The latest stupidity from President Donald Trump (as reported in this piece from the BBC, and this one from DW) is just stunning. He is suggesting that, if Montenegro (a paid up member of NATO) is attacked, the USA might not be willing to honour its commitments under Article 5 of the NATO founding treaty, which require all NATO members to treat an attack on one member as an attack on all members).

He said several things, one of which is that Montenegro was not paying into NATO, which is simply not true (mentioned in the DW article - around 1.66% of GDP, and committed to raise it to 2% percent by 2024, as agreed by other NATO members). He also said that Montenegro is "a very strong people, ... very aggressive people. They may get aggressive and, congratulations, you're in World War Three." I think maybe he is confusing them with the USA, who are most definitely strong and aggressive, and quite capable of starting World War Three.

Apparently, President Trump is unaware that Article 5 has been invoked only once, by the USA, after the 9/11 terror attack on the World Trade Center. Add to that that Montenegro has contributed a disproportionate (based on their population, as mentioned in the DW article, and their GDP) amount of military assistance in Afghanistan.

I do not really understand why Americans are so against NATO, and Article 5 in particular. After WWII, NATO was created primarily to protect the USA by providing an expendable buffer-zone of countries which would need to be defeated before any effective attack (conventional or nuclear) could be mounted against the USA. The European members of NATO get no credit for providing this "suicide squad", nor for bolstering US forces in wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, and providing logistical and medical support to US forces.

Maybe European nations are safer without the USA. It would certainly reduce the number of reasons for being attacked by Russia.