Does NATO Really Need Montenegro?

Doug Bandow

Security, Europe

Elevating today's Duchy of Grand Fenwick to NATO status won’t help keep the peace.

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.

There were no obvious alternatives then. Much of the continent had been ravaged by World War II. What the Red Army touched, the Soviets mostly turned into political satellites. Even if he did not have further conquest on his mind, Stalin could not be trusted to ignore any opportunity to expand his control.

At the same time, even Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against providing a permanent U.S. garrison for Europe. The continent needed a temporary shield behind which to recover economically and reunite politically, while rehabilitating Germany. There was no need to turn Europe into Washington’s permanent defense dependent.

Yet an American-dominated NATO did far more than survive during the Cold War after Europe restored economic growth and democratic process. NATO persisted as “North America and The Others” after the collapse of the Soviet Union and dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. Having pinched pennies when threatened by the Evil Empire, the Europeans quickly cut troop levels and outlays after its demise. After all, Uncle Sam remained on duty.

Washington didn’t seem to mind and pushed to expand the alliance. Central and eastern European activists lobbied to incorporate their ancestral homes. U.S. policymakers also figured that using NATO to draw former Soviet allies and republics westward would enhance American influence, in contrast to relying on the European Union, which, though more appropriate as a political and economic body, did not include the United States as a member.

Moreover, European governments treated the alliance as a highbrow gentlemen’s club, to which anyone who is anyone belonged. Whether it was worth going to war to protect new members, and, indeed, how practical it would be do so—the Baltics are particularly vulnerable in this regard—were questions left unasked. Until the Ukraine crisis, NATO expansion was viewed as an act of noblesse oblige, accepting slightly disreputable members from the other side of the railroad tracks, as it were.

Read full article