NATO Expansion: Lack of Strategic Thinking?

This week Mitch McConnell (who’s not having a masterly term as minority leader), took a shot at Senator Josh Hawley, unburdening himself this way:

Now, Finland’s and Sweden’s membership in NATO is not as preposterous as that of, say, North Macedonia, a country that brought with it no serious military or intelligence assets while having the very serious liability of being unstable, corrupt, and in service to an electorate roughly evenly split between parties that tilt toward Russia or away from it. In cases like these it was clear NATO was being used as a kind of internationalist finishing school for states that wanted to matriculate into the EU or perhaps the euro zone in the future.

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Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review Online.

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This week Mitch McConnell (who’s not having a masterly term as minority leader), took a shot at Senator Josh Hawley, unburdening himself this way:

Now, Finland’s and Sweden’s membership in NATO is not as preposterous as that of, say, North Macedonia, a country that brought with it no serious military or intelligence assets while having the very serious liability of being unstable, corrupt, and in service to an electorate roughly evenly split between parties that tilt toward Russia or away from it. In cases like these it was clear NATO was being used as a kind of internationalist finishing school for states that wanted to matriculate into the EU or perhaps the euro zone in the future.