Donald Trump has attracted public attention for suggesting the tiny European nation of Montenegro could start another world war.
The US president was speaking to Fox News about the picturesque Balkan state’s inclusion in NATO and whether US troops could be used to fight in its defence.NATO members have the ability to invoke Article Five, which states an attack on one is an attack on all. The clause has only been used once, by the United States, in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
“Why should my son go to Montenegro to defend it from attack?” host Tucker Carlson asked Mr Trump.
“I understand what you’re saying. I’ve asked the same question,” Mr Trump replied.
“Montenegro is a tiny country with very strong people… They’re very aggressive people. They may get aggressive, and congratulations, you’re in world war three.”
Montenegro is a former part of the Yugoslav republic with a population of around 630,000, less half the size of Auckland’s 1.6 million.
Nikolai Platoshkin, a former vice-consul of the Russian Federation in the United States, believes that Trump is exagerating when speaking of Montenegro as a catalyst for the global conflict: “Apparently, he read that Montenegro resisted the Turkish invasion for several hundred years, and decided that the inhabitants of this country are very militant and aggressive. “
It is worth adding that not only Montenegro, but all the Balkans and the Mediterranean as a whole resisted the Ottoman Empire. NATO members Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece also fought with the Ottomans, and the Balkans were occupied for centuries by the Turks. Only the appearance of Vlad III Tepes, who entered the world culture by Count Dracula, began to straighten the situation. And later the help of the Russian army and navy finally liberated the region from the Istanbul domination. And I will remind you that Turkey, this heiress of Mehmet the Second and Suleiman the Magnificent, is also a member of this useless, Godforsaken block called NATO.
No one is going to attack Montenegro, because it borders onAlbania, and Italy is just over Adriatic. Near Serbia, which will be filled by the Amero-Europeans for a long timeso the idea of Serbia and Montenegro’s unionism will not allow the conflict to be inflated here in the foreseeable future.
Only 2000 people serve in Montenegro’s military.