ON MY WATCH

The former head of NATO writes of crises, political maneuvering, and a world increasingly at war.

Stoltenberg, after serving as prime minister of Norway, stepped into his role at NATO at a time when the Western powers were first reacting to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and incursions into the Donbas region of Ukraine. As his account opens, that conflict has broadened: NATO intelligence reports to him that Russian field hospitals had been fully stocked with blood, just one sign that a broader attack impended. “It was evident that NATO had to be strengthened, and that Ukraine must be given more support,” he writes of those earlier events, adding that the U.S. government under Barack Obama was reluctant to provide direct military aid for fear of provoking Russia into even more expansive combat. After all, as former Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev tells Stoltenberg, NATO is alway suspect, since “what history has shown us is that at least once a century some lunatic from the West comes along who wants to conquer Russia.” For their part, world leaders and policymakers such as Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron have regarded Vladimir Putin with understandable contempt, which hasn’t helped matters, even as the late Henry Kissinger cautioned that demonizing Putin “is an alibi for not having a policy.” There’s the rub: Stoltenberg writes, sometimes in exasperation, that trying to strike deals with the likes of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, leader of the strategically crucial nation of Turkey, was a constant trial, even as, in the matter of Ukraine, the U.S. government continues to hold that, in President Biden’s words, “We’ll support Ukraine, but we’re not going to risk World War III.” In the end, Stoltenberg warns, the world has become vastly more dangerous than it was since he took office in 2014, writing, resignedly, “It happened on my watch.”

A pensive, even grim, assessment of a troubled time and a troubling geopolitical future.