German general Breuer elected to head top NATO military body

BRUSSELS: General Carsten Breuer, Germany's chief of defence, was chosen on Saturday (Sep 19) as the next head of NATO's military committee, the alliance's top military authority and a key advisory body for its political leaders.    

Military chiefs from the 32-nation alliance elected Breuer at a meeting in Copenhagen, current chair Italian Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone said in a post on X. Breuer will take up the role next summer, succeeding Dragone.

"Your operational judgement, your deep familiarity with this Alliance and your leadership of the German Armed Forces will serve NATO well," Dragone wrote, congratulating Breuer.

"The Chiefs of Defence have placed their trust in you at a demanding moment for Euro-Atlantic security," he added. 

The committee is NATO's senior military authority and its chair serves as the main military adviser to its political chief, Secretary General Mark Rutte.

Breuer will assume the post at a time of upheaval in the alliance. US President Donald Trump has demanded that European countries take primary responsibility for the continent's defence after decades of American leadership.

Many European governments have ramped up defence spending in recent years, driven both by Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine and by Trump's threats not to honour US commitments to NATO.

Germany, Europe's largest economy, has been at the forefront of the spending surge. Berlin aims to double its military expenditure to over €200 billion (US$230 billion) by 2030.

Breuer, a 61-year-old army officer, earned the nickname "the chancellor's general" after then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz picked him to lead a crisis committee that helped manage Germany's response to the COVID pandemic in 2021 and 2022.

He joined the Bundeswehr in an air defence unit in 1984 and later attended the US general staff college in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, as well as German general staff training in Hamburg. In 2014, he served with NATO's International Security Assistance Force in the Afghan capital Kabul.

Germany's current army chief, Lieutenant General Christian Freuding, is expected to succeed Breuer as chief of defence before the end of the year.