Garcevic Publishes Op-Ed in Balkan Insight on Trump and NATO
Ambassador Vesko Garcevic, Professor of the Practice of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published an Op-Ed on the recent NATO summit where United States President Donald Trump focused on the defense spending of America’s European allies.
Garcevic’s Op-Ed, entitled “NATO’s Threat Is Not Trump But a Changing World,” was published on July 17, 2018 in Balkan Insight.
From the text of the Op-Ed:
The concert is over, the musicians did not sound as melodious and well tuned as before, but the show goes on. This could be a summary of the recent NATO summit.
It was one of the most intriguing and provoking NATO events ever. Many will attribute the needling atmosphere of the Brussels meeting to US President Donald Trump.
Unlike at his first participation at NATO gatherings, this time he was the central figure – which, no doubt, was music to his ears.
More importantly, Trump put the issue of defence spending in the forefront of all deliberations, questioning the solidarity of America’s European allies and their role in the alliance.
Both participants and experts were left with mixed feelings. Comments have ranged from pessimistic forecasts, like that of Robert Kagan in theWashington Post, to the bland “business-as-usual” commentaries of NATO senior officials.
During his diplomatic career, Amb. Vesko Garcevic dealt with issues pertinent to European security and NATO for almost 14 years. In 2004, he was posted in Vienna to serve as Ambassador to Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He had been a Montenegro’s Ambassador to NATO from 2010 until 2014 and served as a Montenegro’s National Coordinator for NATO from 2015 until he joined the faculty at the Pardee School.