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The Book of the Week is “On My Watch, Leading NATO in a Time of War” by Jens Stoltenberg, with Per Anders Madsen, published in 2025. This hodgepodge of a volume alternated in describing snippets of world history from all different centuries, and the major military conflicts of the world from the 2010’s onward.
The Norwegian author served as secretary general of NATO for ten years, beginning in October 2014. There is always controversy over which group– the EU or NATO– should militarily aid a NATO member that is attacked. And since its inception, NATO has had its intrigue and James Bond wannabes. “At the end of September [2021] we expelled eight Russians who were accredited as diplomats to NATO, but who in reality were active intelligence agents.” Periodically, NATO nations hold summits. Attendees of the 2021 London summit discussed a ten-year plan in connection with climate change, infrastructure, cyber-threats and China.
In early 2020, the Trump administration struck a deal with the Taliban behind closed doors, without other NATO members present. All American soldiers (after 40 years of CIA-shenanigans), and NATO troops (after twenty years of ups and downs) were to leave Afghanistan by the end of April 2021, subject to the following conditions to which the Taliban agreed (nod-nod, wink-wink):
- draft a new Constitution for Afghanistan;
- have the Taliban’s soldiers join the regular Afghan military;
- stop launching terrorist attacks;
- sever its alliance with al-Qaeda.
By summer 2020, Trump had changed his mind, and wanted all American troops out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. He thought that promising to “bring our boys home” would help him get reelected president in 2020.
For a different reason, the author’s colleague agreed that withdrawing all troops was a wise move. From an economic standpoint, throwing bad money after bad money was stupid, and the participating nations should have cut their losses long before then.
Over the course of four decades, alpha males with hubris syndrome couldn’t face the reality that Afghanistan’s people consist of numerous tribes who have been fighting one another for hundreds of years and their vendettas are not going to stop anytime soon. Afghans are insular, and so would reject outsiders’ (the EU, UN or NATO) coming in to supervise the leadership of their territory.
On a larger scale, countries of the world have their shifting alliances and hostilities. The Ukraine war which began in 2022 had China, North Korea and Iran supplying military resources to Russia, while NATO supplied weapons and ammunition to Ukraine.
Read the book to learn much more about the author’s take on, and how he dealt with delicate diplomatic situations.