The competition to lead NATO is getting more intense. But the race is primarily conducted in the dark, and the winner has not yet been identified.
The Norwegian secretary-general of the transatlantic military alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, is scheduled to leave his position at the end of September after serving nine years.
Many allies want his succession to be decided before or even before the NATO meeting in Lithuania in the middle of July.
The 31 states that make up NATO—from the United States to Finland, a recent member, to Turkey—do not have much time to come to an agreement on a new commander. They might possibly request a fourth term extension from Stoltenberg.