NATO Should Offer Membership to Montenegro: US Senator

[Ars Moriendi]

NATO Should Offer Membership to Montenegro: US Senator

http://en.ria.ru/world/20141101/1949...ontenegro.html


Flags of member nations flap in the wind outside NATO headquarters in Brussels on Friday, Aug. 29, 2014.

WASHINGTON, November 1 (RIA Novosti) - NATO should prevent Russia's spreading influence in the Balkans by reinforcing its positions in the region and offering membership to Montenegro, US Senator from Connecticut and chairman of US Senate’s Subcommittee on European Affairs Chris Murphy said on Friday.

“I believe NATO should offer membership to Montenegro as soon as possible,'' Murphy said in his speech at Johns Hopkins University.

''We shouldn’t just assume that Montenegro will continue to spurn Russia’s security office, if NATO continues to spurn Montenegro,'' he said.
The Senator pointed out that Montenegro’s democracy is still young and the question is whether it will develop “under NATO’s umbrella or Putin’s”.
Murphy said that if NATO does not continue its policy of accepting new states, it will encourage Russia to spread its influence in the Balkans.

“The best signal to send Russia right now is that NATO is open for business and growing along the lines and rules that it traditionally has,” Murphy concluded.
Currently NATO has 28 member countries; the last states that joined the alliance in 2009 were Albania and Croatia.

[Ars Moriendi]

So far, it seems the sentiment in Montenegro is against joining the military union. Yet, the portion of people that do want it is significant:
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Montenegrins still in two minds over NATO
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/17...over-nato.html

About 35 per cent of Montenegrins want to join NATO, 45 per cent are against, and 20 per cent don't know, a new survey has indicated.

If a referendum was held immediately on whether Montenegrins was to join NATO, the outcome would be uncertain, a survey released on Tuesday suggested.

The survey, conducted last month by the local watchdog CEDEM, sampling the views of 1,025 people, suggested that 20 per cent remained undecided on the issue.

The strongest support for NATO membership is among the country's ethnic Albanians and Bosniaks - about 76 per cent. Around 40 percent of those who identified as ethnic Montenegrins said they supported NATO membership but only 9.3 per cent of ethnic Serbs did so.

CEDEM's representative Nenad Koprivica said that about half of all citizens feared that joining NATO might negatively affect Montenegro's relations with Serbia and Russia.

The government insists that support for NATO member is significantly higher than it was, and is increasing.

Commenting on the survey, Foreign Minister Igor Luksic said that according to the government's own data, about 46 per cent of the population now support joning the Western military alliance.

On Tuesday, an anti-NATO campaign group, the Movement for Neutrality of Montenegro, accused the government of releasing "false information" about public support for NATO because, it said, CEDEM's research "unequivocally showed that support is continually dropping".

The government has been pushing to join the alliance ever since Montenegro restored its independence in 2006. It joined the NATO Membership Action Plan in 2009, which is regarded as a final step before joining the alliance.

In a setback in June, however, ministers of NATO countries did not to offer the country membership at the alliance summit in Wales this year, saying they would reconsider Montenegro’s bid in 2015.
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Unsurprising to see the discrimination by ethnicity.

[Kotrag]

Joining NATO means scrapping whatever military the ex-eastern block states have left, if Montenegro joined, they would just become a protectorate and a subjugated nation.

[StormBringer]

I remember reading an article according to which Croatians will be "guarding" their sky, not sure what became of that.

[Crn Volk]

Joining NATO means scrapping whatever military the ex-eastern block states have left, if Montenegro joined, they would just become a protectorate and a subjugated nation.

Montenegro doesn't have a military, so won't matter.

[Kotrag]

Montenegro doesn't have a military, so won't matter.

Yes they do, they even have fighter jets, unlike fyrom.

They would be able to defend themselves in case of Albanian insurgency. Fyrom needs Bulgaria to defend it.

[Crn Volk]

Yes they do, they even have fighter jets, unlike fyrom.

They would be able to defend themselves in case of Albanian insurgency. Fyrom needs Bulgaria to defend it.

[Kotrag]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montenegrin_Air_Force

Correct me if I was wrong.

[Kotrag]

You know I was referring to Montenegro, so how about you find an actual argument as opposed to making fun of the English of a person who learned it as a second language?

[Crn Volk]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montenegrin_Air_Force

Correct me if I was wrong.

Yes they have a few planes, but with a population of 500,000 of which half are Serbs, 30% are muslim, can hardly defeat greater-albania.....