NATO remains a counterweight to Russia notwithstanding the fall of the Soviet Union, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell emphasized while urging lawmakers to ratify a Balkan country’s membership in the alliance.
“With Russia’s resurgence and quest for renewed great power status, NATO has given notice that it will stand up for Western democracies too — and has continued to do so,” the Kentucky Republican said in a Monday floor speech.
Senators are voting on Montenegro’s accession to NATO, which would obligate the United States and other western powers to defend the small Balkan country in the event of an attack. That has broad support in Congress, despite Russia’s vehement opposition, but it has led to some fireworks on the Senate floor. Libertarian-leaning Republicans have blocked previous attempts to vote on the proposal.
“At its core, the alliance is not only about defeating a common threat, but also about common values,” he said. “A positive vote on the NATO Accession Treaty before us tells those countries which complete NATO member action plans that this undertaking, while difficult, is not futile.”
That’s not a good enough argument for some foreign policy realists. “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,” the National Interest’s Doug Bandow wrote.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has raised procedural objections to a vote on the treaty, angering one of the leading proponents of the treaty ratification. “The senator from Kentucky is now working for Vladimir Putin,” Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., long a Paul antagonist, said March 15 on the Senate floor.
