Ray Furlong
Former NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg says the alliance “was letting Ukraine down” by failing to deliver enough support during 2023-24, describing a “defeatist” mood in Washington and European nations failing to make promised arms deliveries.
Stoltenberg, who was head of the western military alliance from October 2014 until October 2024, makes the criticisms in a new book, On My Watch, Leading NATO In A Time Of War, to be released on October 23.
The book covers his entire period in office, including NATO’s “defeat” in Afghanistan in 2021 and Russia’s initial aggression in Ukraine in 2014. It also ponders the future of the alliance following the election of Donald Trump as US president in 2024.
“The tone among the allies is sometimes sharp,” Stoltenberg, who is currently Norway’s finance minister and a former prime minister of the Nordic nation, writes.
“However, the [US] administration’s views on security policy and NATO cooperation are recognizable. China continues to be considered the United States’ most important challenger and strategic competitor; the pivot towards the Indo-Pacific region is ongoing and intensifying. Demands that Europe and Canada spend more on their defense are far from new.”
But Stoltenberg’s recollections of meetings with senior officials ahead of and during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 offer some of the most revealing insights.
Prelude To War
His account of the run-up to the attack details Russia’s lack of interest in genuine talks, in particular a meeting in New York in September 2021 in which Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was constantly interrupting him while his spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, “groaned and rolled her eyes” whenever Stoltenberg spoke.
In mid-October 2021, he writes, a NATO intelligence officer told him that Russia intended “to invade.” The reason, he believes, was fear of the “political threat” posed by a “democratic and ever more West-facing Ukraine.”
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