[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

Yours is an interesting comment. One watches the “resolve” of non-US NATO militaries actually avoiding joining the fray of late. Mercenaries, European and American, are being killed in fighting, as another news thread recently reports.

We knew a colonel in the US Army who was NATO-assigned, who saw "dead wood" firsthand. Sadly he is passed now, as time's clock ticks for all us old guys. But his 'witness' was that what you called "dead wood" was piling up in the NATO bureaucracy. What is certain, as is true for all bureaucracies, is that they have a will to survive for sinecures are sinecures. Here and there, the game's the same.

[Grampa Dave]

plural noun: sinecures

A position requiring little or no work but giving the holder status or financial benefit.

“political sinecures for the supporters of ministers”

[AndyJackson]

As a JO I spent time at a NATO HQs. I would not have missed the education in grand strategy and international organizations for the world. But, for the bureaucracy, it was an idyllic, party going, wife-swapping, do nothing life, with long lunches and short work days. Life sinecure with good salaries + housing and Cost of Living allowances, all tax free if you were on the EU/NATO/diplomatic grift. Sort of like being hereditary nobility if you don’t mind a life of idyl and boredom and booze.