Enough about Helsinki. Let's Talk about Montenegro.

The recent European tour offered pretty conclusive proof that Donald Trump lacks the maturity, intellect, integrity, diplomacy, or temperament to be an effective President. In other words, it told us nothing we didn’t already know 20 years ago. He was simultaneously paranoid, crude, boorish, insulting to allies, and pandering to our enemies. Nothing new there, either. But Curmie’s going to stop there.

There was nothing inherently treasonous in anything he did or did not do. Perhaps, perhaps his performance in Europe, particularly in Helsinki, could be symptomatic of some more sinister forces at work—if, for example, Rachel Maddow’s ”Worst Case Scenario” turns out to be both accurate and provable, but what Curmie sees is what he’s seen for years: a narcissistic, hubristic, xenophobic buffoon… not a Manchurian Candidate, not a traitor.

Moreover, Democrats’ attempts to subpoena the translator—the only other person in the room in Trump’s private meeting with Vladimir Putin—is a transparent and ill-advised grand-standing ploy, designed not to get at the truth, but rather to force Mitch McConnell into denying their tantrum demands. No President, not even one as ill-suited to the job as this one, should be subject to this level of voyeurism. If he wants to have a private conversation with a foreign leader, then that conversation must indeed remain private, at the very least until there is sufficient evidence of malfeasance to warrant such an intrusion. That threshold had better be very high indeed. McConnell was right to refuse, although one suspects that his real reasons for the denial are likely to have been as unethical as the request itself.

The most notorious line to come out of Helsinki, of course, was that “I don't see any reason why it would be” Russia who interfered in the US Presidential election of 2016. That statement, uttered despite a raftload of evidence uncovered by American intelligence agencies that Russia absolutely did attempt to surreptitiously influence that election, caused headlines world-wide, and condemnation not only from the usual suspects, but also—finally—from the likes of Paul Ryan, Orrin Hatch, and Trey Gowdy. Of course, Trump reversed course, walking back his comment with what is surely a contender for the World’s All-Time Least Convincing Retraction™. (It did spawn some great memes, though.) Curmie supposes it might be possible that Trump actually misspoke in Helsinki. It is also possible that Curmie will win a Pulitzer for this essay, but he hasn’t added that line to his résumé just yet. Let’s put it this way: People lie. Politicians lie more than most people. Trump lies more than most (any?) other politicians. And this was a particularly dubious statement even by Trump’s standards, not least because of the context of the original statement and the immediate undercutting of the purported walk-back.

Intentionally or otherwise, however, the brouhaha created a wag the dog moment, distracting our collective gaze away from the potentially far more important story of the arrest of alleged Russian spy Maria Butina. Butina’s arrest and the public announcement of that arrest bookended the Helsinki presser. Did Trump say something totally outrageous, knowing that he’d later claim to have misspoken, simply to buy some time to figure out a strategy of how to deal with the Butina situation? Curmie doubts it, primarily because although Trump is sufficiently reckless and sufficiently mendacious to make the attempt, I doubt that he’s smart enough to have thought of it. But, irrespective of intent, news about Ms. Butina was dropped to below the proverbial fold.

And that story, in turn, moved what might under other circumstances have been headline news into a mere blip. I refer here to a statement President Trump made in an interview with Tucker Carlson. Carlson, as Curmie has mentioned before, is no idiot, although he often plays one on TV. Here’s the section I want to discuss:

TC: So, NATO. NATO was created chiefly to prevent the Russians from invading Western Europe. I think you don’t believe Western Europe is at risk of being invaded by Russia right now. So, what is the purpose of NATO, right now? 

DJT: Well, that was the purpose. And it’s OK. It’s fine. But they have to pay. And they weren’t paying, and other Presidents went, and they’d make a speech, and then nothing would happen. And… the fact that they didn’t pay is not… a new fact. This is something that people have known for a long time. Other countries were delinquent. In the real estate business, we use the word “delinquent.” They didn’t pay. They didn’t pay for past, so I went there three or four days ago, and I said, “folks, you gotta pay. Because we’re not going to pay from 70 to 90, and I think 90 is really the right… depending on the way you define it, 90%... we’re not going to pay 90% of the cost to defend Europe. And on top of that, the European Union kills us on trade…. 

TC: So, membership in NATO obligates the members to defend any other members that’s attacked. So, let’s say Montenegro, which joined last year, is attacked. Why should my son go to Montenegro to defend it from attack? Why is that… 

DJT: I understand what you’re saying. I’ve asked the same question. You know… Montenegro is a tiny country with very strong people. 

TC: Yeah, I’m not against Montenegro… 

DJT: Yeah, right. 

TC: Or Albania… 

DJT: Oh, by the way… they’re very strong people. They’re very aggressive people. They may get aggressive, and, congratulations, you’re in World War III…. But that’s the way it was set up.

At one place in the middle of this sequence, and again at the end, President Trump reiterates the point about other NATO countries “not paying,” concluding this section with a rather pompous “add that to your little equation on Montenegro.”

There are lots of points to be covered here. First, let’s stipulate that the US has traditionally paid a disproportionate share of NATO’s expenses. This is indeed a problem that has been identified by previous US Presidents—President Obama, for example, incurred a fair amount of wrath from Europe for his description of “Europe and a number of Gulf Countries… who are calling for action… pushing us to act but then showing an unwillingness to put any skin in the game.” He then accepted the term “free riders,” proposed by The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg.

So the American frustration with NATO’s “free riders” is not a new phenomenon. The initiative to require a defense expenditure of 2% of GDP for each member state by the year 2024 was passed four years ago. President Trump wants to accelerate that timetable, and indeed to increase the goal to a far more robust 4%. (The U.S. is currently at 3.7 or 3.8%, depending on the source.) On the first goal, I wish him luck; perhaps he will indeed fulfill his boast that he can accomplish what previous Presidents have not: I hope my skepticism is misplaced. On the latter point, however—we don’t currently spend enough on defense? And if our closest allies increased their commitments by close to 70% (this rough number determined by dividing the 2% target by the current NATO median of 1.18%), we’d still need an increase… not merely in the military budget in dollar terms as the economy grows, but indeed in the percentage of GDP? Sorry, no.

It’s also untrue that the U.S. is footing 90% of the bill. The official figure is about 67% (The Atlantic says 72%), still disproportionately high by roughly a factor of three (based on GDP), but further evidence of POTUS’s inability to tell the truth even when he has a point: a trait he shares with his Democratic opponent in the last election. Moreover, there is little to suggest the President really understands the way NATO is funded… and if, as appears to be true, he knows less than Curmie about this, it’s not a good sign.

But now we get to the crux of the matter: the comments about Montenegro. OK, it was only an example, and it wasn’t introduced by POTUS himself. But his comments are chilling. Of course, Carlson’s set-up is disingenuous. Yes, NATO was designed to protect Western Europe, but after the break-up of the Soviet Union and the ensuing emancipation of the Baltic and Balkan states, Ukraine, etc., the concept of “Western Europe” became anachronistic. NATO now includes a number of countries which were at one time either part of the USSR or de facto under its control: precisely the reason those countries, although not geographically “western,” choose to affiliate with NATO and its goals. The Soviet Union is no more, and the countries near the Russian border would like to keep it that way. So no, Russia isn’t likely to invade Western Europe, but that’s not where all European democracies reside, any more.

Yes, Montenegro matters, both in terms American credibility and also in purely stark geopolitical terms. As Rich Lowry (hardly a left-winger!) points out,

The Baltics are immediately in the line of Russian fire, as targets of harassment by Vladimir Putin and officially part of the Soviet Union as recently as 20 years ago. Every chink in NATO’s credibility directly affects their security…. [Trump’s] open questioning of the wisdom of defending small allies in faraway places is worse: A predatory Russian leader who has already annexed the territory of one neighboring sovereign country is listening.

Of course, NATO would be under no compulsion to support Montenegro in a war of aggression (yeah, that’s likely to happen, right?), which is what POTUS seems to be suggesting with the “aggressive” comments. It is indeed true that Montenegro has been a little testy at least once in recent history: when Russia, or at least pro-Russian forces, tried to stage a coup in Montenegro. The trial of 14 people accused of an attempt to kill then-Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic and install a pro-Russian government began almost exactly a year to the day before President Trump’s remarks. Needless to say, the Kremlin denies the allegations; needless to say, if you believe that denial, Curmie has a bridge for sale in New York, going cheap.

Last month, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a right-center think tank which views the world through a certain political lens but has a reputation for truth-telling (think The Telegraph in terms of British newspapers), published a report with this conclusion:

Despite the coup’s failure, the future of Montenegro’s progress toward Western integration remains uncertain. The institutional actors behind the failed coup attempt remain largely in place and steadfastly opposed to NATO membership. Should they come to power, they likely would withdraw Montenegro from the Alliance, retract its recognition of Kosovo, and potentially reunite with Serbia. Thus, to prevent the reversal of Montenegro’s Western trajectory, the U.S. and its NATO allies immediately must work to deepen their engagement with the country. Without undertaking measures to strengthen military cooperation, facilitate democratic reforms, accelerate the European Union accession process, and renew financial support for programs in the rule of law, the West is unprepared to counter Russia’s destabilizing efforts.

In other words, this is a really, really bad time to even discuss turning our collective backs on Montenegro, perhaps even more so than on the Balkan states, which are also under Russian threat.

Important, too, is the fact that Montenegro’s entry into NATO came about during the Trump administration, requiring a 2/3 vote of the US Senate (the vote was 97-2) and Presidential approval. The time to object was last year, not now.

Foreign policy decisions, especially those with military implications, are always difficult, or at least they damned well should be. On the one hand, there’s the danger of significant losses of blood and treasure. On the other, we’ve seen the aftermath of appeasement and isolationism. Irrespective of larger philosophical issues, however, the simple question is whether this country will honor its promises. Montenegro, like it or not, is a member of NATO, and therefore, according to Article 5 of the NATO Charter, entitled to mutual defense. By the way, Article 5 has been invoked precisely once in NATO’s history: by the US, post 9/11. For the record, Montenegro, per capita, has more troops in Afghanistan than the US does, and is on track to meet the 2% of GDP goal by the target date of 2024.

That President Trump would be anything less than emphatic about defending a fellow NATO state is a disgrace. He has defied the Senate, stressed our relationship with European allies, and rendered the collective word of the US government subject to his petulance. All in a day’s work for the bloviating vulgarian that is POTUS.