Centre for Strategic Studies hosts NATO Secretary-General

1 January 2022

Mr Jens Stoltenberg, who is a former Prime Minister of Norway, engaged in discussion on a wide range of security issues with students, academic staff, diplomats and others who filled the Hunter Council Chamber. He was accompanied on his visit by New Zealand’s Ambassador to NATO, David Taylor.

Describing NATO as the most successful peacetime military alliance in history, Mr Stoltenberg made a powerful case regarding its ongoing importance for regional and global security in its seventieth anniversary year. In response to questions about differences between its member states, he explained that one of NATO’s key strengths as an alliance of democracies had been to acknowledge and manage such differences without compromising its core mission of providing collective security in the North Atlantic region—and beyond, in recent years.

The Secretary-General also summarised key security challenges facing the global community. Noting that New Zealand had already been working as a partner with NATO, he stressed shared interests in bolstering an international rules-based order and countering such challenges as terrorism and cyber-attacks.

The Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies Associate Professor David Capie said that Mr Stoltenberg’s visit capped off an intense period of public engagement for the Centre. As well as hosting several international visitors for roundtables and public addresses, the Centre held its annual Sir Howard Kippenberger Lecture in Strategic Studies last week. This year’s Kippenberger Fellow was Dr Sheila Smith from the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington D.C., who is a leading expert on Japanese security, politics and United States-Japanese Relations.