Transatlantic Security Initiative Associate Director Robbie Gramer writes for Foreign Affairs on Montenegro’s recent joining of NATO and how that may affect NATO’s larger relation to Russia:
For the first time in six years, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization announced that it would expand its membership, inviting Montenegro to join the alliance. Only 16 years ago, NATO was bombing the small western Balkan nation as part of its intervention in Kosovo.
With a standing military of only 2,000, Montenegro’s membership will have little impact on the alliance’s military strength. But the move has profound political consequences. It illustrates the progress that the western Balkans, and Montenegro in particular, have made since the bloody and traumatizing wars of the 1990s. To receive the invitation, Montenegro had to undertake a series of political, legal, and military reforms under the auspices of NATO’s Membership Action Plan, a program that offers assistance and support for countries seeking to join the alliance.