Adm (R) Rob Bauer is a Dutch naval officer and since 2025 has been an Edge Fellow at Deloitte.
Adm (R) Rob Bauer (Royal Netherlands Navy) was the 33rd Chair of the Military Committee of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He served from 2021 to 2025. Earlier, he served as Chief of Defence of the Netherlands (2017–2021) and Vice Chief of Defence (2015–2017). He held senior leadership roles within the Dutch Armed Forces and NATO, representing both the Netherlands and the Alliance at the highest military level.
As the Military Adviser to the Secretary General and the North Atlantic Council, Admiral Bauer was NATO’s most senior military officer. He was the conduit through which advice from NATO’s 31 Chiefs of Defence was presented to the political decision-making bodies; and through which guidance and directives were issued to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, and the Director General of the International Military Staff.
"Expect the unexpected" was for Admiral Bauer both a personal mantra and a guiding principle for every military force. In a time of political power shifts and increasingly complex security threats, he firmly believed that the strength of the North Atlantic Alliance lay in its cohesion. Admiral Bauer sought to be a catalyst between NATO’s military leaders, unifying north, south, east and west, large and small.
Adm (R) Rob Bauer is a member of the Warsaw Security Forum’s International Advisory Council.