US Senator Accused of Blocking Montenegro’s NATO Bid

US Senator Rand Paul was accused by his Republican collegaue John McCain of working for Russian President Vladimir Putin after he objected to a treaty enabling Montenegro to join NATO.

The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved Montenegro’s accession protocol in January. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/ defenseimagery.mil.

Republican senator Rand Paul was accused by John McCain on Wednesday of being pro-Russian after he blocked the passage of a treaty in the US Senate that would allow Montenegro to move forward towards NATO membership.

According to US media, the libertarian-leaning Paul, who has often advocated for a less interventionist US foreign policy, opposed a resolution on Montenegro proposed by McCain.

“He has no justification for his objection to having a small nation be part of NATO that is under assault from the Russians,” McCain said from the senate floor, The Hill quoted him as saying.

“The senator from Kentucky [Paul] is now working for Vladimir Putin,” Mccain added.

The flashpoint came after McCain asked for unanimous consent to set up a vote on the Accession Protocol on Montenegro for joining the Western military alliance.

McCain, a fierce critic of the Russian administration, warned before the vote that “if there’s objection, you are achieving the objectives of Vladimir Putin… and I do not say that lightly”.

Paul then entered the Senate chamber, voted against the accession protocol, and left again.

Asked about McCain’s accusations, Paul stood by his decision to block the protocol and said it would be “unwise to expand the monetary and military obligations of the United States given the burden of our $20 trillion dollar debt”.

“Currently, the United States has troops in dozens of countries and is actively fighting in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen (with the occasional drone strike in Pakistan),” Paul told Business Insider in a statement provided by his office.

“In addition, the United States is pledged to defend 28 countries in NATO,” he added.

For Montenegro to move forward with the accession process, which was approved in last May, the accession protocol has to be ratified by the US Senate by unanimous consent.

In late December, the motion on Montenegro was on the agenda of the previous US Senate, during the Obama’s administration, but the unanimous consent was also blocked by senator Paul, alongside another Republican lawmaker Micheal Lee.

The other possibility for Montenegro’s bid to pass is a two-thirds vote in the 100-member house after a full senate debate.

The row erupted on Wednesday amid doubts raised in the US and in Montenegrin media in recent months that the Senate will not approve the accession protocol, partly due to expectations of warmer relations between Moscow and Washington after Donald Trump became president.

Russia, once Montenegro’s close ally, strongly opposes NATO expansion, which some US-based experts see as an obstacle to the protocol securing a majority in the senate in the light of the Trump presidency.

Russia’s allies and followers in Montenegro hope that friendlier US attitudes towards Moscow could mean ratification being blocked.

So far, 25 of 28 NATO allies have already backed Montenegro’s accession.