WHO IS WHO – Carsten Breuer: NATO Military Committee’s incoming Chairman led German KFOR contingent in Prizren before March 2004 violence

German General Carsten Breuer, who will take over as Chairman of the NATO Military Committee in 2027, is well acquainted with the situation in Kosovo, where, ahead of the March 2004 violence, he led the German KFOR contingent within Multinational Brigade Southwest, headquartered in Prizren. Two decades later, he also visited Pristina in his capacity as Germany’s Chief of Defense.

Breuer will take over the leadership of NATO’s highest military body in July 2027, succeeding Italian Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, and will serve a three-year term. As Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Breuer will be the Alliance Secretary General Mark Rutte’s most senior military adviser.

Deployment in Kosovo

Breuer has served in the Bundeswehr since 1984 and has been Germany’s Chief of Defense since 2023. During more than four decades of military service, he has held various command and staff positions in Germany as well as in international missions, primarily within NATO.

One of those assignments was his deployment in Kosovo, which lasted from March 2003 until February 2004. As commander of the German contingent within Multinational Brigade Southwest during KFOR’s eighth rotation, he was responsible for units deployed in Prizren. Just several weeks after he left Prizren, the March 2004 violence erupted, during which Serbian homes, churches, the Seminary and the Monastery of the Holy Archangels were set on fire, while the remaining Serbs were effectively driven out of the city.

Breuer later reflected on his time in Kosovo in interviews. Speaking to the Bundeswehr in 2022 about the floods in Germany’s Ahr Valley, he said that the sight of the devastated area had reminded him of his deployment in Kosovo in 2003 and his mission in Afghanistan in 2014.

“When I arrived in the Ahr Valley and saw what everything looked like there, at one point I had the feeling that it was a mixture of my deployment in Kosovo in 2003 and my deployment in Afghanistan in 2014. The rubbish and bulky waste lying in the streets, cars piled up against one another, similar to what I had seen in Kosovo, as well as the clay and that layer of mud, the kind you can see in Afghanistan. So it was a very bleak situation,” Breuer said.

Germany-KSF cooperation

Breuer returned to Kosovo after completing his mission, this time in his capacity as Germany’s Chief of Defense.

In May 2025, he visited Pristina, where he met with then-KFOR Commander Enrico Barduani. Their discussions also covered the security situation in Kosovo and international efforts aimed at promoting stability and the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue.

Several months earlier, in December 2024, he also met with Kosovo Security Force Commander Bashkim Jashari. According to a KSF statement, they discussed deepening cooperation, including the training of KSF personnel at German military institutions, future joint training and exercises, as well as participation in international organizations.

Breuer had also met Jashari a year earlier, in November 2023, at the German Ministry of Defense in Berlin. Jashari congratulated him on Facebook today on his appointment as Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, stressing that Breuer’s experience and first-hand knowledge of the region and developments in Kosovo provided an important foundation for enhancing cooperation and bringing Kosovo closer to the Alliance.

“The Chancellor’s General”

Breuer joined the Bundeswehr in 1984 and, after completing officer training, studied at Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg. He subsequently completed Germany’s General Staff training as well as a course for officers at the US Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth.

From 2020 to 2021, he headed the German Government’s crisis staff coordinating military assistance during the coronavirus pandemic. His role earned him the nickname “the Chancellor’s General” in the German public.

In October 2022, he became the first commander of the Bundeswehr Territorial Command, and several months later he was appointed Germany’s Chief of Defense.

In addition to Kosovo, Breuer has other international experience. He served in NATO’s mission in Afghanistan, where he was deployed in Kabul in 2014.

Breuer is 61 years old. He was born in Letmathe, North Rhine-Westphalia, which was later administratively incorporated into Iserlohn. He is married and has three children.