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BRUSSELS – The small European country, now known as the Republic of Northern Macedonia, may not seem to be an important addition to NATO. But it fills another gap in what was once the backyard of the former Soviet Union and comes at a time when tensions between East and West are rising.
The inclusion of North Macedonia also means that NATO will soon have 30 members, all engaged in their collective defense. This is double the number of NATO members in 1991, when many experts thought the alliance would dissolve with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact.
On Wednesday at a ceremony held at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, member countries formally signed a letter of accession for North Macedonia, which is expected to become a full member by the end of the year .
Political badysts said the move was a setback for Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, who saw NATO as an expansionary military force at the door of his country. Mr Putin has been arguing for many years that NATO is no longer necessary because, according to him, Russia poses no threat.
But while Russia is working openly to restore its influence in the former Soviet zone, especially in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea and the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine , NATO is an attractive club for small nations like North Macedonia.
"One of Putin's greatest hopes has been for NATO to disappear or become fragmented," said Stephen J. Flanagan, a political scientist with the Washington-based RAND Corporation. The accession of North Macedonia, he said, "would somewhat undermine Russian discourse".
President Trump may be more concerned for some NATO supporters because he complained aloud that other member countries do not spend enough money on defense . He described the alliance as "obsolete" and even threatened to withdraw.
Mr. Trump also worries that small NATO countries located in difficult neighborhoods could drag the United States into war under the Alliance's collective security arrangement called Article V: An attack against one of them is an attack against all.
In July, Trump suggested that the 29th member of NATO, Montenegro, a country of 600,000 inhabitants he described as "very aggressive", could trigger the Third World War.
Mr. Trump's point of view raised questions as to whether he was determined to badist another NATO member state if it was attacked.
Torrey Taussig, a Berlin-based member of the Brookings Institution, said that although the Trump government had given considerable diplomatic support to NATO's Macedonian trajectory, doubts about Trump's commitment to Article V have not disappeared.
"When this central deterrent node is questioned, the security of every NATO member state is questioned – should NATO have 10, 30 or 50 members," he said. she declared.
Kay Bailey Hutchison, US Ambbadador to NATO, said the United States "strongly supports" the accession of North Macedonia and its 2.1 million residents .
In addition, Congress and the Pentagon remain committed to an alliance whose supporters have long been recognized for helping to maintain peace in Europe and deter Moscow over the past seven decades.
Just last month, the House of Representatives declared adopted a bipartite measure, by 35 votes against 22, prohibiting the Trump administration to use federal funds to get the United States out of NATO, blaming the president for his frequent attacks against the Alliance and suggesting that he might seek to withdraw.
Russia's efforts to sow discord in the alliance are evident in the Balkans, where it has strengthened its influence in the former Yugoslavia, a country in which the two new NATO members were part. Russia has been accused of attempting to overthrow the government of Montenegro in October 2016, for example as part of an ultimate attempt to prevent the country from joining the country. NATO.
Despite these setbacks in Russia, Russia continues to exert a significant influence in Serbia, where Putin has just made a state visit and where Russia has major interests in infrastructure. The persistent dispute between Serbia and its former province of Kosovo, which Serbia and Russia refuse to recognize as an independent state, has prevented Kosovo from seeking membership in NATO.
Nikola Dimitrov, Foreign Minister of North Macedonia, said that NATO membership would place the country in "an area of stability in an area that still has pockets of uncertainty".
Membership was so valuable to the country that he decided, after years of negotiations with Greece, a member of NATO, to change his name to the Republic of Macedonia. The Greeks argued that they already owned a northern territory called Macedonia, that Alexander the Great was historically Greek – Alexander of Macedon – and that the former Kingdom of Macedonia is located at the same time. interior of modern Greece.
Until the change of name, Greece had vetoed Macedonia's accession to NATO, much to the chagrin of the rest of the alliance.
The name issue had for years prevented Macedonians from trying to join the European Union because, like NATO, it also worked by consensus. It is only now that Greece has lifted its veto that the accession negotiations to the European Union can actually begin.
"This is really a great moment," said Stevo Pendarovski, a Macedonian official who is the coordinator of the country's efforts to join NATO.
Although NATO is proud of its expansion, NATO members are still wary of Mr Trump's anger and his habit of interrupting debates in order to discern the failings of his allies, presented at the last NATO summit in July.
This April marks the 70th anniversary of the alliance, which should normally be celebrated at a summit meeting of all NATO leaders in Washington. This year, there will be no such rally in Washington, but a meeting instead of foreign ministers.
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