Much Ado About Montenegro

Efforts to expand NATO have never lacked for controversy, and a recent debate in the U.S. Senate was particularly acrimonious with regard to Montenegro's bid to join the alliance. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) spoke on the Senate floor in opposition to Montenegro's accession. He was followed by a fellow Republican, Arizona Sen. John McCain (AZ), who argued that “the senator from Kentucky is now working for Vladimir Putin.” Seeking to match his colleague's hyperbole, Paul later said of his fellow senators who favored Montenegro's membership, “they do not want to debate whether your sons and daughters go to war.” To borrow from William Shakespeare's “Much Ado About Nothing,” it was clear there was a “skirmish of wit between them.”