Does Jill Biden get to pick the next NATO chief?

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. 

So who, in Jill Biden’s identity politics worldview, is the right woman for the job? Word is that Dr. Biden may have her eye on Kaja Kallas, prime minister of Estonia since 2021. She’s at the hawkish end of the spectrum (arguably she marks the end of that spectrum) and comes as close as she dares to accusing Emmanuel Macron of being a Putin apologist. 

The Germans, already worried about public opinion in the East, would be deeply resistant to giving the outspoken Kallas such a platform — fearful that she’d give Moscow all the ammo they want to portray NATO as a hostile force on the brink of invading Russia. Wallace is robust but more circumspect and diplomatic. But he’s a he. 

Three of NATO’s thirteen bosses have been Brits and Wallace (whose parliamentary seat is being abolished) has long harbored dreams of following in the footsteps of Ismay, Carrington and Robertson by becoming the fourth. He could attract some support from surprising quarters: the French lack an obvious candidate and their defense minister Sébastien Lecornu is a fan of his British equivalent. 

It’s far from clear that Kallas would even take the job: she’d have to resign as Estonian PM in order to take the $340,000-a-year top NATO post, and she might prefer to stay the stick to the job she was elected to do. The post might then fall to another female candidate who happens to take the first lady’s fancy.  

There is no formal process for selecting the secretary-general. Given that America pretty much spends as much on defense as the rest of NATO put together it’s usually Washington’s call: but no one likes to say so formally. Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg has held the post since 2014. He is due to step down in October, meaning his successor could be chosen at the next NATO summit in Vilnius in July.

NATO’s chief military officer, the supreme Allied commander in Europe, is traditionally an American, serving alongside a European secretary-general. But if the White House wants someone as “Sec Gen,” then the White House usually gets its way. And with Joe Biden’s mind often, ahem, elsewhere these days, it’s understood that Jill Biden increasingly calls the shots.

This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.