Why invite Montenegro into NATO? It’s all about Russia
When considering membership into NATO, how much
does a potential new member bring to the table versus take off of it?

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) announced this week that it is inviting Montenegro to join the alliance. The essential meaning of this is that once it is a member, Montenegro will be committed to participate in the defense of NATO members if anyone is attacked AND the alliance will be committed to defend Montenegro if it is attacked (Article V of the NATO treaty). To be clear, this commitment is not as ironclad as people believe, but still has much political weight.
To borrow from Bill Simmons, when considering membership in
NATO, the question to ask is: How much does potential member X bring to the
table versus take off of the table? What kinds of contributions to NATO
capabilities/geographic position/whatever does a country bring? What
kinds of problems, such as domestic conflicts, extending NATO credibility too
far, risk of international adventures, does the potential member bring?
While I have not done a close study of Montenegro’s military capabilities and
likely defense spending, I am going to guess and say that it does bring much to
the table.
Montenegro seems to have all of one infantry battalion, two
patrol boats, maybe some planes, and not much else. It is already well
under the 2 percent of GDP for defense goal at 1.3 percent. Montenegro
does not occupy a key position on the map except perhaps as a handy location
for smuggling stuff into Europe (untaxed cigarettes is or was a big income
earner).
But it does get NATO closer to having a map of Europe that is whole and free
and happy and blue — that the only parts of Eastern Europe that are not in NATO
are Montenegro, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia. Only the last is not in
some real or mythical line to get into NATO.* A map without any holes
(except for Switzerland and some micro-states) has been a key objective of some
folks.
What does Montenegro take away? Given its location, it is unlikely that
NATO would have to defend it from an attack, so it does not stretch the
credibility of the alliance. That is one of the key reasons why
membership for Ukraine or Georgia is a bad idea — that NATO possesses neither
the will nor the ability to defend either. Adding a weak, probably corrupt
Eastern European country to NATO does not change things much — NATO already has
Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania, so Montenegro does not change things
much on that score.
So, is Montenegro’s membership status entirely irrelevant? Not at this
moment. Why? Because it gives NATO a chance to stick
it to Russia**, who has opposed the inclusion of Montenegro in the
alliance. This shows that NATO membership is not subject to Russian
vetoes. And that is a good thing.
So, for the moment, Montenegro is slightly relevant. And if it tried to
block decision making at the North Atlantic Council, it could make some
noise. But Montenegro does not add much to the alliance nor does it
really stretch the alliance.
* Macedonia’s only obstacle to membership at this point is the dispute with Greece over its name. This does remind us of the peril of having too many members in a consensus-based organization—one cranky member can block decision-making if it is obsesses enough, and, yes, Greece is obsessed enough.
** This article says that NATO does not allow in members that have border disputes, but that is mostly not so true. The key for Georgia and Ukraine is that their border disputes are with Russia, and that their inclusion in NATO would stretch the credibility of the NATO commitment to the breaking point.