Under My Watch - Jens Stoltenberg

How does an alliance survive when almost everything around it changes? This is probably the main question that emerges from Jens Stoltenberg’s On My Watch. Looking back at his ten years as NATO Secretary General, Stoltenberg tells the story of an Alliance confronted with Russia’s return as a direct security threat, difficult relations between the two sides of the Atlantic, the war in Afghanistan, the rise of China and finally the return of a major war in Europe.

Jens Stoltenberg became NATO Secretary General in October 2014, after having served twice as Prime Minister of Norway. What was initially supposed to be a limited mandate eventually lasted ten years, with NATO Allies extending his term four times. When he left office in 2024, the Alliance had grown to 32 members and had undergone its most important reinforcement of collective defense since the Cold War.

On My Watch is therefore more than the memoir of a former Secretary General. It is also the story of a decade during which NATO had to repeatedly adapt to an international environment very different from the one that followed the end of the Cold War.

Russia and the Return of Collective Defense

Stoltenberg arrived at NATO at a moment of rupture. Russia had annexed Crimea only a few months earlier, and the relationship between Moscow and the West was deteriorating rapidly.

One of the first major transformations described in the book is therefore NATO’s return to collective defense. After years dominated by operations outside Allied territory, particularly in Afghanistan, attention progressively moved back towards Europe and the defense of NATO’s eastern members.

For the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, this transformation had a particular historical dimension. Many had belonged to the Warsaw Pact before choosing to join NATO after the Cold War. Their perception of Russia was consequently not always the same as that of Western European Allies.

Stoltenberg also comes back to one of the recurring Russian arguments against NATO: that the Alliance’s enlargement eastwards represents a threat to Russia. He gives a different perspective. NATO did not simply decide to move east. Central and Eastern European countries wanted to join the Alliance and benefit from its security guarantees.

The events following 2014 considerably accelerated NATO’s military adaptation. Exercises increased, the Alliance reinforced its eastern flank and defense planning progressively returned to the possibility of a major conflict in Europe. Stoltenberg himself later described 2014 as the beginning of NATO’s major military adaptation to the new Russian threat.

Burden Sharing: A Transatlantic Problem Before Trump

One of the most interesting aspects of the book is the place given to defense spending.

The debate is often associated with Donald Trump, but Stoltenberg makes clear that American frustration with European defense spending existed well before his presidency. For instance, Barack Obama was already pushing European Allies to spend more on defense, and the 2014 Wales Summit established the commitment for Allies spending less than 2% of GDP on defense to move towards that level within a decade.

Donald Trump nevertheless changed the tone of the discussion.

During his first presidency, the question of burden sharing became one of the most difficult issues inside the Alliance. Stoltenberg describes repeated confrontations over European spending and Trump's insistence that Europeans needed to contribute more if they expected American protection.

But the picture given by the book is more complicated than a simple opposition between Trump and NATO. While Trump regularly criticized Allies and questioned the distribution of the burden, the United States also reinforced parts of its military presence in Europe during this period.

This distinction matters. The disagreement was not simply about whether NATO should continue to exist. It was also about who should pay for European security and how responsibilities should be distributed between the United States and its European Allies.

The issue did not disappear with Trump. Stoltenberg has repeatedly argued that American criticism of insufficient European defense spending has existed across administrations and that stronger European capabilities are necessary to maintain the transatlantic bond.

Keeping the Alliance Together

The Secretary General of NATO does not command the Alliance in the way a national leader commands a government. NATO decisions are taken by consensus between Allies, which gives the Secretary General an important role in consultation, negotiation and finding compromises between governments with sometimes very different interests.

This dimension is present throughout On My Watch.

The difficult NATO summits of the Trump years are perhaps the most visible examples. Stoltenberg describes an Alliance under strong political pressure, particularly during the 2018 Brussels Summit. But other episodes show the same problem in different forms: relations with Türkiye, disagreements over Afghanistan, the debate surrounding NATO enlargement and later the negotiations over Finland and Sweden.

The book consequently gives an interesting picture of diplomacy inside an alliance. NATO unity does not mean that Allies always agree. Quite the opposite: much of Stoltenberg’s work consisted precisely in maintaining unity despite disagreements.

His approach also seems strongly influenced by his personal background. The book regularly returns to his father, Thorvald Stoltenberg, himself a Norwegian defense and foreign minister and a diplomat known for his informal approach to negotiations. NATO’s own historical account describes Thorvald Stoltenberg as the “Breakfast Diplomat”, known for bringing diplomats together around a table to find common ground.

This culture of compromise is one of the most visible elements of Jens Stoltenberg’s own account of his years at NATO.

Afghanistan and the Limits of Western Power

Afghanistan occupies another important place in the book, and for a different reason.

For almost two decades, Afghanistan had represented NATO’s most important military operation outside the Euro-Atlantic area. The withdrawal in 2021 therefore marked the end of an entire period in the history of the Alliance.

Stoltenberg does not hide the difficult questions raised by the intervention. The initial objectives were relatively clear: fight terrorism and prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a safe haven for international terrorist organizations. Over time, however, the mission became much broader, including the attempt to build Afghan institutions and contribute to the transformation of the country.

The collapse of the Afghan government and security forces following the Western withdrawal exposed the limits of these ambitions.

Afghanistan therefore occupies a particular position in Stoltenberg’s decade at NATO. His mandate began when the Alliance was already moving away from large external operations and ended with NATO once again concentrating primarily on the territorial defense of Europe.

China Enters NATO’s Strategic Thinking

Russia dominates much of the security discussion in the book, but China progressively appears as another major question for the Alliance.

This evolution also reflects a broader change in American strategic priorities. Washington’s growing attention to the Indo-Pacific did not begin with Trump. The American shift towards Asia had already started under previous administrations, while China’s growing economic, technological and military power progressively became impossible for NATO to ignore.

By the end of Stoltenberg’s mandate, China had become part of NATO’s strategic thinking. The Alliance nevertheless remained fundamentally Euro-Atlantic: the question was not to transform NATO into a global military alliance, but to recognize that developments outside the North Atlantic area can directly affect Allied security.

This creates an important challenge for the transatlantic relationship. Europe remains confronted primarily with the immediate Russian threat, while the United States has to consider an increasingly important strategic competition with China. Finding a balance between these priorities will remain one of the major questions for the Alliance.

Ukraine and the Transformation of NATO

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 is the defining event of the final part of Stoltenberg’s mandate. The book describes the months preceding the invasion, including the different assessments made on both sides of the Atlantic. Once the war began, NATO faced a difficult balance: supporting Ukraine on a very large scale while avoiding a direct military confrontation between NATO and Russia.

This distinction became one of the central principles of the Allied response. NATO countries provided weapons, training and financial support to Ukraine, while the Alliance maintained that it would not become directly involved in the conflict. Stoltenberg's successor has also described this as one of the central challenges he had to manage after February 2022.

The invasion also produced consequences that Moscow had probably not intended. Finland and Sweden, two countries with long traditions of military non-alignment, decided to apply for NATO membership. Finland joined in 2023 and Sweden in 2024, bringing the Alliance to 32 members.

Their accession was not automatic. Türkiye’s objections, particularly concerning Sweden, required months of negotiations. This episode provides another illustration of Stoltenberg’s conception of the Secretary General's role: maintaining dialogue until a compromise becomes possible.

By the Washington Summit of 2024, NATO was therefore considerably different from the Alliance Stoltenberg had joined ten years earlier: larger, more focused on collective defense, more attentive to Russia and China, and once again confronted with war on the European continent.

Reading Stoltenberg from a Transatlantic Perspective

On My Watch offers an interesting counterpoint to the idea of a transatlantic alliance in irreversible decline. Stoltenberg does not describe ten peaceful years of transatlantic unity. Quite the opposite. His mandate included disputes over defense spending, difficult relations with an American president, disagreements between Allies, the failure in Afghanistan, tensions with Türkiye, growing competition with China and finally the largest war in Europe in decades. Yet the Alliance survived all of them. More importantly, it changed.

This may be the central lesson of the book. NATO's longevity does not come from remaining unchanged, but from its capacity to adapt when the strategic environment changes. During Stoltenberg’s decade, the Alliance moved from expeditionary operations back towards territorial defense, increased military readiness on its eastern flank, brought European defense spending back to the center of the transatlantic debate and welcomed four new members. NATO itself describes the decade as the biggest reinforcement of Allied collective defense since the Cold War.

This does not mean that the transatlantic relationship can be taken for granted. Stoltenberg himself identified this as one of the lessons of his mandate: the political bond between Europe and North America requires continued investment, not only financially but politically.

And this is perhaps where On My Watch connects most directly with the questions raised by Pierre Haski’s La Fin d’un monde.

The international order is changing. Western predominance is less evident, China has become a major strategic competitor, Russia has brought large-scale war back to Europe, and the United States increasingly has to divide its attention between Europe and the Indo-Pacific.

But a changing world does not necessarily make the transatlantic alliance obsolete. It makes its adaptation more important. The question is therefore not simply whether the transatlantic alliance can survive these changes, but how Europe and North America can adapt it together so that it remains a driving force in the international order that is now emerging.

Bibliographic reference

Jens Stoltenberg, On My Watch: Leading NATO in a Time of War, 2025.