CDR Salamander explains why, despite her having good qualities that match some of what the job requires, we shouldn’t be betting any money on Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland taking over the role of Secretary General of NATO:
Screencap from a CPAC video of Chrystia Freeland’s speech at the Brookings Institution in October, 2022.
So, via NYT, as a war wages in Eastern Europe and NATO is looking for a new Secretary General, what is the focus?
The behind-the-scenes jockeying for who should succeed Jens Stoltenberg has begun in earnest, with a focus on women.
Here’s the CV:
While the officials cautioned that these are early days, and very often the names that surface first do not survive the bargaining among NATO’s 30 members, they said one prime candidate has surfaced in Washington: Chrystia Freeland, 54, the Canadian-Ukrainian deputy prime minister and finance minister of Canada.
Ms. Freeland, 54, a former journalist (who is married to a reporter for The New York Times), has also been Canada’s foreign minister. Her advantages are considerable: she speaks English, French, Italian, Ukrainian and Russian; she has run complicated ministries; she is good at news conferences and other public appearances; and she would be the first woman and first Canadian ever to run NATO.
The fact that word is on the street that the primary filter here is if someone is XX vs XY would be laughable if not so destructive. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a woman being Secretary General, but that should have nothing to do with the decision. The fact is leading with that as the first criteria, any woman selected as Secretary General this round, would — rightly — always have a shadow over them for this simple fact that they did not get the position on merit — but simply an attempt to signal virtue to … well … fellow members of the woke left in the West, I guess. NATO’s potential enemies will only be encouraged by such an act.
This does nothing for NATO or women — and it degrades both by the process.
That being said, as her name is being floated, let’s look at Freeland. Many US citizens may recognize her from her very undiplomatic interactions with the Trump Administration. It wasn’t just Trump, but something worse that seeps out. Even during the Biden Administration, her not-so-subtle sniffs of standard issue leftist Canadian anti-Americanism crops up on a regular basis. It only gets worse when she deals with Americans to the right of Bernie Sanders.
In NATO, you need someone who is a subtle politician — again with experience working in a vigorous multi-party coalition with highly different views, priorities, and goals. That is why Europeans make such good Secretary Generals. While Canada also has a parliamentary system, it and its parties are VERY different than the European model. Freeland only gets partial credit here.
There is also the issue of temperament. Read the links above. Freeland likes to pick fights, often in public. Worse, she seems to enjoy — again as most standard-issue Canadian leftists do — in making snide comments about the government and people of the alliance’s largest monetary and troop contributing nation — the United States of America.
The Secretary General of NATO has to be someone by temperament and habit seen as a non-partisan person toward the USA so that they can work with American administrations from all political parties. Freeland has significant issues with the American Republican Party in general and American conservatives in particular. That alone should be enough for serious alliance nations from Poland to Great Britain to be against her as a possible candidate. In summary; Freeland does not possess the skills or temperament for the position.
Now is not the time for such frivolity.
The last reason — and the most important reason for me — that Freeland should not be the Secretary General will be recognizable to regular readers here. It has nothing to do with her as a person, but her nation, Canada.
I love Canada and Canadians — but this is not personal, this is business. Serious alliance business. Simply by the numbers, Canada has not earned the position.
Review my post from September if needed, but Canada spends ~1.3% of her GDP on defense. This is WELL below NATO’s 2% minimum. Only Slovenia, Belgium, Spain and Luxembourg spend less.
We are well past being polite to alliance members who refuse to pull their fair share of the burden. Canada simply has not put herself in the position to reward any of her political elite with the position of Secretary General, man or woman.
