Chair of the NATO Military Committee

In accordance with Article 9 of the North Atlantic Treaty and the guidance given by the Working Group on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization during the first Council session in Washington in 1949, the Defence Committee rapidly established the Military Committee.^[4] During its few sessions held behind closed doors in Washington, the Military Committee gave policy guidance on military matters to the Standing Group, and advice on military questions to the Defence Committee and other bodies, and it recommended military measures for the unified defence of the North Atlantic region to the Defence Committee. The Military Committee was directly subordinate to the Defence Committee, and each member nation was represented by its chief of staff or a deputy. Iceland, which had no military forces, was represented by a civilian. Each member state in turn held the Chair of the Military Committee for one year (C1 D-1/2,^[5] DC 1/2^[6]).

Two other groups which also sat in Washington came directly under the Military Committee:

• the Standing Group, the executive body, set up at the beginning, responsible for Military Committee everyday business;
• the Military Representatives Committee (MRC), created at the end of 1950, to ensure communication of information and points of view between the Standing Group and Alliance member states not represented on it.

The Chair of the Military Committee is elected from among the NATO Chiefs of Defence and appointed for a three-year term of office. They must have served as chief of defence – or an equivalent capacity – in their own country and is traditionally a non-US officer of four-star rank or national equivalent.^[7]

The Chair of the Military Committee chairs all meetings and acts in an international capacity. In their absence, the Deputy Chair of the Military Committee takes the chair.

Since the formation of NATO, its Military Chairmen have been:^[8]

• Chairman of the European Union Military Committee
• International Military Staff
• NATO Military Committee
• Supreme Allied Commander Europe

• Douglas S. Bland, 'The Military Committee of the North Atlantic Alliance: A Study of Structure and Strategy,' New York, Praeger, 1991.