of NATO military staff, and broker consensus on formulating military advice.