If denizens of Washington wonder at the appeal of Donald Trump’s America First rhetoric, they need look no further than the concerted effort to bring Montenegro into NATO. A Senate vote is scheduled for this afternoon.
When the transatlantic alliance was formed, it had a serious purpose: prevent Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union from dominating Western as well as Eastern Europe. No longer…
At best, expanding to include Montenegro, the country most famous in America as the setting for the Bond movie Casino Royale, will pass largely unnoticed. Washington will waste additional aid money, though this time sent to improve a new member’s forces rather than to rebuild a former adversary. And U.S. policymakers will prove yet again that they are more interested in preening for an international audience than safeguarding Americans’ interests. That’s not much of a case for expansion…
However, the negatives are likely to be far greater. Including Montenegro in NATO is a bad idea for several reasons.
Podgorica is of no military value. The postage-stamp country spent $69 million on the military last year, a rounding error for the Pentagon’s profligate budget. With fewer citizens than in a single congressional district, Montenegro has 1,950 men under arms. The army, backed by eight—count ’em, eight!—armored personnel carriers, has 875 men in uniform. The navy deploys 350 sailors and half a dozen boats. The air force of 225 men has a few nonfunctioning training aircraft and a baker’s dozen helicopters…
However, other prospective members, such as Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia/FYROM and Serbia, are equally useless from a security standpoint. And the first three raise even greater political problems than the Grand Fenwick lookalike.
Even worse would be to induct Georgia and Ukraine. Both would be security black holes—almost all risk and no gain. Although they are more substantial nations than Montenegro, Tbilisi’s military remains small, and its involvement in America’s misguided wars in Afghanistan and Iraq do not justify a security guarantee against Russia. Ukraine has a larger military, but an even bigger problem: an ongoing conflict with a nuclear-armed power. Läs artikel