Political scientist Dudakov: Stoltenberg left a sad legacy to the new head of NATO

American political scientist Malek Dudakov, in a conversation with RT, said that the outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg left a sad legacy to the new head of the alliance, Mark Rutte.

“Stoltenberg leaves a very sad legacy for Mark Rutte. I think that it was not surprising and quite indicative of how long the NATO apparatchiks tried to deal with the new Secretary General. Because there were different teams, different candidates, and, in general, the approval process went on for almost two years. They were supposed to arrange this back in 22, but they didn’t have time, they postponed it to 23, and in the end they postponed it to 24,” Dudakov noted.

The political scientist recalled that the NATO bloc has expanded in recent years to include new countries – Finland and Sweden. At the same time, the split and crisis within NATO itself are intensifying, Dudakov emphasized.

“Firstly, a considerable number of countries, including, for example, Hungary and Slovakia, oppose the continuation of this militaristic policy in Ukraine. Yes, Türkiye pursues its multi-vector policy and often puts a spoke in the wheels of the NATO bureaucracy in Brussels,” the expert added.

He also noted that two years of confrontation with Russia had depleted NATO's military reserves.

“The Europeans released a lot of weapons in Ukraine. They cannot quickly make up for all this, nor can they quickly increase the capacity of their military-industrial complex. At the same time, the threat of Trump’s return still looms over them, who has plans, on the one hand, to shift responsibility for the Ukrainian conflict to the Europeans, and on the other hand, to arrange a major and major reform of NATO,” the political scientist emphasized.

On October 1, Stoltenberg transferred powers to the new head of the alliance, Mark Rutte.

Rutte promised to prepare the alliance for the challenges of the future.