Statesman in NATO I put ahead of elderly relative (8)
I believe the answer is:
indianan
'statesman' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'nato i put ahead of elderly relative' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'i' could be 'india' (India is I in the NATO phonetic alphabet) and 'india' is located in the answer.
'relative' could be 'nan' (informal term for a grandmother) and 'nan' is present in the answer.
No letters remain.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for indianan that I've seen before include "Local American" , "American statesman" , "Mid-Westerner" .)