Exclusive: Official Washingtons New Cold Warriors are painting NATOs admission of tiny Montenegro in the stark black-and-white colors of a heroic stand against Russian aggression but that misses the real reasons why its a bad idea, writes Jonathan Marshall.

By Jonathan Marshall

Any day now, Arizona Senator John McCain promises, the U.S. Senate will vote to approve the incorporation of Montenegro as the 29th member state in the NATO alliance. Though few Americans likely know where to find the tiny Balkan nation on a map, Montenegro has become another dubious focal point of the Wests new confrontation with Russia.

At first glance, the case for extending NATOs umbrella over a country with fewer than 2,000 troops isnt obvious. Its seven helicopters are unlikely to make America safer. The Obama administration, which championed this latest in a long line of recent additions to the alliance, actually offered as a rationale the fact that Montenegro had donated some mortar rounds to the anti-ISIS coalition in Iraq and $1.2 million to NATOs operations in Afghanistan over three years.

That sum is less than a third of what U.S. taxpayers spend in Afghanistan per hour. One critic quipped, if the Wests survival depends on Montenegros inclusion in NATO, we should all be heading for the bunkers.

Maybe thats why hawks are citing the mere fact of Russias predictable opposition as a prime reason to support Montenegros accession. Backing Montenegros membership is not only the right thing for the Senate to do, it would send a clear signal that no third party has a veto over NATO enlargement decisions, argues the Heritage Foundation.

And two advocates at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, writing in Foreign Affairs, declared recently that Montenegro will be the key test of whether President Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson kowtow to their friend Russian President Vladimir Putin and acquiesce . . . in another Yalta or stand up for core U.S. goals.

Raising the specter of Putin and Yalta diverts attention from troubling questions about Montenegros political suitability as a partner and whether it has anything of military value to offer.

NATO ostensibly conditions its acceptance of new members on strict criteria, which include demonstrating a commitment to the rule of law and human rights; establishing democratic control of armed forces; and promoting stability and well-being through economic liberty, social justice and environmental responsibility.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Carpenter assured the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last September that Montenegro supported NATOs values of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law. He must have missed the report from Freedom House, which gave the country a rating of only partly free for both political rights and civil liberties.

The organization cited restrictions on the freedom of peaceful assembly and years of harassment and discrimination against LGBT people. It also noted ongoing concerns . . . about the independence of the judiciary and the public broadcaster, as well as numerous failures to effectively prosecute past attacks against media workers. The country suffers from a lack of trust in the electoral process among voters, it added.

Carpenter must also have missed the State Departments human rights report, which accused Montenegro of numerous violations, including impunity for war crimes, mistreatment by law enforcement officers of persons in their custody, overcrowded and dilapidated prisons and pretrial detention facilities, violations of the right to peaceful assembly, and selective prosecution of political and societal opponents.

A Bastion of Corruption

As for the rule of law, consider that Montenegros ruler for nearly three decades, Milo Djukanovi?, was given the 2015 Organized Crime and Corruption Person of the Year Award by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an organization of several hundred investigative journalists who report on corruption in Europe and Central Asia (and are partly financed by USAID).

Citing his success in creating an oppressive political atmosphere and an economy choked by corruption and money laundering, the OCCRP said Djukanovi? has built one of the most dedicated kleptocracies and organized crime havens in the world.

The organization pointed to his alleged role in cigarette smuggling with notorious Italian crime syndicates; his familys takeover of a former state bank, which became a money laundry for organized crime; his controversial sale of major stretches of the countrys coastline to shady foreign oligarchs; and his offer of citizenship to a notorious regional drug kingpin.

Djukanovi? knows the money is greener to the west of Montenegro than to the east. Thats why hes an ardent advocate of joining NATO. (Fewer than 40 percent of Montenegrins in a recent poll agreed in part because alliance warplanes bombed the country during NATOs campaign against Serbia in 1999.) President Obama congratulated Djukanovi? on his stand during an official reception in September.

Following national elections in October, Djukanovi? finally stepped down as prime minister, but he remains head of the ruling party. Taking his place as the countrys current prime minister was his hand-picked deputy, Dusko Markovic.

Markovic, a former state security chief, is considered one of Djukanovi?s closest confidantes, reported OCCRP. He was publicly accused by a former head of the countrys anti-organized crime police last year of involvement incigarette smuggling, but was never charged. In 2014, Markovic was also charged by the head of a government investigative commission with obstructing a probe into the murder of a prominent newspaper editor and critic of Djukanovi?.

Western media have large ignored such troubling facts. Instead, what little coverage there is of Montenegro focuses on the governments sensational claim that Russians plotted to assassinate Djukanovi? at the time of the October election.

Markovic recently told Time magazine that his security services at the last minute uncovered a criminal organization formed by two Russian military intelligence agents, who planned on election day to provoke incidents . . . and also possibly an armed conflict as a pretext for taking power.

The prosecutor in charge of the case says Russian state authorities backed the plot to prevent Montenegro from joining NATO. He vows to indict two alleged Russian plotters and 22 others, including a group of Serbian nationalists, by April 15. Russias foreign minister called the allegations baseless, but refuses to extradite any suspects. An independent expert, citing numerous anomalies in the official story, argues the plot was a rogue operation by Serbian and Russian nationalist freelancers.

Russia, which has long considered the Balkans to be in its sphere of influence, has a history of intruding in Montenegros affairs. But absent persuasive supporting evidence for the governments case, outsiders should bear in mind the cautionary observation by Freedom House that [Montenegros] intelligence service has faced sustained criticism from international observers for a perceived lack of professionalism.

Still, it should come as no surprise that anti-Russia hawks havent let ambiguous evidence deter them from demanding the expansion of NATO.

A Wall Street Journal editorial said the alleged coup plot gives a good taste of Russias ambitions and methods in Eastern and Central Europe and concluded with a call for accepting Montenegros bid to join NATO: Western security is best served by supporting democratic governments of any size facing pressure from regional bullies. The alternative is to deliver another country into Moscows grip, and whet its appetite to take another.

Time magazine commented even more breathlessly that The aborted coup was a reminder that a new battle for Europe has begun. From the Baltics to the Balkans and the Black Sea to Great Britain, Vladimir Putin is seeking to rebuild Russias empire more than 25 years after the fall of the Soviet Union. Trumps past criticism of NATO, the magazine warned, has raised flags that the U.S. might accept Russias territorial grab.

Such inflammatory comments are stoking the political fires burning around Trump, including investigations of his campaign contacts with Russians, assertions of Moscows interference with the election, and questions about business connections or personal indiscretions that make him vulnerable to Putin. Trumps stand on Montenegro still to be determined will signal whether he remains a critic of NATO or is caving to the New Cold Warriors.

Jonathan Marshall is author of many recent articles on arms issues, including Obamas Unkept Promise on Nuclear War, How World War III Could Start,NATOs Provocative Anti-Russian Moves,Escalations in a New Cold War,and Ticking Closer to Midnight.

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