Does Jill Biden Get to Pick the Next NATO Chief?
20th May 2023
British defense secretary Ben Wallace has confirmed the worst-kept secret in Westminster: he’s the likely UK candidate for the secretary-general of NATO. Speaking in Berlin on Wednesday he told reporters: “I’ve always said it would be a good job. That’s a job I’d like.” It’s a position that falls vacant in October and Wallace has a good claim, having been in his role for nearly four years, one of the few to emerge with credit from the Kabul evacuation, and has won plaudits for fighting the Whitehall machine to equip Ukraine before Putin’s invasion last year.
Cockburn learns however that a surprising obstacle is standing in his way: the first lady of the United States. Jill Biden wants a woman in the role. And she thinks a senior female figure from one of the Baltic states, which believe that if Ukraine falls they will be at war next, would fit the bill.
The role of the first lady is something of an American oddity. But Cockburn can’t help wondering why Dr Biden — an intellectually underwhelming academic with a PhD in educational leadership — might think she has insight into western security, especially at a time when NATO is doing almost everything possible to stop Russia in Ukraine. But “woke is woke” and there’s never been a woman NATO secretary-general. For Team Biden, the enemy is the patriarchy as much as Putin.