Ambassador Boris Ruge became Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Security Policy in September 2023.

He leads the team responsible for political affairs within NATO’s International Staff, including partnerships, enlargement, policy with regard to Russia, as well as arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation. From September until December 2024, he served as Acting Deputy Secretary General.

He previously served as Vice Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, German Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Director Middle East/North Africa at the German Foreign Office in Berlin, and Deputy Chief of Mission of the German Embassy in Washington, DC. 

Having joined the Foreign Service in 1989, much of Ambassador Ruge´s career has been focused on security policy and stabilization. He worked at NATO Headquarters in Brussels during the Kosovo air campaign. He later served as chief political adviser to two successive Commanders of NATO’s Kosovo Force as well as Head of the Political Department at the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Following undergraduate studies at the University of Cologne, Ambassador Ruge received a master’s degree in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He holds a diploma in international relations from the Bologna Center of the Johns Hopkins University and was a participant in the 2005 course of the Royal College of Defence Studies in London. He is married and has three daughters and one son.