Warsaw, Poland Montenegro will join NATO shortly, as soon as the 28 member nations ratify the decision, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said last week. He emphasized that “the door is open” to new membership, and no nation outside the alliance has any veto power over its expansion. Georgia, too, is checking off the requirements to join, and a senior NATO official, in a press backgrounder, said that even though prospective NATO members are supposed to have their national house in order, with no pending conflicts, Georgia’s problems with Russia don’t negate its candidacy. The conflict over Ossetia could be construed as a tactic by Russia to invalidate Georgia’s NATO application, and it won’t work, the official said.
Amid NATO’s continued push to ramp up air defenses in Eastern Europe, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall swung by seven allied countries to boost relations last week, including those on Russia’s and Ukraine’s doorstep.