Dusko Markovic. Not a household name. Neither is Montenegro, the small, stunningly beautiful Balkan country with an Adriatic coastline, where Mr. Markovic is Prime Minister. Despite having visited a number of times, I still have to squint sometimes when I look at a map to find it. Montenegrins like to joke that their tiny country is actually quite large, if you laid it out flat and got rid of all the mountains.
I know Prime Minister Markovic personally. Like many Montenegrins, he is tall, and he cuts an impressive figure with a thick shock of silver hair. A lifelong politician, Dusko nevertheless comes across as genuine and even self-deprecating. Perhaps this is due to the fact that his country is small, once having been a region of Yugoslavia, which dissolved in the early 1990s; since that time, many of the parts of what used to be Yugoslavia have been making slow, often painful progress towards becoming democracies. They are all young states, and have had their share of bad times and less-than-democratic moments.
Dusko and Montenegro are no exception to this, but the government of Montenegro has decided it wants to take the country towards the West, and away from Russia, which was putting considerable pressure on them to stay in the Slavic fold, where, Moscow told them, they belonged. Spurning Russia was risky (a good portion of Montenegro’s economy is dependent on Russian tourism, which is now sure to decrease), but in the view of Markovic and his government, it is worth it in the long run.
You would probably recognize Prime Minister Markovic from the viral video of U.S. President Donald Trump pushing him aside brusquely in his eagerness to get to the front row for an official photograph at the recent NATO heads of state meetings in Brussels. The only thing that is less becoming of the American president shouldering aside the newest member of NATO is the dandy, cocksure way Trump preens after gaining the front row, flapping and buttoning his suit coat over that impossibly long necktie, so as to cut the right profile for the cameras.
It would not be unfair to state that my friend Markovic had more right to the front row than Trump. Montenegro’s sacrifices to gain NATO membership have been and will continue to be significant, and they arguably risked more by joining the alliance than any other recent NATO aspirant. President Trump was clearly clueless to all this; it would have been the perfect opportunity to symbolically welcome a new ally into the fold, to let a small nation take its rightful place in the alliance, and maybe, just maybe, in an act of selfless statesmanship, to let the Montenegrins take center stage. But no.
Trump’s Montenegro moment in front of the cameras is part of a larger, more concerning theme that came to the fore during the President’s first official trip overseas. The emergent pattern seems to be that Trump is much more comfortable, much more in his element, when interacting with authoritarian regimes than when dealing with the United States’ Western allies. In Saudi Arabia, a deeply misogynistic country controlled by the authoritarian royal family, Trump seemed to be truly enjoying himself. In another now-familiar photo, Trump is seen laying hands on an orb with King Salman of Saudi Arabia and Egyptian President el-Sisi at the inauguration of a joint counterterrorism unit.
Going just a bit further back in the timeline, before Trump left Washington, he enjoyed a grinning, backslapping meeting in the Oval Office with those good old boys from Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Kislyak. Trump’s meetings with Chinese Premiere Xi, himself a Putin-like authoritarian figure, were warm, cordial, and by all accounts successful. He called Philippine President – and strongman – Duterte to congratulate him on the success of his war on drugs, which have been widely condemned in the West as officially sanctioned revenge killings. These are leaders with whom Trump has an almost visceral commonality. They connect immediately and easily, because they are like-minded. Trump greatly respects them. This should concern Americans.
By contrast, recall the images of German Chancellor Angela Merkel during her meetings with President Trump. “Chilly” would be a good descriptor. Look at the faces of our other NATO partners in Brussels, when by all accounts the American President harangued them for not fully paying their NATO dues. Trump is frustrated when he is forced to cooperate, when he is forced to forge common positions with people who will not always agree with him – even when they are American allies. Building consensus is not Trump’s strong point, a weakness he shares with his autocratic foreign friends.
Here in the U.S., we saw Trump try to push through an uncoordinated plan to suspend travel to the U.S. from six majority Muslim countries, and we saw his frustration when the courts – for now at least – struck it down. In contrast, Trump seemed very proud at launching a cruise missile strike in Syria, an action which did not require approval from Congress or the judiciary. Trump is frustrated when his power is constrained and pleased when he does not have to coordinate with anyone. These are the patterns and tendencies of an autocrat. These are patterns that should also concern Americans.
President Trump recently said in a speech, “Our friends will never question our support and our enemies will never doubt our determination.” As my colleague and former Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul tweeted out, it is unfortunate this was said in Saudi Arabia and not saved for (or at least repeated to) our NATO allies. As of this writing, some of our oldest and best allies may be wondering exactly who Trump’s friends are, and perhaps whether they themselves still fit into this category. The President’s decision on Thursday to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate has probably exacerbated these doubts.
Certainly I would forgive Mr. Markovic of Montenegro, shoved aside by the President, if he was having doubts regarding whether Montenegro made the right decision. But then, I know Markovic takes the long view, and he understands the lasting and strategic importance of NATO membership to his country. Let’s hope our other allies are also similarly perspicacious, and take comfort that one of the jewels of the American system of government is that no president will be in office for ever.
