Although little-known, NATO’s military committee is the alliance’s most senior military authority, with the chair 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.
The position is a “highly complex role,” said Eleonora Russell, the spokesperson of former chair Adm. Rob Bauer, because it requires simultaneously gaining the trust of both the military and the political leadership across the alliance — and not taking sides.
Such a role is particularly challenging today given enduring transatlantic tensions, she said, and important as sensitive talks on NATO’s next four-year war planning cycle will kick off in October. “The trick is you have to be … an extremely good listener,” Russell said, “but then you have to also have a very strong backbone.”
Germany’s Breuer, who Berlin announced as a candidate in February, is seen as the front-runner, according to one NATO diplomat and two European national security officials, who were granted anonymity to speak freely about the sensitive matter.
Berlin is now Europe’s leading defense spender, the officials said, and the U.S. has previously nudged Germany toward leadership roles in the alliance as it seeks to reduce its military engagement on the continent. Strained bilateral ties between Ottawa and Washington might also make Carignan’s case more difficult, the officials said.
That support was on display in Washington on Jul. 23, when Breuer briefed Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby on Germany’s new military strategy. Colby later called the strategy “historic” and “highly laudable” and said Germany was positioning itself as “a key leader of Europe’s conventional defense” in a post on X.