Nato expansion - Montenegro

[Osem]

Nato invites Montenegro to join the alliance, in its first expansion for six years

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34981973

Small fry maybe but another swipe at Putin I'd say.

Well Yugoslavia was never in the Warsaw Pact, however anything that makes Vladimir Putin wonder why people don't want to be in his gang has got to be good. Or rather, makes the Russian people wonder why it is that their country under Putin isn't so popular.

Does Montenegro have some sort of strategic advantage to NATO?

[Osem]

Only in as much as it makes another point to Putin maybe.

I don't buy the argument that this will make the Russians stop and think about what their leader is up to. Everything he does seems to go down quite well with his public as he stokes up the anti-west rhetoric in order to shift the point of blame for Russia's economic problems. I tend to think the more the west pressures Russia, the more Putin uses that to his advantage, relying on blind nationalism to obscure common sense.

[Taf]

It seems to be a scary time to start poking Putin by announcing this.