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NATO's Balancing Behavior Through Montenegro's Accession Thinking Geopolitically: NATO’s Balancing Behavior Through Montenegro’s Accession Master’s Thesis By Melike Kaptan May 23, 2018 Master of Science in International Relations and Diplomacy Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs Leiden University 2016-2018 Thinking Geopolitically: NATO’s Balancing Behavior Through Montenegro’s Accession Student Name: Melike Kaptan Student Number: s1891405 First Supervisor: Dr. Marinko Bobic Second Supervisor: Dr. Peter van Ham Cover photo: Geographic location of Montenegro in Europe. Source: OperationWorld.net, 2018. Word Count: 20.451 i Acknowledgments This Master’s thesis is a product of an intense and comprehensive two-year MSc program of International Relations and Diplomacy, provided by dedicated instructors from Leiden University and the Netherlands Institute of International Relations “Clingendael”. Under the tutelage of my professors, I have obtained a whole new set of tools to study and understand the phenomena of the current world order from a different viewpoint. For that, I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to all my professors, and the MIRD staff who have shown continuous unwavering support in all my academic endeavors. I would also like to especially thank my First Supervisor Dr. Marinko Bobic for his guidance and his confidence in me. Without his dedicated support throughout my thesis period, this end product could not have reached its full potential. Another special thank you goes for my Second Supervisor Dr. Peter van Ham for his most constructive feedback that allowed me to build my research design on such concrete basis. Lastly, I must express my profound gratitude to Ragnhild Drange for her assistance, my colleagues and friends from MIRD program for their support and my parents for their love, guidance and constant encouragement. ii Abstract On December 2nd, 2015, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) officials extended an invitation to Montenegro in order to initiate official talks with the government regarding its membership to the Alliance as its 29th member. While numerous proponents and opponents of the newest wave of eastern enlargement had analyzed the motivation behind NATO’s foreign policies from different perspectives, a common ground was still present in their assessment: NATO’s concerns about Montenegro lie mainly on the provisions of Article 10, since Montenegro does not possess the necessary material capabilities to provide a substantial contribution to the Alliance. In other words, NATO was using Montenegro as a political pawn to demonstrate to Russia the robustness of the Open Door Policy and the solidarity of the Alliance. Although Montenegro’s accession to NATO can be considered, to some extent, as a response to Russia’s involvement in the Ukraine war and its illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, I propose that Montenegro’s geopolitical importance was significant for NATO, and that NATO was acceding Montenegro as the result of a balancing act against a perceived Russian threat. In this thesis, in order to analyze this phenomenon, the Congruence Method of analysis was utilized on a single revelatory case; Montenegro. The Congruence Method allowed the utilization of two existing theories; the Balance of Threat Theory and the Classical Geopolitics, in a complementary manner. The results showed that in addition to the threat against the Euro- Atlantic integrity caused by the Ukraine war, Russia was also creating another perceived threat with its repetitive requests to establish a naval base in Montenegro. The thesis reveals that due to the uncertainties of the Syrian war, Russia was in search of an additional naval base in the Mediterranean Sea which led its strategic interests to the coasts of Montenegro, the only country in the Adriatic region which is not a NATO member. Consequently, the research concluded that NATO was balancing against a potential threat from Russia which stemmed from the geopolitical importance of Montenegro. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................................... ii Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... iii List of Tables & Figures ................................................................................................................................. v Abbreviations................................................................................................................................................. vi 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. The Structure of the Thesis ................................................................................................................ 6 2. Literature Review ...................................................................................................................................... 7 2.1. NATO’s Eastward Enlargement ......................................................................................................... 7 2.2. Tensions between NATO and Russia ................................................................................................. 9 2.3. The Case of Montenegro .................................................................................................................. 11 3. Theoretical Framework ........................................................................................................................... 13 3.1. Theories ............................................................................................................................................ 13 3.1.1 The Balance of Threat Theory .................................................................................................... 13 3.1.2. The Classical Geopolitics .......................................................................................................... 15 3.2. Hypotheses ....................................................................................................................................... 17 4. Research Design ...................................................................................................................................... 18 4.1. Variables ........................................................................................................................................... 18 4.2. Case Selection .................................................................................................................................. 19 4.3. Data Collection ................................................................................................................................. 20 4.4. Method of Analysis .......................................................................................................................... 21 5. Geopolitical Importance of Montenegro ................................................................................................. 23 5.1. Descriptive data of the Geopolitical Factors .................................................................................... 23 5.2. Analysis of Geopolitical Importance of Montenegro for NATO ..................................................... 31 6. Balancing Against the Threat Russia from a Geopolitical Perspective ................................................... 35 7. NATO’s Open Door Policy Prerequisites and Its Analysis on Montenegro ........................................... 43 8. Discussion ............................................................................................................................................... 55 9. Conclusions ............................................................................................................................................. 58 9.1. Limitations........................................................................................................................................ 59 9.2. Implications for further research ...................................................................................................... 60 10. Bibliography .......................................................................................................................................... 61 iv List of Tables & Figures Table 1. Summary of Data for the Geopolitical Factors................................................................38 Table 2. The Democratic Chronology of Montenegro...................................................................46 Table 3. The Corruption Perception Index – Montenegro.............................................................48 Table 4. Nations in Transit Ratings and Averaged Scores (Montenegro).....................................50 Table 5. Collective Data of Montenegro's Military Contribution..................................................56 Figure 1. Political Map of Montenegro......................................................................................... 28 Figure 2. Population Density by Municipalities............................................................................ 30 Figure 3. The Ethnic Structure of Montenegro.............................................................................. 31 Figure 4. The Religious Structure of Montenegro........................................................................
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