The Senate on Tuesday approved a treaty allowing Montenegro to join NATO in a 95-2 vote.
The only two senators opposed were Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rand Paul, R-Ky. They were among a very small minority of lawmakers who believe that letting the Balkan country into NATO would not strengthen the alliance, and in fact, would impose more of a potential burden on the U.S.
Montenegro’s NATO candidacy was never really in doubt, as 97 senators voted in favor of ending debate on the treaty ratification. The country brings little by way of military might to the alliance, but its entry will help prevent Russia from gaining a warm-water port that would provide access to the Mediterranean.
“If we were to lose this, it would set back many of the other countries, and people, particularly in eastern Europe that are looking forward to, and have their eyes set on the West,” U.S. Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, NATO’s supreme military commander, told senators last week.
But it was more controversial than the votes suggested, as libertarian-leaning Republicans argued that it wasn’t worth a conflict with Russia, which allegedly backed a coup attempt in order to block the NATO membership.
“Most Americans can’t find Montenegro on a map,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said on the Senate floor Monday. “Are you willing to send your kids there to fight?”
Paul was the target of Sen. John McCain’s anger earlier this month, when McCain said Paul’s effort to stall the treaty meant that he was “working for Vladimir Putin.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, another Kentucky Republican, maintained that the accession of Montenegro would encourage political reforms in other former Soviet satellites.
“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,” he countered in a Monday floor speech. “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.”
