TV7 Watchmen Talk - Admiral Rob Bauer

“I am the boss of no-one,” jokes Admiral Rob Bauer of the Royal Netherlands Navy, Chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, on a visit to Israel in late September. Bauer, a likable 61-year-old who came to Brussels from heading the Dutch armed forces, is so popular among his 31 fellow Chiefs of Defense that they granted him a rare extension through the end of 2024, is indeed formally not in the chain of command, but in practice wields considerable influence in the consensus-based alliance.

NATO’s member states have more than three million men under arms. That total is hardly reflected in the ready combat force available to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe
(SACEUR), always an American officer - currently Army General Christopher Cavoli - who also heads the U.S. European Command, which used to interface with Israel until it was relocated under the Pentagon’s Unified Command Plan to the Central Command.

Only slightly more than one percent of the millions cited above, some 40,000, are at SACEUR’s beck and call. NATO wants to surge them almost tenfold, to 300,000. One problem is that the major non-European member is a global power with interests and warplans on other continents and oceans, primarily with China in mind. Between China and Russia, the Middle East has lost the top priority it had in the first two decades of this Century, yet the Mediterranean is still an important NATO theater, commanded out of Naples with the US Navy Sixth Fleet as its main strike force.

Admiral Bauer’s job is to combine defense with diplomacy. He advises the Secretary-General and the North Atlantic Council, made up of the ambassadors of the member states seeking guidance from their own governments. It makes for a delicate dance, as domestic politics dictate policy no less than strategic considerations.


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