A Dane will chair NATO's military committee from 2012

(BRUXELLES2) It's the end of a French hope. To replace the Italian Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, who presides over the destinies of NATO's military committee - the Alliance's highest consultation body - the Alliance Chiefs of Staff (CHOD) have chosen ... a Dane. Di Paola's mandate ends in June 2012. But the members of the military committee, meeting on September 17 in Seville (Spain) have already chosen his successor. It will be General Knut Bartels, the current Danish Chief of Staff. He faced no competitor since he was the "unique candidate". "This is a time of challenges for NATO with its ongoing missions in Afghanistan, Libya, Kosovo, in the Mediterranean Sea and off the coast of Somalia, as well as the transformation of the Alliance and the implementation of the NATO's new command structure require full dedication and commitment." explained Admiral Di Paola.

First job for Denmark

This is the first time that Denmark has taken on this top position, when the organization's general secretary is also a Dane. Since its creation in 1963, the committee has been chaired five times by a German, three times by a Briton, twice by a Canadian (same for the Norwegian and the Canadian), once by a Belgian and once by a Dutchman. Never by a Frenchman.

French hope disappointed

The French government could hope that this post could go to a tricolor officer. A hypothesis that had the wind in its sails in Paris in the spring, as my colleague from Point (read here). Even if on the French side, it is said that there was no national candidate, this one (Admiral Guillaud) being confirmed to his post of Chief of Staff by Nicolas Sarkozy, we can see there if not a new setback at least a lost opportunity, proof that the reintegration of France into NATO, its decisive engagement in Libya and its demand for more positions suffice not automatically convince all of its members. France therefore now has a significant handicap in important positions which must be filled during a next redistribution of positions, on pain of having to ask the question: where is the additional influence acquired by reinstatement?

(Maj, September 20) Note that "on the French side", we do not at all share this analysis on "the disappointed French hope". " There is no disappointment since there was no application. Seeing a setback in the reintegration of NATO therefore has no connection. I was told. " As for the presence in the Alliance, France occupies several important positions (including Head of ACT, Allied Command Transformation), as well as several positions that are probably less visible, but which are no less important", especially in Shape.

A good connoisseur of NATO

Born in 1952, Knudel took part in the UN force deployed in Cyprus (1980-1981) and was deputy head of the task force deployed in North Kosovo under French command in 1999. His country's deputy military representative at the NATO in 2001, he was deputy director of operations at the International Staff in 2002 and was appointed commander of the Danish division in 2004. He then returned to NATO as a military representative (2006 to 2009). In 2009, he was appointed Chief of Staff after the surprise resignation of Admiral Tim Sloth Jørgensen who had tried to stifle the publication of a book on the intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq by a former member of the specials. In the NATO operation in Libya, he played a " useful role says a fine observer of the mechanics of the Alliance. He is a graduate of the (French) Ecole de Guerre (1984-1986) and of the US Army War College (1993-1994) and was knighted in the Order of the Legion of Honor.