Changing of the guard at NATO as Jens Stoltenberg steps down

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg steps down on Tuesday after 10 testing years for the Western military alliance's unity and purpose.

Stoltenberg will hand over to former Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte with a wreath-laying ceremony and an official handshake at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

Ambassadors from NATO allies will then meet in the alliance's decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council (NAC), to appoint Rutte.

The new Secretary General is expected to start his tenure with an address to NATO staff and a press conference.

The changing of the NATO guard takes place as war rages directly on the alliance's borders in Ukraine more than two years after the full-scale Russian invasion.

The war and increased threat of Russian revanchism renewed NATO's Cold War purpose to protect members after years of turmoil during former US president Donald Trump's presidency.

Trump railed against allies, especially Germany, for what he deemed as unacceptably low defence spending and questioned the alliance's principle of collective defence.

French President Emmanuel Macron also infamously declared that the alliance was in danger of succumbing to "brain death," such was the degree of division among NATO.

A chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 marked a low point for the alliance, just six months before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fateful invasion in February 2022.