Montenegro invited to join NATO by US Senate in 98-2 majority; Trump approves

I found this site today trying to figure out what the Senate votes that Pence has acted a tiebreaker for. On accident, I discovered that the Senate has recently approved an invitation for Montenegro to join NATO and that Trump has permitted it.

https://govtrackinsider.com/trump-s...-objections-and-his-own-campaign-b38f1ec84846

So this might come as a surprise for the following reasons:
1) Montenegro is a country with fewer people than some large counties in the US.
2) Montenegro's army is smaller than the D.C.'s police force.
3) Montenegro is formerly a part of the Soviet bloc.
4) Russia opposes this.
5) Trump has previously shit all over NATO.

 

[AltruisticRabbit]

So this might come as a surprise for the following reasons:
1) Montenegro is a country with fewer people than some large counties in the US.
3) Montenegro is formerly a part of the Soviet bloc.

Sorry Null, That's simply not true. Montenegro was originally part of Yugoslavia, and was not part of the Eastern Bloc. In fact, at the time, Yugoslavia was basically a big middle finger to Stalin because Tito always ignored his requests to join the U.S.S.R. They also had the world's largest standing army at the time so no one fucked with them.

Also Montenegro has twice the population of Iceland, who is already a NATO member.

 

[ICametoLurk]

It's a good thing that Montenegro finally signed that Peace Treaty with Japan otherwise we would have to nuke Japan again...actually thinking about that...Montenegro needs to declare war on Japan again.

 

[The Great Chandler]

>Declares a perpetually long war against Japan

>Not a single assault nor dispatching against one another

 

[ICametoLurk]

>Declares a perpetually long war against Japan

>Not a single assault nor dispatching against one another

They needed that Industrial Capacity Wartime bonus.

 

[Arse Biscuit]

I found this site today trying to figure out what the Senate votes that Pence has acted a tiebreaker for. On accident, I discovered that the Senate has recently approved an invitation for Montenegro to join NATO and that Trump has permitted it.

https://govtrackinsider.com/trump-s...-objections-and-his-own-campaign-b38f1ec84846

So this might come as a surprise for the following reasons:
1) Montenegro is a country with fewer people than some large counties in the US.
2) Montenegro's army is smaller than the D.C.'s police force.
3) Montenegro is formerly a part of the Soviet bloc.
4) Russia opposes this.
5) Trump has previously shit all over NATO.

6) The President of the United States doesn't decide who is in NATO.

 

[millais]

at this point, the only former Yugo that is closely aligned with Russia is serbia

 

[Techpriest]

6) The President of the United States doesn't decide who is in NATO.

7) This was in the works for years, and primarily aimed at deterring Serbia from attempting to annex Montenegro. It just has the side benefit of pissing off the Russians.

 

[IV 445]

98-2. At least there's some agreement in Washington

 

[Techpriest]

Oh, by the way, the two senators who voted against it are Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky - both Republicans.

 

[Absolutego]

Rand's an isolationist, voting against expanding NATO is pretty par for the course for him. Lee seems to have voted the same way for similar reasons ("Do Americans really want to support Montenegro independence with nuclear fire and WWIII? If not, why are they part of NATO?" was the basic jist of his opposition).

idk, I think admitting more countries in Russia's sphere of influence into NATO is a mistake, but Montenegro is hardly a bigger risk than, say, Turkey or Latvia in terms of igniting war with Russia. Still not a fan of how much both parties have bought into the "Team America: World Police" mindset.

 

[Techpriest]

It's not aimed at Russia, the primary purpose this serves is keeping the Balkans from flaring up again, in case the Serbians decide they want Montenegro back - I mean, Montenegro only achieved independence in 2006 in a very close referendum. Serbia at least for the moment isn't very likely to do so but I can easily see why Montenegro wants to be in NATO; it means they have some really big friends in case Yugoslav Wars 2: Remove Kebab Boogaloo somehow kicks off.

 

[AnOminous]

I'm more concerned with Turkey still being in NATO than Montenegro joining it.

 

[76LD910]

Also Montenegro has twice the population of Iceland, who is already a NATO member.

Trumps whole "NATO owes us money" bullshit aside, i still don't understand how it benefits the US to have mutual defense agreements with countries that think having a functional military is optional or are so small that it doesn't matter. It just seems like a wast of resources at best and more likely to get us dragged into a pointless regional conflict at worst.

Imagine an alternate reality were Putin delayed annexing Crimea for whatever reason and Ukraine ended up joining NATO, then he attempts the annexation afterwards. Would that port suddenly become more strategically important for the US or Europe than when it wasn't in a NATO country despite the fact that we have access to better ports already ? and if it was so important what was stopping us from intervening in this timeline ?

 

[AnOminous]

Trumps whole "NATO owes us money" bullshit aside, i still don't understand how it benefits the US to have mutual defense agreements with countries that think having a functional military is optional or are so small that it doesn't matter. It just seems like a wast of resources at best and more likely to get us dragged into a pointless regional conflict at worst.

It keeps them on our side. Why'd we have the Marshall Plan? Look at it this way and it was just us giving away huge amounts of money and resources for no reason at all after we'd intervened on the winning side of WW II with no damage whatsoever to our own homeland. We could have just kept the profits to ourselves and told Europe to go fuck itself.

As satisfying as that might be on one level, the Marshall Plan actually made us the predominant world power for the next 50 years or so. Good investment.

Also is there any remote chance of there being some huge conflict involving Montenegro in the near future? Lol.

Turkey is way more likely to fracture the alliance by doing some dumb shit on their own and then expecting us to back them up on it, or for that matter, viciously backstabbing NATO and attacking one of their supposed NATO allies, under their current dictator. We now have a guy who is little better than Hitler in a supposed alliance.

 

[Absolutego]

Trumps whole "NATO owes us money" bullshit aside, i still don't understand how it benefits the US to have mutual defense agreements with countries that think having a functional military is optional or are so small that it doesn't matter. It just seems like a wast of resources at best and more likely to get us dragged into a pointless regional conflict at worst.

Imagine an alternate reality were Putin delayed annexing Crimea for whatever reason and Ukraine ended up joining NATO, then he attempts the annexation afterwards. Would that port suddenly become more strategically important for the US or Europe than when it wasn't in a NATO country despite the fact that we have access to better ports already ? and if it was so important what was stopping us from intervening in this timeline ?

Leaving Montenegro aside (since I think @Techpriest is right that this is just to keep the Serbs from setting the Balkans on fire again), NATO post-USSR is explicitly about preventing Russian expansion or aggression in Europe. That's why we've pledged to protect, say, Latvia or Romania with nukes should Russia decide to "protect Russian minorities" in those states.

Basically Eastern Europe after the collapse of the USSR was super eager to gain assurances that they wouldn't just become Russian puppet states again, and instead of creating some kind of mutual defense pact in Eastern Europe that let areas like Poland, the Baltic States, and the Balkans rely on each other to keep Russia in check, we let them into NATO and made WWIII an immediate risk of any conflicts in Eastern Europe

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Trumps whole "NATO owes us money" bullshit aside, i still don't understand how it benefits the US to have mutual defense agreements with countries that think having a functional military is optional or are so small that it doesn't matter. It just seems like a wast of resources at best and more likely to get us dragged into a pointless regional conflict at worst.

Imagine an alternate reality were Putin delayed annexing Crimea for whatever reason and Ukraine ended up joining NATO, then he attempts the annexation afterwards. Would that port suddenly become more strategically important for the US or Europe than when it wasn't in a NATO country despite the fact that we have access to better ports already ? and if it was so important what was stopping us from intervening in this timeline ?

It allows America to gain footholds all across the globe and enables them to essentially tell these other countries to support the US economically. They can also spread out their military forces, which is always a handy thing if you want to keep another superpower at bay and protect yourself from attacks. Aned seeing how America lurched headlong into any regional conflict that would give them access to any kind of resources or even just a landing strip in the middle of nowhere, I would not say the USA is "getting dragged into them".

On a sidenote, had Ukraine been part of NATO, Russia would have done jack fucking shit about getting Crimea under their control. In such situations, ports aren't important in the sense that it's fought over who controls them, oftentimes it can be enough to cut off your enemy from having it themselves. USA doesn't need that port, they've got Turkey as an alley just around the corner. I would even assume that USA or EU does not care whether Russia has that port or not, getting Ukraine under the wings of NATO is a much bigger price to be won. Unfortunately, USA and EU grossly misjudged Russias reaction and we end up with a "civil" war.

we let them into NATO and made WWIII an immediate risk of any conflicts in Eastern Europe

But it also tremendously reduced the risk of another war in that area. With NATO lined up to protect these nations, Russia is not going to fuck around with them since they simply aren't worth it.

 

[Jan_Hus]

All I know about Montenegro is that they are a tiny Balkan nation in EUIV that isn't playable from the start, they have decent ideas (for shit tier Balkan land) and they usually are eaten by Venice, Ottomans or Albania.