“[One of] the European Union's central problems [is] excessive expansion into countries that can't pull their weight,” Independent Institute Center for Peace and Freedom Ivan Eland said on Wednesday. “The United States, leader of NATO, has made the same mistake by admitting Montenegro.”
The move increased the dangers of war in southeastern Europe, Eland warned.
“Montenegro and other poorer countries in the eastern part of Europe already admitted into the alliance could drag the United States and Western European countries into wars they don't want to fight,” he cautioned.
“The expansion is great for Montenegro and a greater burden for all other NATO countries, especially the United States, which are pledged to defend it,” Eland said.
Although Montenegro was so small, the move confirmed NATO’s determination to continue relentlessly expanding eastward across Eurasia and therefore was bound to increase tensions between the alliance and Russia, Eland foresaw.
“Continued NATO expansion, a principal cause of the deterioration of US-Russia relations in this millennium, will only make those relations worse. Since both [the United States and Russia] have many nuclear weapons, this level of general tensions is bad news for everyone,” Eland stated.
“At this point it is a gesture by the Senate to show that Russia cannot mess with our foreign policy and President [Donald] Trump went along with it. Foreign policy by gesture can be a dangerous thing,” Waters advised.
Russian Ambassador to Serbia Alexander Chepurin told Sputnik in an interview that attempts to drag certain Balkan states into NATO without asking the people's opinion could destabilize the region.
