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Comment by jpttsn | Hacker News Reader

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jpttsn·

If not for NATO Sweden and Norway might well be part of Russia.

Nations are not isolated systems. Comparing national policies as though they didn’t interact gives wrong answers.

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I find that hard to believe, given that Finland, sitting between Russia and Sweden and Norway, is not a part of Russia.

Finland was invaded by the USSR multiple times and never got the eastern city of Vyborg (as well as a large chunk of national territory) back from Russia, even after the USSR collapsed.

That territory is the price for being in bed with the Germans -- it's like people conveniently seem to forget why it is so; my mother likes to talk about history when she has had too much wine, it's surprising there is anything left between Stalingrad and Berlin -- I still get mistaken for being Jewish which is ironic considering Jews didn't exist in the region I'm from after around 1944 - also about 25% to 30% of the civilian population. Given how much a pain in the ass the Winter War was (my grandfather volunteered for the Red Army in the 1930s) somebody likely decided it simply wasn't worth it at some point to have the Scandinavian countries be part of the USSR -- has it really worked out that bad in the end? Best of both worlds between capitalism/socialism and widely regarded as a region people want to live in.

Can someone please explain why this well written post was downvoted?

Except Finland was never invaded by the USSR at any time after WW2, so NATO can't be implicated in any way for those.

FYI, Finland's relationship with Russia inspired an entire word to describe a country that is not formally occupied, but behaves as if it were:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finlandization

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