Finland and Sweden set to join NATO as soon as summer | Hacker News Reader

Finland and Sweden set to join NATO as soon as summer

thetimes.co.uk

189 pointsmzs420 comments

I live in Finland and have not seen any headlines making this claim this definitively in local news outlets. But on Reddit I've seen article after article from foreign sources stating that Finnish NATO membership is imminent.

Edit: There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about what I am saying. The headline (as of this writing: "Finland and Sweden set to join Nato as soon as summer") is not true. Lots of people wish it were true. It may even become true in the future. But as of today, it is not true, and I take issue with that.

I acknowledge the point you are making, but your Canadian ambassador seems to be jumping the gun too...

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-finland-nat...

There is no propaganda on the other side.

This is an article from newspaper The Times in the UK. The origin isn't a rumor on reddit.

I don't know if it's true or not - but if it's false, the real issue would be a credible news source, The Times, got it wrong, not reddit.

I believe that the parent tried to emphasize that there were many different (international) news articles about this. I don’t think they were questioning Reddit’s credibility.

I believe the reddit post linked to Reuters.

Edit: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/finland-sweden-set-join...

Reddit is basically a proxy for mainstream US/UK media narratives. If you google "Finland NATO," you'll see almost every US/UK news outlet has published an article with this same definitive-sounding BS headline in the past 2 days.

The real question is why? There have been no definitive announcements from Finland and Sweden, nor even rumors of upcoming announcements. It's all speculation.

So either someone is coordinating to feed this story to US/UK outlets, OR some idiot published this incorrectly and all the copycat content factories are playing a deadly game of telephone seeing who can re-write this headline in the most inflammatory way to get clicks.

My guess is the latter.

Is it because finnish newspapers are written in finnish?

YLE is also published in English.

Have you not read the article? They quote a US official. It's in English news everywhere because it's the something the US government wants to make happen!

My guess is https://stratcomcoe.org/

True, there hasn't been any headlines about dates or even that we would be joining Nato for sure. But party after party have come out as pro-Nato or the very least changed their stance to not be against joining Nato.

I would not be surprised if this headline turns out the be true.

As a Swede I would be very surprised if this article turns out to be true. The current ruling party is anti-NATO and has changed stance from strongly anti-NATO to "we need to re-evaluate our position on NATO". Does this mean we will join NATO? I think so, but it is far from as clear cut as this article makes it seem.

Someone seemed to have played a game of telephone where "Finland and Sweden could join NATO by summer if they start now and do it as quickly as possible" got turned into "Finland and Sweden want to join NATO by summer". Or perhaps "Finland and Sweden want to decide by summer" got turned into "... join by summer".

NATO has been pretty clear that should Finland and/or Sweden decide to join, they are in a state where there would be basically zero on-ramp needed.

This is also the strongest headline I’ve seen in Anglo-American media, though there are a lot on the recent policy statements and movements, which have been quite strong but not definitive (and are at least in part intended to put pressure on Russia wrt Ukraine, so in the unlikely event that that situation resolves itself in the interim could easily be backed away from.)

I have heard a lot about Finnish appetite for joining NATO via https://mobile.twitter.com/alexstubb. How is he thought of in Finland? I have assumed as ex-prime minister and foreign minister, he has quite good knowledge of the inner machinations and public sentiment toward such a move.

User-friendly link https://nitter.net/alexstubb

As a Finn I agree with everything he posts in twitter. As a prime minister he was perhaps a bit too young and inexperienced, but I agree with his current analysis completely.

NATO membership has been a hobby horse of Stubb's party (the Coalition party) for a very long time. Now that the political winds have shifted in favor of NATO, the Coalition party is trying to capitalize on that shift in public opinion. So while it's true that public opinion is going that way, it is very much in Stubb's interest to frame it as favorably as possible, domestically and abroad. I happen to disagree with the Coalition party (on many things), but I can't fault their methods in this case-- It's good politicking.

There are a lot of steps certainly but public opinion is trending that way: https://www.mtvuutiset.fi/artikkeli/mtv-n-kysely-nato-jaseny...

now: 68% in favor, 12% against

if gov were to recommend: 77% in favor, 11% against

Main political parties in Finland are now supporting NATO. Public is supporting it as well. Top officials are busy travelling to meet heads of other member countries to make sure there’s support for membership. Likely they are also discussing about getting security guarantees during the membership process as Russia has put out certain threats.

We finns are in general quite confident with our military, but war in Ukraine has shown that potential conflict may not be ”a fair fight” between armies. In Ukraine there has been attacks against civilians and soft targets with missiles. This is not something you can easily defend yourself against. There’s strong feeling that we need some backup to reduce the likelihood of such attacks.

Sweden and Finland PMs held joint press conference outlining plans to join NATO

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31015962

"Russian special operation for expanding NATO has been completed successfully."

NATO should really award Putin for being the most effective NATO spokesman of the decade. Finland went from 20% in favour of NATO membership (2019) to 68% in favour of NATO membership (April, 2022).

Raytheon and Lockheed should gift Putin some champagne ;)

Interesting idea. Just keep sending them lavish thank you gifts from foreign politicians, investors, and corporations until the people get suspicious.

Ok, now that's a idea i can stand behind...for example some polarbear-paws-ashtrays from Sudan? From Nord-korea, a stolen Japanese singer?

And he's possibly done more than any other European politician towards shifting Europe off fossil fuels.

We'll see. Some things are easier to say than they are to do.

I think NATOs new popularity is what will ultimately save Macron in the French elections. Le Penn wants to disband NATO and snuggle up with Putin and I doubt if the majority of the French will fall for that.

Pre-invasion, I put the odds of invasion around 30% because one of Putin's gripes was Ukraine flirting with the West and NATO, and while invading would could cement its role as "borderlands," it would also convince Sweden and Finland to join, and quickly.

I also saw it as long-term detrimental to its role as an energy exporter because this would inspire Europe to quickly migrate to more renewables, though this take is more of a western perspective and probably wasn't a priority for Putin.

Pre-invasion my own thoughts would have tended to agree with yours. I think that what caught us off guard was the mistaken assumption that Putin was actually well-informed enough to reach similar conclusions, rather than him sitting in a Potemkin ivory tower while being advised by pusillanimous yes men.

Let's assume Putin is not a NATO puppet or a masochist. Why do you think he attacked Ukraine? What is there to gain?

Russia made concessions to NATO for 30 years and got nothing but NATO expansion Eastward.

I don't see any other explanation except that allowing NATO rockets in Ukraine is suicidal for Russia, therefore there is no choice: it is a fight for survival.

Think what US would do if Russia were to put its rockets in Mexico and/or Canada. Or just remember Cuba/Turkey situation in 60s.

(it is funny how socialism was replaced by capitalism long ago but it didn't affect the cultivated hatred to / dehumanization of Russian people on the West).

> I don't see any other explanation except that allowing NATO rockets in Ukraine is suicidal for Russia, therefore there is no choice: it is a fight for survival.

> Think what US would do if Russia were to put its rockets in Mexico and/or Canada. Or just remember Cuba/Turkey situation in 60s.

If it is just a defense pact and not first strike nukes, I wouldn't care. AFAIK, the US hasn't expanded nuclear weapons eastword since the cuban missile crises so I'm not sure what your point is. Estonia is part of NATO but we don't host nukes there because we don't want to trigger the Cuban missile crises again.

No one I know "hates" Russia. Most just don't care about it. Russia has some strange national narrative that the West is trying to westernize it. We don't care if Russia is westernized or not. That is up to the Russian people who also seem fine with adopting some western concepts, it's mostly the boomers in the Russian government that demonize it. Instead of governing well they make a "western" strawman and cry over that instead of fixing their country and moving into the 21st century.

There's some weird vibes from Russians online with regards to the West and the US in particular.

Anytime you tell Russians that the US basically just wants out of Europe and to focus on China (Remember the pivot to Asia? This doesn't even paint the US in a good light, just a self interested one), they insist that Russia is the US's greatest enemy and that China is basically just a minor member of the team Russia built to destroy the west.

> I don't see any other explanation except that allowing NATO rockets in Ukraine is suicidal for Russia

Are there any nuclear weapons in previous Warsaw pact countries? From everything I can read it seems like there are not.

> allowing NATO rockets in Ukraine is suicidal for Russia, therefore there is no choice: it is a fight for survival

This is the ridiculous Russian twist of facts that makes absolutely no sense. I can't even bother debunking it now. Just as credible as the de-nazification.

It's just Russia losing its sphere of influence and Putin can't take it in his delirious dreams of imagined Russian supremacy. In truth there's no threat except of losing some influence as all Russia's neighbors naturally want to get as far away them as possible.

You are right. People very much hate Russia.

The atrocities done by Russians in Ukraine might be new to people of the West, but are the same old Russians for us in Eastern Europe, or everywhere else bordering Russia.

Russians aren't really treating Ukraine any differently than they were treating whole Europe but especially Poland in WW2, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and of course Afghanistan. And the fall of Soviet Union didn't change anything - since 1990, Russians managed to fight war in Georgia, Moldova, Chechnya, Dagestan, Chechnya again, Georgia again, Ukraine, Syria, and now Ukraine again in full force. All of these places have felt the Russian touch.

Nobody in the world is doing more to make sure Russians are hated than the Russian soldiers and government themselves.

Thank you for at least not denying of the existence of the multigenerational anti-russian propaganda.

The "propaganda" is just Russia acting like a rabid animal.

Self-defence has nothing to do with Russias invasion. This was not a war for survival but a war for subjugation.

Nobody outside of ex-Soviet Union countrys hated Russians before the war.

If you really want to invoke and analogue from US history then the only example that comes to my mind is the US war of independence and I'm pretty sure on which side of that fight US would like to be.

You can't comprehend Russia with western logic, but you can search for patterns in historical actions under Putin.

Russia wants to keep it's power by force in it's self claimed sphere of influence in old Soviet countries.

That motivation for military intervention for influence is widely documented through the similarities in Russia's last 25 military interventions since 1991 - https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA444-3.html .

Additionally, gas was found in Crimea which would make moving away from Russian gas much easier and they tried to reference the invasion of Ukraine to the decline of the west. Russia ( or better: Putin) obviously still lives in the USSR past, which collapsed without any military action of the west.

The invasion of Ukraine has as much to do with NATO as the invasion of Chechen and Servia had to do with NATO. The only thing NATO caused was they waited longer to actually invade and tried a gray zone invasion first ( without much success), but NATO is not the reason for invasion.

Russia's self claimed sphere of influence is, while they are losing influence constantly, just look at their military interventions in their CSTO allies. Even Orban isn't yelling to loud about preferring Russia over EU countries, although he would want to.

Post soviet countries aren't getting invaded by NATO and annexed by force. They are choosing to move away from Russia and choosing for closer ties with western countries.

Finland is very likely to join NATO. Support for NATO among the population is very high and among active Finnish military personnel it's over 90%. The country shares a border with Russia and there is some historical bad blood between Finland and Russia.

However only 50% of Swedes want to join NATO and the current ruling government is anti-NATO.

If I was a betting person I would put the likelihood of Finland joining NATO at 99% and the likelihood of Sweden joining NATO at 0%.

If Finland joins, Sweden will follow. We can't be the only baltic nation outside NATO. That would be both foolish and selfish. With the third largest party, SD, switching there is a majority in Riksdagen pro-NATO. S will follow soon.

Is there any benefit for Sweden to join NATO? Finland is directly attached to Russia, so it might benefit them from future aggression. But, I don't see any reason for Sweden to join NATO. Also, people seem to forget the cost of joining NATO is not free.

There is absolutely no one that will come and assist Sweden when Russia decides to take Gotland if we’re not in NATO.

And it’s extremely selfish by the self proclaimed humanitarian super power to not step in and help if some of our Baltic neighbors were attacked.

The cost of a strong enough military outside NATO is higher than inside. 4-5% of GDP vs 2%.

And Finland is already spending between 2.5 to 3.5% of its GDP on defense already (depends on how one calculates the actual cost of conscription). Finland joining nato will not increase its defense spending in the long term

The Swedish island Gotland is of central strategic importance in the baltic sea, so in case of a conflict either NATO or Russia would seize control of the island with or without Sweden’s consent.

Not to mention to secure against a Russian invasion of the mainland, of course…

Finland and Sweden have historically been very closely aligned with their foreign/defense policies. Neither would join without consulting the other, so while there’s no guarantee that they’ll make the same decision, I certainly would not place the two at opposite ends when making odds.

Not an military expert so please correct my analysis.

But if Finland joins NATO, Sweden either must yield to RU or join NATO itself.

The key here is Sweden's the island of Gotland sitting at the middle of the Baltic sea.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gotland/@58.8670134,17.054...

In most scenarios it would serve as a most advantageous base for RU operations, including serving as an unsinkable airplane carrier / missile platform.

If SWE was the only non-NATO country in Northern Europe it would be quite open for an attack.

In case RU decided to invade Gotland from it's base in Kaliningrad, there is very little anyone could do to stop it.

The current conflict has taught that NATO forces will not engage with RU forces. If FI joins NATO, it effectively blocks FI from helping SWE to defend itself.

Basically, if FI joins NATO Gotland is open for picking for RU.

>But if Finland joins NATO, Sweden either must yield to RU or join NATO itself.

Why? Russia has made no mention of any issues with Sweden. And in this scenario, the only reason Finland would find themselves in conflict is if they joined NATO. Not saying that is a valid reason for Russia to go on the offensive, but it is a well known and documented policy.

"the only reason Finland would find themselves in conflict is if they joined NATO."

No, Russia does not want to engage in conflict with a NATO country. If Finland joins NATO then Finland will be at piece for the next century, guaranteed.

I don't understand where this logic "if Finland joins NATO then Russia will invade it". That is backward logic. Russia has very little reason to invade Finland now, and if Finland joins NATO, it cannot.

> Russia does not want to engage in conflict with a NATO country. If Finland joins NATO then Finland will be at piece for the next century, guaranteed.

Russia has not engaged in conflict with a NATO country, so far. If the stakes are raised high enough, I don't think this will continue to hold.

> Russia has very little reason to invade Finland now, and if Finland joins NATO, it cannot.

I would go so far as to say that if Finland applies to join NATO, they'd have to. That is, if it is truly part of their doctrine that NATO/US is an existential threat to the Russian state.

Russia is bullshitting - they are not afraid NATO would invade them.

The balance of fear due to nuclear weapons if nothing else guarantees this.

Russia is opposed to the fact it can't bully it's weaker neighbours on a whim if they are in NATO. That is the cause for their irritation.

I trust Finland and Sweden's analysis. That more than anything else solidified my trust in the NATO position on Ukraine.

If Finland and Sweden remained neutral throughout the entire cold war and yet now are openly considering NATO membership, it means something.

Well, Finland was basically Sweden's shield, and Finland was yielding to Kremlin, so there was very little risk of conflict.

Now Russia has more or less proclaimed it's "back to the empire" agenda which implies subjugation of all of the former states of the russian empire.

Which includes Finland.

The weird thing is, even though Russians lie constantly, when they declare foreign policy targets, they are surprisingly honest and consistent about that.

This implies 1) Finland needs to join NATO asap.

2) After that sweden would be the only weak target left. Gotland is an obvious, concrete military goal that would be feasible target for a RU invasion from Kaliningrad.

I'm pretty sure Finland and Sweden are basically inseparable in terms of foreign policy... where one goes the other will go, and they'll discuss with each other in depth prior to any decision.

They may still forgo NATO, its absolutely their choice, and every NATO member respects that, being the primary difference between NATO and Russia. They can leave at any time too.

What disturbs me is that there is a lot of appeasement rhetoric floating around in the comment sections.

If people want to let Russia get away with wrecking Ukraine because Russia has nukes, then we may as well drop the bombs now - once you legitimize that strategy you are going to have massive nuclear proliferation, and even if appeasement worked (it simply doesn't), every other aggressor is going to view nukes as an easy win.

Sweden is not a "weak" target just because it's not part of NATO.

Invading, defending, and holding Gotland is not an easy task, especially as the Ukraine invasion has exposed the glaring deficiencies of the Russian armed forces. And Sweden's defense, attenuated as it might be from decades of budget cuts, is focused on defending Gotland.

As long as they go into it fully informed, that is the best one could hope for.

Well, they have been bullshitting for loooong time if that is the case. I recall watching a video of Gorbachev talking to the US Congress and warning about NATO/US expansion. This was in 1997.

There is no credible threat of a NATO invasion but there is the First-Strike issue now that hypersonic missiles are being developed. Putin has been moaning about this for a while now. A security-conscious/pragmatic state models "what is possible" vs "what is probable". If it seems likely that future Finland could host hypersonic missiles pointed at St.Petersburg, well it becomes incumbent on Moscow to attempt to prevent that. It seems unwise to dismiss their concerns if said dismissal would lead to Ukraine 2.0.

Lots of people seem to think that the Russian unwillingness to flatten Kiev means they could not do it.

How many people have to die for Finns to feel like they stood up to a bully?

And yet somehow it is fine for Russia to develop its own hypersonic missiles (well at least try to) and deploy them to kalingrad where they are just as close most Central European capitals as such weapons in Finland would be to Petersburg. Also Estonia is already part of nato and the distance from its borders to Petersburg is pretty much the same so the first strike nuclear risk does not really change at all if Finland joins nato.

For some weird reason Russia is the only country in Europe that must have buffer states protecting its lands and be allowed to use force the enforce this.

It would be helpful if everyone stopped this lying and just said it how it is. Russia wants weak buffer states around its borders that it can abuse however it wants. There really is no actual military reason for any of this as nato is a defense alliance by definition and thus it will not attack first and the current situation in Ukraine has proven this to be true.

"It would be helpful if everyone stopped this lying and just said it how it is. Russia wants weak buffer states around its borders that it can abuse however it wants."

This 100%

I believe the most prescient military analysis we can make is that Ukraine got invaded because it was not in NATO.

Until Russia invades any NATO country I have a hard time to dismiss this analysis.

If NATO fails to defend any of it's members then it is nullified. Hence I have a quite high trust to the security instilled by the alliance to any of it's members.

You are pretty good at repeating Russian talking points, by the way ;)

I honestly don't get this whole nuke placement argument.

Both Russia and the US have nukes that reach around the entire planet, and vehicles to keep nukes moving and hidden so that second strike capability is always present. Russia can hide its nukes in Siberia if its worried about a first strike to remove MAD. The nukes would work just as well. Its also been bragging about its super cavitating torpedo... although I get the Russian position a bit more if its all been a bluff like what appears to be the case in Ukraine.

Hypersonic missiles aren't going to be a huge game changer here (how much of those heavy elements can you cram into them), interception technologies just aren't there yet, and by the time they really come into full swing the US won't be Russia's real problem (demographics are destiny... this applies to everyone)

In addition, I doubt Finland would allow nukes placed on its territory. NATO is a fully voluntary organization. There is no command structure that supersedes national authority.

Also fyi, no one outside of Russia believes that Russia was wasn't trying to level Kiev. They are happily continuing to level Mariupol, so its not like they had humanitarian thoughts in mind. You don't send a massive column of armor for a quick strike smart bomb operation. It boggles my mind that even Russians can believe that.

Russia has no legitimate reason to be leveling Ukraine, yet here we are. All Putin has to do is say that Gotland is critical for defending Kaliningrad from NATO to have an excuse to take it.

I'm curious to hear what you think the reason was that Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

I wouldn't know all of Putin's reasoning, but I have to assume that his expressed regret over the dissolution of the Soviet Union, his desire to find out just how much he'd be punished for it, his anger (and need to save face) over the Maidan Revolution, all played a role.

Look at when the Ukraine revolution/coup happened, and when Putin annexed Crimea. Also, understand that after the coup, when Ukraine rewrote their Constitution they laid the ground work to drop neutrality and join NATO. Putin annexed Crimea the next day.

The only reason things didn't continue to accelerate under Trump is because he was not a fan of NATO and had no financial interests in Ukraine like Biden does, so the Ukrainians knew they had no friend in him. Once Biden won, Ukraine went back to poking the bear with obvious results.

I'm sure the Biden families financial activities in Ukraine are 100% completely unrelated though.

Tell me exactly what crimes Ukraine committed that make mass rape, kidnapping, murder, and destruction an appropriate response.

This isn't Reddit.

War crimes committed by the Russians or Ukrainians should absolutely be investigated. They're just not relevant to the discussion at hand, which is "How did we get to this point".

There is a pretty decent amount of information out there as to why Russia wants Crimea (and Ukraine)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If61baWF4GE

There is a lot of propaganda out there, but a hard and fast truth is that no country, not Russia nor the US nor China nor India nor anyone actually cares at all about normal citizens.

People can care about other people, but countries do not and cannot. Its why Putin's claims of protecting Russians are BS. (US Claims of protecting Ukrainians too, its in the US/Europe interest to do so, its not to protect Tibetans or Afghans for example, so it does not)

It's an obvious bad faith question. Parent poster has a well-rehearsed little shpiel to unload on "why Russia wants Crimea", it's in their comment history multiple times. They're not curious in the slightest, they're prompting a bogus talking point.

See above, cited and sourced. Do you think the timing in 2014 was coincidental?

Also, if the US government had nothing to do with the Russia/Ukraine tiff, then why did Crimea happen while Biden was VP, then nothing while Trump was President, then back on again after Biden becomes President. Is that also unrelated?

Maybe Putin knew Trump was in his back pocket and didn’t need to rock the boat.

Just spitballing.

If that were the case, then he would have invaded while Trump was in office since by this sort of logic, Trump would have let Russia walk right in to Ukraine with no response from the US.

And yet that isn't what happened. Instead, Putin invaded while Biden was VP in 2014 and again while Biden is President now. Very curious that the exact opposite happened. Curious indeed...

> Trump would have let Russia walk right in to Ukraine with no response from the US.

Mr Trump would have done that, absolutely. Not only with no response, but with some blather about "fine people on both sides" and "I spoke to Mr Putin, he said he had to do it, he's a genius to do that".

In other words, with support from the White House in the obfuscatory propaganda; instead of having his militarily moves called out like they were in Feb 2022 - the Biden team was ahead of the game on that.

Why didn't Russia move when Mr Trump was in office? We can't know, but one theory is that he was waiting for NATO to be damaged beyond repair by Trump. Which would have happened if Mr Trump was still in office in 2022.

We know that Mr Trump was much warmer with Mr Putin than Mr Biden or any other recent US president was. Which makes your whole line of suggestion very misleading. So nothing new there. Anyway it's curious that you think this odd talking point is relevant. Curious indeed...

I'm not here for you trotting out that "poking the bear" nonsense again.

So wait, you think Putin could have easily taken Ukraine with no resistance from the US for 4 years under Trump, but instead Putin decided to wait until Trump was gone and Biden was President knowing he would get massive resistance across the board?

So Putin intentionally made things 1000x harder on himself...because reasons? I understand being blinded by Trump hatred, but how do you logically make that sort of conclusion? You have to know that makes zero sense, right?

This not a good response at all, it mostly shouts emotional phrases about "because reasons" and "zero sense" and does not engage with the parent comment.

In short: We can't know all of Mr Putin's reasons. He may have expected a second Trump term, and didn't think we was "waiting until Trump was gone" at all. You don't address the damage to NATO that a second Trump term would have done, and that Mr Putin so clearly wanted Mr Trump to do for him. Come one, engage your NATO obsession one more time?

Mr Putin also clearly didn't expect "massive resistance across the board" or that it would be "1000x harder on himself" to take Kyiv in 2022 so this argument doesn't hold up.

The words that you put in my mouth "you think Putin could have easily taken Ukraine with no resistance from the US" show a confused thinking - are you saying that "resistance from the US" is the only thing that prevents "easily take Ukraine"? I don't believe that, and in 2022, no one should. It's simplistic rubbish that forgets about the agency of the Ukrainian people. Facts on the ground have disproved it.

Finally if you want real answers, ask an expert - Fiona Hill, Molly McKew, Anne Applebaum or the like, not strangers on the internet.

I agree that Mr Putin's actions since February make "zero sense" - his speeches are unhinged and his invasion plan has failed. But an attempt to claim that the cause is in "Trump vs Biden" is ridiculous and self-obsessed. The cause is in Moscow. The answer is in Kyiv.

>are you saying that "resistance from the US" is the only thing that prevents "easily take Ukraine"?

You don't have to take my word for it, Zelensky himself has spent the last 2 months begging for more and more financial and military aid from the US/NATO. We have pumped billions into Ukraine already.

And I'm still trying to understand why you think Putin wouldn't take the opportunity to invade under Trump, while invading twice with Biden in a position of power. Especially considering all of the financial interests of the Biden family in Ukraine. You just see that as a coincidence?

> You don't have to take my word for it, Zelensky himself has spent the last 2 months begging for more and more financial and military aid from the US/NATO

And also fighting for survival, there's that. Financial and military aid from all over, after an invasion, is not the same as "resistance from the US" - the latter implies combat, from the US only. It's dishonest to conflate these.

> And I'm still trying to understand why you think Putin wouldn't take the opportunity to invade under Trump,

All the guidance that you're going to get is above, and I can not help you further.

>and I can not help you further.

Clearly, because there is no logical response. If Putin truly thought he could easily take Ukraine under Trump, he would have. Which means your assumption is wrong.

Meanwhile, we're back to wondering why the Biden families massive financial interests in Ukraine somehow aren't relevant...

> Meanwhile, we're back to wondering why (insert bogus propagandistic talking point) somehow aren't relevant...

I'm not wondering at at all, I see it clearly. You're right, this rubbish is a distraction.

"Hold back 10% for the big guy"

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 because Yanukovych failed to put down popular opposition to abandoning the EU association agreement scheduled to be signed in late 2013. EU association was Ukraine's goal long before Biden was VP.

Russia and Ukraine were at war Trump's whole presidency. The Kerch Strait incident escalated it.

Do you think the invasion and annexation of Crimea, had anything to do with the coup (ahem...pro-US/NATO revolution) that had just occurred in Ukraine[1]?

Keep in mind Putin rolled his tanks into Crimea the day after the new pro-US/NATO regime in Ukraine had thrown out the democratically elected (albeit pro-Russia) government, and rewritten the Ukrainian Constitution[2] to then make it possible to drop neutrality[3] so that they could begin the process of joining NATO. A rule to join NATO is that a nation must be in control of its borders and not in active conflict, so by annexing Crimea, Russia ensured the moves to join NATO would be halted with that action.

Or is that timing coincidental? Remember, you don't have to agree with a reason to at least understand what the reason is.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957

[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-constituti...

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-30594763

> If SWE was the only non-NATO country in Northern Europe it would be quite open for an attack.

EU has a mutual defense clause [0]

[0] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/...

If I was a betting person, I would never put stock in that atrocious betting record of yours again.

Sweden set to join NATO: https://mobile.twitter.com/shashj/status/1514181898456555531

Sweden's Social Democrats already decided to submit application in June

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31016003

This is not reliable information. Source: I live in Sweden.

There's a press release, if you prefer it.

https://www.socialdemokraterna.se/nyheter/nyheter/2022-04-11...

Let me summarize the press release for you: "We will talk about it internally in the political party".

In other words, the submitted article is just bullshit.

I'm not Swedish and can't easily read Swedish.

There's an article in the most-respected British newspaper, articles in English-language Swedish newspapers and an original press release providing a primary source for part of the news (I assume there were interviews or similar as it was announced).

> The Social Democrat general secretary, Tobias Baudin, said the security review would be complete “before the summer”.

(From another article as I'm not a Times subscriber.)

If you won't believe quotes from senior politicians in major newspapers I can't help you.

And the "security review" that will be completed "before summer" has already yielded results, and the results are 100% in favor of one possible outcome?

I read an article a few months back about a Swedish town that prepares itself as a place for storing nuclear waste for the next 10000 years. The one thing I remember from that article is that it took 18 years to start building the facility. I get that desperate times and so on, but I think deciding something huge on a timeline this tight is not very probable.

EDIT: actually, storage meant for 100_000 years! Here: https://www.dw.com/en/sweden-approves-plans-for-forsmark-nuc...

Without context, that quote means nothing.

I would be very careful making statements like this as if you knew how to interpret that quote from that exact person and party he represents.

The security review you mentioned is actually called a ”säkerhetspolitisk dialog” by Tobias himself. Directly translated ”säkerhetspolitisk dialog” means "security-political dialogue", and the dialogue it refers to is an internal dialogue within the social democratic party.

Nothing is decided yet, and although it is a lot more likely to happen now than a week ago the foreign sources make it sound like a decision has been made. If that was the case it would be headline news in all the swedish newspapers.

I live in Sweden. He said that the chats will be done in summer [1], not that Sweden will _join_ NATO in summer. I can't see what being a major British newspaper has anything to do with the veracity of Swedish news, and besides, when has journalists not blown crap out of proportion for clicks? What a weird hill to die on...

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/s-drar-i-gang-natodebatt-...

Yes, and I can read Swedish and understand enough of our politics to say that the press release for the most part contradicts the linked article.

Will we join NATO? Still not decided but moves from S and SD has made it seem quite likely. Before summer? Very unlikely, discussions in Sweden have just started.

Maybe this is just my dumb American in me speaking, but is this really a good way of going about as a "source"? I wouldn't* trust the average American's understanding of American economics as a "source". It's possible that Americans are just dumber than the average European, but I doubt Sweden is just completely devoid of ignorant people.

Not trying to call you ignorant (I don't know you), but I don't know that Swedish citizenship is a source in itself.

EDIT: Corrected "would" with "wouldn't".

I am Finnish and neither is there any decisive public information in here either.

You should trust SWE and FI journalism on this matter first and foremost before external sources.

Of course there are discussions that are not public. But it would be quite the outrage if the official information was made public in a non SWE or FI source.

Generally Nordic societies are fairly egalitarian. NATO membership would be a major shift and it would be discussed in public as soon as the definitive decision was done. Of course this is they way the wind is blowing but it's not official until SWE and FI state officials say it's so.

The way I see it, the public discussion has been going on in Finland since February 24. The effective decision to join was probably made last month, and it will be made formal when the time is right. There is currently more uncertainty about whether NATO would accept Finland than whether Finland would want to join it. To avoid provoking Russia unnecessarily, Finland won't make the formal decision to apply until it's clear that NATO will accept it.

The headline “set to” here means they could. Or “things are pointing in the direction that…” or “multiple signs seem to indicate that…”, or similar. Nothing strange in this reporting at all.

This is not reliable information. Source: Sweden set to join NATO https://mobile.twitter.com/shashj/status/1514181898456555531

Seems unlikely, Sweden has elections in the autumn and the second-biggest party was previously anti-NATO (as is the current ruling party, in the past at least).

It all looks rosy now, but remember just a few years ago when Turkey shot down a Russian jet on the Syrian border and almost led to NATO involvement?

Don't understand why you are being downvoted. You're entirely correct.

> previously anti-NATO

Has anything... happened, since then?

Maybe a "special operation" of sorts?

The winds seems to be changing quite quickly and both the second and third largest parties have now stated support for NATO (if Finland would join at least).

While the biggest party still hasn't voiced their support, they aren't completely against it and there seems to be hectic discussion behind closed doors.

> It all looks rosy now, but remember just a few years ago when Turkey shot down a Russian jet on the Syrian border and almost led to NATO involvement?

Remember when Russia invaded Ukraine and it didn't lead to NATO involvement? We have direct evidence that a European country can be attacked without NATO immediately jumping in to help. If Russia "only" wanted the Eastern "wilderness" of Finland, do you think the other European powers would immediately send in their own troops?

There's a reason that the smaller European countries that border Russia haven't been attacked and absorbed yet, and that's because they're NATO members.

Being a NATO member clearly has more upsides than downsides.

> We have direct evidence that a European country can be attacked without NATO immediately jumping in to help. If Russia "only" wanted the Eastern "wilderness" of Finland, do you think the other European powers would immediately send in their own troops?

Well, there is the Mutual Defence Clause (article 42.7 of the Treaty of the European Union): https://eur-lex.europa.eu/summary/glossary/mutual_defence.ht...

So while the exact action is not specified there, an attack on Finland might already very well mean that some NATO states (and by implication all of NATO) would get involved in the situation you're describing.

This is not how NATO works, and very likely not how the mutual defense clause works. Article 5 doesn't apply if you send your soldiers on some mission (e.g. defending Finland) on your own accord and Russia kills them. The EU clause is generally interpreted - from what I've read - to not require other EU members to offer direct military support to the attacked nation.

> Article 5 doesn't apply if you send your soldiers on some mission (e.g. defending Finland) on your own accord and Russia kills them.

That depends where you send them, as Article 5 has geographical constraints specified in Article 6 (there is no general exceptions for troops being attacked after being voluntarily sent “somewhere”.)

Moreover, even without triggering Article 5, an attack on NATO member troops in the Euro-Atlantic region but outside the territory specified in Article 6 would probably be a trigger for regional security consultations under Article 4, which have produced more NATO interventions than Article 5.

> there is the Mutual Defence Clause (article 42.7 of the Treaty [of Lisbon]

Article 42.7 “leaves more room for interpretation than one might expect for a clause in a legally binding text” [1].

If Finland and Sweden turned down NATO membership and then suffered territorial degradation, I doubt the U.S. would step in. That, in turn, might motivate EU members to exercise their opt outs or neutrality caveats, or find that all that can be done within their power is send non-lethal aid.

[1] https://ecfr.eu/publication/ambiguous-alliance-neutrality-op...

To expand on this: It also explicitly provides for an opt-out to preserve the neutrality of countries like Sweden and Ireland, such a clause being added at their insistence.

I suspect that when the rubber hits the road nothing would happen, are Western European countries going to get into a potential nuclear exchange with Russia defending an EU member that's got a carve-out allowing them not to do the same for them?

That doesn't apply for Finland in the same way, but I'd still expect more of a "thoughts and prayers" response from the EU than anything else.

1. https://ecfr.eu/article/commentary_article_427_an_explainer5...

Well, I'm pretty sure Europe is capable of sending nuclear missiles that would destroy any FOB Russia set in Finland (this wouldn't trigger Russia doctrine of only using nukes to defend its territory, not its troops).

Invasion would become way to costly for a demographically challenged country.

Would EU countries waste their nukes in attrition of RU troops on aligned soil? There aren't that many (by official figures). I'm guessing most countries would prefer not to escalate to nukes unless their own territory was threatened.

Unfortunately, no, not by implication. Chapter 5 only means defending a country that's attacked. So if Russia invades Finland, and say France send troops to defend it, and Russia retaliates against France, then US, UK, and Turkey are not obliged to defend France. As far as NATO is concerned it's France's affair.

In reality of course the the non-EU NATO members will probably decide to get involved one way or the other, but they are not legally bound to it.

> Chapter 5 only means defending a country that's attacked.

This is true, but there are no limitations on the circumstances of the attack. For instance, if the US was fighting a low-grade global war with an Afghanistan-based terrorist network that has not previously attacked the US anywhere covered by Article 5 because of the geographic constraints of Article 6, and in retaliation for the acts of the US in that war that global terrorist network attacked, say, New York and D.C., then Article 5 would apply, there is no “well, you chose to fight them for other reasons before they attacked you” exclusion.

Now, if Russia only retaliated against French troops in Finland, Article 6 would geographically exclude Article 5 applicability.

The EU defense clause is no NATO replacement and in a state of war it is highly unclear would it even merit material transfers. Currently it's more of a gesture or suggestion for future collaboration.

I think there is a pretty large chance countries like Germany figure out some way to ignore that. IMO the only thing keeping a European country exempt from Russian military action is the presence of US forces.

Just because the EU gets involved, doesn't mean NATO will follow suit.

There's an argument that EU is the aggressor for the purposes of Article 5 if it comes to the aid of a non-NATO member. The USA and other non-EU members would have the option to sit that one out, if they wanted. Alternatively, they could offer support to only NATO members.

This is probably part of what's spurring NATO membership. I bet most Fins and Swedes thought that the USA would deploy forces the event of a conflict. Now they see that American policy will be aid only, regardless of the death and destruction.

I have never heard of that being a common sentiment, or actually any Swede thinking that. Swedes have never assumed America will deploy troops.

> There's an argument that EU is the aggressor for the purposes of Article 5

There is no such thing as “an aggressor for purpose of Article 5“; and the only case to be made for an “aggressor” status that would obviate Article 5 commitments is an aggressor under international law (that is, someone engaging in aggressive war in violation of the UN Charter, North Atlantic Treaty, and customary international law.)

Participating in individual or mutual self-defense action outside the scope of NATO doesn't void Article 5 (we know, because it didn't, despite definitely being part of the scenario, in the only actual Article 5 invocation in history.)

Mutual defensive pacts are not transitive. Germany being in NATO does not mean that every country Germany has a defense pact with is de facto in NATO.

Finland probably doesn't want to find out the hard way how the USA is going to decide to roll here. Being a NATO member removes all doubt as to what happens.

It has a lot of upsides for the military establishment, remember when Russia was not a threat and NATO decided to have 3 trainings in Ukraine and start talks about a Russia bordering country joining a Russia enemy conglomerate? Remember when a bordering state of US tried to put enemy weapons on their territory and the US almost deleting that state from earth logs?

I think US right now, especially if this announcement is true is the main european Enemy, US is expanding it's world oversight by expanding NATO on European borders at expense of European stability, this is due to the shallowness of european leaders

It's US wagering European lives for its interests

> remember when Russia was not a threat and NATO decided to have 3 trainings in Ukraine

No.

I remember when Ukraine tossed out a Russian puppet and Russia nearly immediately invaded and has been continuously at war with Ukraine since.

When was this time that Russia wasn't a threat and Ukraine was having trainings with NATO?

Wait, about the first reply, because trainings are objective, differently from who is a threat to whom

Sept 2021: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/ukraine-h... https://www.army.mil/article/250444/us_nato_ukraine_enhance_...

But one training can still be seen as a threat on the border of a superpower? IS Army.mil news credible enough for US people outside the reach of russian propaganda? Does it reply your question when was US training on the border of Russia? Can we accept US as a enemy of europe? Or better, can we accept the fact that US is only giving important to ITS own interests without care of the safety of anyone else? (makes sense, it should be european leaders representing europeans interests), but someone should be able to say, european leaders currently suck, damaging their people in order to represent US interests in ukraine

September 2021 was 7 years into the war that started with the 2014 invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

It does not count as a time when Russia was not a threat.

Yes, NATO conducted trainings with Ukraine during the ongoing war started by Russia.

Yes but you asked me when was the time when NATO trained on the border with Russia, now you move the goalpost? I think Russian invading Crimea is despiseful and the referendum is fake because there was no campaign or anything, but I also understand that superpowers earn different treatments due to the fact that they can cause nuclear blasts and end the world in minutes. Russia invaded Crimea when the political sentiment in Ukraine started considering the sentiment of joining NATO/EU, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity#United_S...

I think the issue is that US has been involved in the political environment of a EU bordering country, without any opposition from European leaders.

> Yes but you asked me when was the time when NATO trained on the border with Russia

No, I asked, and I will quote directly, “When was this time that Russia wasn't a threat and Ukraine was having trainings with NATO?”

That was the claim: that NATO conducted multiple trainings with Ukraine when Russia was not a threat, and that this was the casus belli for Russian aggression. Leaving aside that this would not be legitimate casus belli in any case, it is simply factually false: all the NATO trainings occurred during the war, after Russian aggression against Ukraine began. There cannot retroactively justify the aggression.

> all the NATO trainings occurred during the war, after Russian aggression against Ukraine began.

Wrong. NATO had at least one Partnership for Peace exercise in Ukraine in October 2002, a few hours drive from L'Viv.[1]

And just to be specific; this doesn't justify any aggression on Russia's behalf, sovereign nations are free to decide who to ally with.

[1] - https://www.nato.int/ims/2002/p021007e.htm

"Can we accept US as a enemy of europe?"

This is absurd. US has been the guarantor of European peace and indenpendence after the second world war.

European union basically started as a Washington think tank project.

Yes, US wants to advance it's own interests. No, it does not make US enemy of "Europe". Which is a silly way to put it. "Europe" is not a single polity or a state (not yet at least). It is still a collection of independent nation states. Most of which want to be aligned with US.

Nobody is forcing them to be aligned with US.

China or Russia would be happy to welcome them into their fold of corrupt autocracy.

Europe and US are strongly aligned economically, culturally and politically, while the world around them turns authoritarian.

Sure, they sometimes play against each other.

But, US and the nations of Europe are first and foremost allies.

>Nobody is forcing them to be aligned with US.

Nor would they get denazified™ if they decide to align closer to another power.

The fact that you think that a union of european states is a product of US think thank is straight bullshit, like that even if you don't know that there were italian politicians saying that union of european states would be the best way to have stability in europe in 1800s (Like Giacomo Matteotti in Italy, but I'm sure others in other nations had the same idea), you would still have to ignore the fact that in 1920 we had already a league of nations

Of course EU needs to have the actual countries it is constituted of engaged in it.Ideologically the projecthas many predecessors.

But the current EU started after the second world war.

The entity considered the progenitor of EU is the European Coal and Steel community

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

This was peak cold war and US influence in Europe was non-neglible to say the least.

While the reporting around the subject is a bit hyperbolical, strong Washington backing was always a cornerstone of the project

https://web.archive.org/web/20220130132451/https://www.teleg...

We can drop the "nearly".

Yanukovych left Kyiv on Feb 21nd 2014, was ousted as president by the 22d and fled to Russia by the 26th. [0, 1]

Russia invaded Crimea with boots on the ground by Feb 22-23d. [2]

I wager people who still accept the NATO pretense never checked the timelines of how this started in the first place.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War#2014_Russi...

100% This is not about NATO.

This is about Russia attempting a genocide of the Ukrainian people.

This is not the first time Russian state attempted such a thing. Holodomor was an engineered famine with the intent of destroying Ukraine. And now they are at it again https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

Generally as a state Russia is just horrible to all of the nations at it's borders it feels it has enough force to subjugate.

They are not idiots - they realize NATO would never invade Russia.

However, what NATO would have done, is give Ukrainian so much force projection capability within their territory Russia could never threaten them militarily again.

This about a narcissistic bully wanting to subjugate as many people by fear under it's thumb as possible.

No. This is Mearsheimer brand of bullshit.

Not everything is a US plot. Countries join NATO by their own volition. Because they want to.

East European countries wished to join NATO. Exactly because they knew what Russia is - like we all do now, based on the events in Ukraine.

If Finnish land helped Russian national interests, it would have been taken in 1944 or 1945. By early 1943, Russia was pushing back Germany, and Finland would not have been a problem.

Finland would be in more danger if it joined NATO, not less.

"Finland would be in more danger if it joined NATO, not less."

What nonsense is this.

Russians respect force. The more the better. NATO gives Finnish Defense Forces enough credibility to deter any Russian aggression specifically targeting Finland for the next 50 years at least by making the cost of invasion psychologically and analytically too high.

I don't understand this argument. Turkey is a NATO country, Ukraine is not a member? So, why would it lead to NATO involvement. If Russia had attacked turkey due to Turkey's strike on Russia Jet it would be debacle.

>Remember when Russia invaded Ukraine and it didn't lead to NATO involvement? We have direct evidence that a European country can be attacked without NATO immediately jumping in to help.

Yes, because Turkey is in NATO and Ukraine isn't. It has nothing to do with Ukraine being in Europe. Not all of Europe is in NATO, and not all of NATO is in Europe.

> We have direct evidence that a European country can be attacked without NATO immediately jumping in to help.

What about the NATO planes above Ukraine..?

> Remember when Russia invaded Ukraine and it didn't lead to NATO involvement?

That's not the same situation at all. Turkey is a member of NATO. Ukraine is not.

> but remember just a few years ago when Turkey shot down a Russian jet on the Syrian border and almost led to NATO involvement

It led to nothing, Turkey asked for Patriot missile systems (to protect from attacks from Syria, not Russia or Black Sea), which were hastily provided. Russia started cutting economical ties with Turkey, Erdoğan wrote a personal apology letter to Putin, and after that things got better.

Then https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Andrei_Karlov happened, which is still a mystery in itself, and yet, nothing happened that's interesting NATO wise.

I'm curious what the main arguments against joining NATO are? A commitment to military spending? Potentially being dragged into a war?

The main argument is that other nations have some say in your foreign policy.

You can argue that this is always the case to some degree, and it's better NATO has some say rather than Putin and Russia just rolls over you.

on the other hand, if NATO gets into a conflict with China over Taiwan, there's a highly chance that Finland and Sweden would have to send their troops to fight and die there too. It serves geo-political interests of the US, but whether it serves interests of Finland and Sweden is a question for their citizens to answer.

How does NATO "get into a conflict" between China (not a NATO member, last I checked) and Taiwan (not even an UN observer)?

I'm pretty sure a lot of people think NATO == US Empire and Interests. Its simply not true, and this is a pretty great example of how much disinformation and FUD certain "interests" have created around NATO.

Hawaii isn't even covered under NATO, even if someone attacked the US:

https://www.westernjournal.com/nato-loophole-attack-hawaii/

The US would have to make a case to the rest of the members that it has been attacked under article 5 and the rest of the members have to agree.

There are a lot of conceivable scenarios where the US would not make the case and even where the other members might disagree.

Taiwan is not a member of NATO, and neither are other US allies in east Asia.

Yugoslavia was not a NATO member either.

NATO doesn't even cover Hawaii, let alone Taiwan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Treaty#Article_...

> Article 6 states that the treaty covers only member states' territories in Europe and North America, Turkey and islands in the North Atlantic north of the Tropic of Cancer, plus French Algeria. It was the opinion in August 1965 of the US State Department, the US Defense Department and the legal division of NATO that an attack on the U.S. state of Hawaii would not trigger the treaty, but an attack on the other 49 would.

Was it covering Yugoslavia back in 90s?

Irrelevant. That was a voluntary intervention, not an invocation of the Treaty's mutual defense aspects. Individual NATO members were not required to participate; three (Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland) did not.

A similar scenario with Taiwan would not mean "Finland and Sweden would have to send their troops to fight and die there too" as you asserted; they'd have the option to join in if they saw fit.

NATO also only covers the North Atlantic Area - this is explicit.

https://www.westernjournal.com/nato-loophole-attack-hawaii/

> Irrelevant. That was a voluntary intervention, not an invocation of the Treaty's mutual defense aspects. Individual NATO members were not required to participate; three (Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland) did not.

I'm not saying it would be a verbal and written requirement to participate, and yet, they might have to for other political reasons, like a supply of additional defensive equipment or maintenance programs. For instance, some countries did participate in wars on the side of NATO even though they are not even a part of the alliance. All at the expense of human lives and taxpayers' money [1][2].

Before you say that the US interventions are not NATO interventions, could you name at least one instance from this list [3] where the US was not an active participant of and was actually disapproving of other members' actions? I'm asking because there's a valid growing sentiment with an element of truth in it that NATO without the US is not a potent alliance.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5th_Mechanized_Brigade_(Ukrain...

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6th_Mechanized_Brigade_(Ukrain...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NATO_operations

> For instance, some countries did participate in wars on the side of NATO even though they are not even a part of the alliance.

Well, now you're arguing something entirely different - that NATO will rope you in without being a member. Hard to say it's a downside of joining if it happens anyways.

yes, I'm asking because there's a valid growing sentiment with an element of truth in it that NATO without the US military influence is not a potent alliance.

No, you said this:

> if NATO gets into a conflict with China over Taiwan, there's a highly chance that Finland and Sweden would have to send their troops to fight and die there too

Nothing in NATO's organization or the Treaty itself supports that assertion; in fact, it explicitly says otherwise.

> Was it covering Yugoslavia back in 90s?

Yugoslavia was not an Article 5 action, it arose out of Article 4 regional security consultations. It is important to remember that NATO is not, even in theory, a “defensive alliance” it is a regional security organization with a mutual defense commitment.

Historically, the main argument for Finland in particular is that joining NATO would risk a war with Russia.

The Ukraine war changed this calculus by showing that Russia would invade a country that wasn't even being considered for NATO membership.

Also, now seems like a good time to join because Russia's army is tied up and partially depleted.

I believe our military is strong enough to offer deterrence from Russian military aggression without NATO, so I don't see the point of NATO based on this belief.

I mean even NATO hawks believe this so its kind of a ridiculous situation.

Finland definitely seems like it could hold its own against Russia.

A boy with a stick could hold his own against Russia.

Negative. Finnish defense forces, while highly capable, do not suffice.

The cornerstone of Finnish defence strategy is to make sure, that the cost of invasion is for all sane parties obviously too high. The point is that anyone in Kremlin considering their next foreign adventure looking into FI would go "no way in hell, nope, need another strategy".

Alone the Finnish defense are not sufficient to instill this "cost-plus" model to the adversary's calculations.

Finnish defense forces would incur considerable manpower and material cost to invading army, but in a long conflict their capability would decline. Without military alliance, material transports would be questionable and attrition would soon kick in.

The cost would be high to RU, but without alliance, not blatantly obviously too high.

Before Ukrainian invasion the second part of this "cost plus" model of territorial defence was belief that international community would incur huge economic penalties on Russia, and the fear of this repercussion would be enough to make even the most courageous military gambler to reconsider their options.

Those sanctions? More or less what RU is suffering now. Their effect? Yep. Not very efficient in deterring the attacker.

The invasion of Ukraine basically demolished this second part of the defense strategy. First a single huge blow - no, RU will invade regardless of trade sanctions - and the second blow, continuing - even though sanctions have kicked in, RU still has exports and not all countries oppose it's illegal behaviour. And it still continues the war effort.

FI therefore needs something else to rebuild it's cost-plus model of deterrence. Only thing that can be used to immediately patch it, is NATO alliance.

It's that, or becoming a Kremlin/Beijing puppet.

> It's that, or becoming a Kremlin/Beijing puppet

Let's not exaggerate. There is a large middle ground where Finland bets on that the EU defence clause will deter Russia, that we can build an EU army or that the war in Ukraine will cripple Russia.

But yes, your main point is correct. The Finnish and Swedish defence strategies have been primarily based on knowning that we will lose to Russia but making the invasion too costly for a sane Russian leader to consider an invasion. And Putin's stupid invasion of Ukraine just reduced confidence in the idea that we can rely on a sane cost benefit analysis from the Russian leadership. Which does increase the appeal of a NATO membership.

From what I read, Putin is not insane in a strict sense, but he based his decision on wrong information (Ukrainians hate their government and will not put up a fight). He would probably not get the same wrong information about Finland and Sweden - it would be much less plausible and the history-based Russian biases don't exist. Well, I still see the point for Finland and Sweden.

The kowtowing to Kremlin/Beijing would not be due to direct military pressure, but from lack of capital sources elsewhere.

It's a plausible scenario, but not a sure one.

Finland is capital poor country, it needs foreign investment or else it will stagnate.

Without NATO after Ukraine the investment environment in Finland will likely be perceived as highly unstable.

China, OTOH, is happy to continue investing vast amount of capital in it's Eurasian project / Belt&Road initiative.

Without NATO, Russia being a loyal subject of the CCP after being sanctioned out of the western sphere of trade, Beijing alliance would be irresistible by guaranteeing both capital and security.

Would that be bad? If you like free speech, then yes. If you like high quality institutions then yes.

This is of course again a bit hyperbolic - western capital flight might not happen.

If we do not have enough deterrence to maintain territorial integrity (as of now) against Russian military aggression (by virtue of the cost model being broken), then what is going to deter Russia from dragging us into a localized conflict tomorrow if we announce we are joining NATO day-after-tomorrow?

I mean, something has to guarantee that we have no conflicts between now and being an actual member AFAICT. There's talk of "safety guarantees IF we start membership procession" or something, but then there's still a gap where we need to guarantee territorial integrity / "no conflict".

The point being, if we can deter them from attacking us between now and being a member (when attacking us would have higher ROI for Russia, stopping our NATO track) ... we have the deterrence to stop them from attacking us without NATO membership too (since it would be costlier for them in that case relatively speaking, the ROI would be lower).

> what is going to deter Russia from dragging us into a localized conflict tomorrow if we announce we are joining NATO day-after-tomorrow?

The Russian military being bogged down in Ukraine. So the trick is having something else in place by the time it extricates itself from Ukraine and starts looking for ways to rebuild it's credibility in the aftermath.

Which is why some previously NATO hesitant places that have shifted are likely to seek to act quickly.

> Those sanctions? More or less what RU is suffering now. Their effect? Yep. Not very efficient in deterring the attacker.

The impacts of those sanctions are frequently not immediate. 3-6 months from now, some of them may have a lot more impact than they're having by now.

If I were Russia, my difficulty with the Ukrainian armed forces might give me pause with the idea that Finland's - with a comparable military budget and similar conscription - would be manageable.

"3-6 months from now, some of them may have a lot more impact than they're having by now."

The problem is, 3-6 months of Russia heavy bombing of civilian targets would likely level several major cities in Finland (most smaller than Mariupol) to rubble.

Sure, but if the Ukraine-conflict sanctions have the desired longer-term impact, that impact would serve as a deterrent if they're thinking about invading Finland a few years down the line.

As would the fact that Ukraine's military stood their ground quite successfully.

It was also very successful to stay neutral in ww2, you get a lot of market share if your competitors destroy each other while you manage to stay out of it.

It's only through luck and concessions that Sweden maintained their "neutrality" in WWII. Everyone had their eyes on a prize somewhere else. Had things gone differently between Germany and the Soviet Union, Sweden may have found itself divided up by both.

Switzerland also made concessions to stay out of the war. Germany wanted to invade, but the risk/reward wasn't worth it at that stage of the war.

Spain was in a civil war and I wouldn't call their post war situation a "success."

Ireland, I guess you could say, faired okay after the war, but during the war, their ships were attacked by both sides and often received no response to distress signals.

That Sweden does not want to be dragged into a war. There are countries in the NATO which Sweden has historically had quite big disagreements with, e.g Turkey and the US. And we do not want to be dragged into wars which we oppose. Military spending has never been an issue, during the cold war our military spending was higher than most NATO countries.

I'm not sure if you know this, but you do realize that pretty much every decision NATO takes has to be unanimous, right? Even as little decisions as "do we want this PDW caliber or that PDW caliber as a [non-binding] NATO standard?" can be blocked by a single member (Germany, in this case).

> That Sweden does not want to be dragged into a war.

Is this a way of saying, like in WW2, that since Sweden doesn't share borders with aggressive neighbors you don't want to have the burden of defending the free world?

What does the US and Turkey have to do with anything? Turkey only requires defending if it's being attacked, not if Turkey starts a war.

Iraq war was a pretty good argument against.

Afghanistan is another, and perhaps better since article 5 was invoked, argument against.

MNF was not a NATO operation, if you are referring to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Regarding Finland. It's complex.

There has been a pretty strong anti-US sentiment in the left leaning parts of the political establishment. Partly due to the same reasons communism enticed global intelligenzia, and partly due to the lingering effects of Finlandization.

Finlandization still causes some psychological baggage on the older generations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finlandization

Finland was "non-aligned" during the cold war and as silly as it sounds, most people in Finland believed this. What it actually meant was that Finland was heavily leaning towards Kremlin - politically and journalistically - even thought it's civil society existed in a nordic egalitarian bliss. But the higher you went in the society, the stronger the Kremlin corruption was.

(I'm 42 and that stuff feels pretty foreign to me already).

This corruption was hidden from the Finns as a people, who most part distrusted Russia - and as Ukrainian events have proven again, for a good reason. Hence - internal policy was based on blatant obfuscation of truth. After the second world war this was a strategy for survival as Stalin could have likely wiped out the whole nation if he had detected any inch of resistance. But after decades, it became an established "way the things are".

Soviet Union was really successful in it's influence campaigns, and Soviet Russia was lauded as a paradise on earth by many prominent members of the intelligentsia up until it collapsed. Ideological hatred of capitalism is also a theme here.

I have to point out that there was enough multipolarity in the political field that Finland never became a communist state. And could have not become - such a thing would have likely caused a civil war. But the left and center heavily colluded with Russia for decades. And Finland had the same president (Kekkonen) for 25 years.

So, that's the background up to 1990's.

So, Finland had a strong culture of Kremlin appeasement starting from the end of second world war, and it left the political and journalistic tradition scarred for generations. Like the victim in an abusive relationship, the subconscious tries to avoid irritating the bully with whom you live. The first time there was even a hint of honest journalism about Soviet Union was during the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

The political and journalistic establishment started only heal after the fall of the soviet union.

For a while, though, it looked like Russia might grow up into a democratic liberal economy. There was therefore no reason for the pro-Russia sentiment to die. And no reason for the anti-US sentiment to die either.

This left the political field with lots of people, who in their subconscious viewed US as "the enemy" and Russia as "the great enlightened people".

I for myself cannot fathom this anti-americanism, and have not met it in my daily life as an engineer, but it seems to be a thing in the older corrupt generation of politicians, as well as among the more naive younger types.

I think my generation (42 like I said) and younger recognize US as an innovative, cultural and scientific superpower and Russia as the degrading husk of a state it is.

I think these "we can stand alone" and "make piece not war" sentiments are remnants of the Finlandization period.

As horrible as the Ukrainian war is, I think this enables Finnish society to finally get rid of the 80 years of dishonest kowtowing to a totalitarian state and enables it to become the truly western state it needs to be and finally unleash it's full potential (even though small) in the western world.

The invasion of Ukraine changed everything.

Also: If Russia tries anything with the baltic states, it will almost inevitably attack parts of Sweden and Finland just to safeguard its flanks.

There is no upside to appeasing Putin anymore.

Sweden was never really been very interested in appeasing Putin. Our opposition to NATO has much more to do with Erdogan plus various US led wars (recently Iraq and Afghanistan but before that a bunch of other wars) than with fear of provoking Russia.

The left wing parties in Sweden do not like the idea of a military alliance with Turkey or the US, but this invasion might make it the least bad option to them.

Finland has a long history of trying not to anger Russia. Sweden to some degree also.

On the long haul, friends of the US have a much better time than "friends" of Russia, especially those with a border to their "empire".

I don't think a lot of people like being allied to Erdogan. Turkey itself is not so much the problem, it is actually a valuable member due to location and contribution.

As I said, non-membership makes involvement of Finland and Sweden in any future wars between Russia and its neighbors more likely, not less likely.

>There is no upside to appeasing Putin anymore.

The upside is to avoid nuclear war. Believe it or not, prior to the Russian invasion, the Ukrainian peoples wanted peace, too. Joining NATO wouldn't have done so.

The idea that disputes between countries all over the map should lead to NATO involvement is dangerous. It's astounding how so many people don't seem to understand this. Of course, if you say, "How would we react?" it's "whataboutism".

Ukraine actually applied to NATO in 2006.

You label the invasion of Ukraine a "dispute"? It's a war of unilateral aggression involving war crimes and genocide.

The point of NATO membership of Finland and Sweden is to avoid military conflicts. Putin proved to the world that he does not abide by any norm or treaty, so not joining NATO will give those countries no security from his forces should he decide attacking them is in his best interests.

Extremely unlikely that Sweden joins NATO before the election in the autumn. After - it's a possibility.

Can we please start de-escalating this situation? Speculative headlines like these do nothing to improve the situation.

How do you imagine that would work? Because it currently seems that the only way to de-escalate is to kill tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, and/or a coup and consequent total regime change in Russia.

The US needs to push Ukraine to agree to neutrality. Had we done that in the first place this war likely wouldn't be happening. Ukraine would have lost nothing by agreeing to that. Zelenskyy already said he was told in private Ukraine wouldn't be admitted to NATO anyway, making this entire war senseless.

>The US needs to push Ukraine to agree to neutrality.

Russia's version of "neutrality" is a joke.

Russia's demand for "neutrality" means letting Russia decide Ukraine's foreign and military policies. Russia want to enforce specific limits on the size and capabilities of Ukraine's military. That will never be accepted by Ukraine.

It's interesting that we have no popular qualms about the Monroe Doctrine, which we've abused to interfere with and overthrow legitimate governments in South America for decades, but when Russia takes a Monroe-Doctrine-esque position with a country on their border it's out of the question.

I see basically 3 possibilities. Ukraine agrees to neutrality, Ukraine resists neutrality and has its country destroyed and is eventually forced to agree to it anyway (what is happening now), or the western powers start a hot war with Russia and risk WW3/nuclear holocaust. Given those options I'd go with the first.

Typical Russian whataboutism. Who, other than American right-wingers and Russian trolls, are defending the Monroe Doctrine?

- 1 is a joke which cannot be accepted.

- 3 is a bluff.

- 2 is the only option. Ukraine has already beaten you in the north. How long till it defeats you in the east and south?

Ukraine will suffer many dead civilians and hundreds of billion in damages, but Russia is losing thousands of soldiers and the economic impact will last for decades while Ukraine will be rebuilt.

Whataboutism is good. It's not a Russian thing.

It takes a special kind of dumb to criticize the mistakes of others ferociously then make the exact same mistakes yourself, with the only difference being even greater incompetence.

All of the Russian criticism was plainly self serving anyway. You can clearly tell by this war that they had no qualms with anything the US did in Iraq, excluding maybe their own geopolitical interests in the area.

Is this a common law thing?

Whatever was done in the past, is something you have to allow everyone else to do?

Surely you see how that is morally untenable?

Errors of the past do not need to be repeated or allowed. (Even though they likely will be as human life is complex and fallible).

It’s not even the past. Look at what the US is doing right this moment in Somalia Yemen Palestine. No one here actually believes Joe Biden cares about the Ukrainian people right?

>Ukraine resists neutrality and has its country destroyed and is eventually forced to agree to it anyway (what is happening now)

What is happening now is the Russian economy collapsing and thousands of Russian soldiers returning home in body bags in just the past few weeks. The same things that caused the fall of the Soviet Union.

The rubble is back at the level it was before the sanctions. How is their economy collapsing?

They are keeping it by burning through their foreign reserves.

It isn’t really. Even Russia itself does not believe that the current rate is “real”. If it was Russia would have used its rubles to buy euros/dollars to pay its debt instead of defaulting by trying to pay with the rubble. Basically it is currently up artificially due to Russia buying rubbles with dollars/euros/gold/etc (and 20% interest rate) and them themselves pushing it the other way by trying to buy dollars/euros with rubbles would be counterproductive.

Spheres of influence are a geopolitical reality despite any disbelief people might entertain.

Well that's completely wrong. Please read this[0] so that you have some real context on this matter.

[0]: https://euvsdisinfo.eu/into-the-heart-of-darkness-what-russi...

But as we all know, it was just a pretext; the idea behind the invasion was to make Ukraine part of Russia, which is evidenced by all these talks about Ukrainians being Russian people.

That's correct if you're talking about Donbas.

Sorry, which country are you from? You're English, right? You must be since you're communicating in English. This would be consistent with the idea that every person in the world who communicates in English is actually English.

This is pure speculation. Nobody knows what would have happened, had Ukraine agreed to Russia's demands. Maybe the invasion would not have happened, or maybe Russia would have come up with more demands.

> The US needs to push Ukraine to agree to neutrality.

Why would the US willfully feed countries to Russia?

Ukraine is being attacked exactly because it's not allied with major powers.

> Zelenskyy already said he was told in private Ukraine wouldn't be admitted to NATO anyway, making this entire war senseless.

You're living in a parallel reality. Ukraine is fighting for its right to exist. The war is senseless, but that's something you need to tell Putin.

>Can we please start de-escalating this situation?

Only Russia can de-escalate the situation.

The irony is that Russia could have taken Donetsk and Luhanks and the war would have been out of the news cycle by now. The West would just have repeated the harmless 2014 targeted "sanctions" on Russian oligarchs and politicians.

Putin's and Lavrov's genocidal speeches about Ukraine being a fake nation that should be "de-nazified" and the Russian attempt at taking the capital Kyiv has escalated this conflict into its current state.

One of the biggest reasons for the Russian military offensive is to establish borders that Russia considers defensible, which always indicated that Russia would push up to the Carpathians because it vastly narrows the attack surface on the northern European plane. Ukraine anchors Russia in the Carpathians and a loss basically opens the entire south up to Volgograd and Moscow. Just conquering Donetsk and Luhansk has fairly limited military value.

Why would Russia, a large nuclear power, need defensible borders? To prevent an invasion by Ukraine, Finland or Estonia?

It doesn't. This "geopolitical realism" is the ideology that Russia uses to justify its aggression to useful idiots in the West.

to bolster its defense against NATO, Russia's largest threat which is present in Eastern Europe, these countries are not non-aligned. Taking important strategic positions gives Russia leverage, reduces defense burden and ensures access to important geographic access points (like to the Black Sea). It increases Russia's opportunities and margin for error and diminishes their opponents'.

It's kind of a weird question honestly, why do you think India, China and the United States pursue territorial interests and fight wars? History and conventional warfare hasn't ended just because countries have nukes.

> to bolster its defense against NATO, Russia's largest threat

The idea of NATO attacking Russia is bonkers. They're barely moving to defend Ukraine. "NATO is a threat" is post hoc rationalization for Russia's own revanchist behavior; even the Russian propagandists who push it don't take it seriously.

Of course NATO is a threat, or at least it is credibly perceived as one in Moscow. Do you think the US would tolerate the Warsaw pact on its own borders merely because it has nuclear weapons? (Cuba knows the answer to this question, the US does not).

There's plenty of examples like the deployment of missile defenses to Eastern Europe (which contrary to the name is strategically an aggressive move, as they're first strike enablers, diminishing strategic deterrents. The one thing Russia is supposed to rely on). The basic point is, no country on earth has stopped deploying its military in the pursuit of national security merely because it is a nuclear power.

> Do you think the US would tolerate the Warsaw pact on its own borders

NATO is a defensive treaty organization, joined by consent. Warsaw Pact was the result of USSR using military force to subjugate its neighbors. There's no comparison, and I see no reason to engage such tripe further.

There are also stable and peaceful borders, and Putin could absolutely have chosen to have one with Europe. Instead he chose instability in order to expand by force to areas that Russia used to control.

The only reason for US military presence in Europe is the Russian threat. The US would gladly move forces to the Pacific and Europe would be happy to have a peaceful and democratic Russia on their border and to see the US go.

Putin chose empire-building by force. He could have chosen peace and economic prosperity instead. Just compare the development of Russia and the former Warsaw pact countries.

You clearly don't live in a country bordering Russia. This is not an issue you will solve with de-escalation, it's a fundamental issue that stems from the fact that Russia has shown that nothing they say can be trusted. Try telling the people of Finland that Putin promises to not invade the country, and try not to get laughed out of the room.

All other issues aside - it's not the newspaper's job to de-escalate anything. It's their job to print the news.

Should they avoid true headlines that are actually important, because of the perceived effect on politics / international relations?

> All other issues aside - it's not the newspaper's job to de-escalate anything. It's their job to print the news.

Unbiased, truthful news? That would be the day. Until that happens, newpapers always editorialize. They exaggerate. They clickbait. They speculate. It's fine and often harmless. But it's not harmless when sabres are rattling and people are dying.

Newspapers, more than anyone, should check, verify, and double-check before they publish anything pertaining to anything as polarized as an armed conflict. Polarized, in this case, because Russians seem to think they are on the right side of history, while the West obviously feels the same.

Should they avoid publishing true headlines? Maybe. They should at least make sure the headlines are truthful.

Newspapers often delay publication of sensitive issues. See important leaks like the Panama Papers, where many journalists coordinated publication. Same with various criminal investigations, where reports are delayed or initially partially redacted to protect the integrity of the investigation, or to protect the victims.

> Should they avoid publishing true headlines? Maybe. They should at least make sure the headlines are truthful.

I totally agree about the "making sure the headlines are truthful" part.

Not sure how I feel about not publishing truthful things because it might escalate the war. Should the press not publish anything about the war in Ukraine, because it might lead to nuclear war? I guess that's a defensible view in some sense, but I sure don't want to live in a world in which that happens.

The interesting and difficult thing to process here is whether this is a provocation without turning it into 'whatabboutism'

John Mearsheimer made the analogy "What if China became close allies with Canada and stationed troops and missiles north of the border, how would the USA react?"

Joining NATO means millitary bases, troop exercises, and 'defensive' missile installations that can be easily converted to offensive missiles without any visibility.

From that perspective, avoiding the issue of morality and legality, it seems like a terrifying step towards war between nuclear-armed powers.

> John Mearsheimer made the analogy "What if China became close allies with Canada and stationed troops and missiles north of the border, how would the USA react?"

Definitely not by invading Canada.

There is nothing difficult about it. It is not provocation, full stop. For that matter, Russia claimed Ukrainians talking about Russia atrocities are provocation too and that was nonsense too.

-------------------

> Joining NATO means millitary bases, troop exercises, and 'defensive' missile installations that can be easily converted to offensive missiles without any visibility.

Sure. And Russia has army, millitary bases, does troop exercises and have both defensive and offensive missile installations that can be easily converted to offensive missiles without any visibility.

> From that perspective, avoiding the issue of morality and legality, it seems like a terrifying step towards war between nuclear-armed powers.

No, it is actual step towards safer world. Finland does not have to wait till Russia tries to invade them.

Good points! It makes me wonder if we never learned anything from the Cuban Missile Crisis.

> John Mearsheimer made the analogy "What if China became close allies with Canada and stationed troops and missiles north of the border, how would the USA react?"

Stupid analogy from a stupid man. For this analogy to have any merit, the US would have to be a dictatoriship that has committed genocide against Canadians, is currently committing in occupied territories, and has declared destruction of Canada and Canadian nation as its goal. But the US is not an existential threat to Canada, hence no need for an alliance with China.

What we learned in this "special operation" is that NATO expansion is just a convenient excuse for Russia and that they constantly lie and lie and lie about lying.

The result is that their promises about not attacking someone if "they stay out of NATO" are worthless crap and the only way for smaller European countries to stop them is with force of arms and help of a big military alliance.

Sure, in essence of fairness, US would probably be pissed if China would make Canada allies, but in all fairness, you also need to see that there's no US missiles butchering children in Mexican train stations.

> The result is that their promises about not attacking someone if "they stay out of NATO" are worthless crap and the only way for smaller European countries to stop them is with force of arms and help of a big military alliance.

The sequence of events: 1) Ukraine government states that it is their priority to join NATO 2) Russia amasses troops at the border, states "don't join NATO, there will be consequences" 3) NATO and Ukraine say "you are bluffing, we'll do whatever we want" 4) Russia invades.

Where is the lie?

The lie is that Ukraine wasn't even considered for NATO membership and would be ineligible due to lack of territorial integrity ( Donbas and Crimea). NATO and Ukraine didn't claim Russia was bluffing, Ukraine refused to surrender their autonomy by promising they'll never join NATO. And of course, the real lie is that Russia was going to war no matter what. Leaked conversations of Kadyrov show that Russia was prepared to go in since last year, and the negotiations asking for impossible things was just a distraction. Like the Austrians did with Serbia in WWI.

Please go whatabout something else, people are literally getting slaughtered over the delusions of an ageing autocrat who has lost touch with reality.

> The lie is that Ukraine wasn't even considered for NATO membership and would be ineligible due to lack of territorial integrity ( Donbas and Crimea). NATO and Ukraine didn't claim Russia was bluffing, Ukraine refused to surrender their autonomy by promising they'll never join NATO.

Isn't it a bit contradictory? If Ukraine can't join NATO, then promising it won't is irrelevant. Rather, it was their stated goal to somehow resolve the territorial intergrity question and then join NATO. So ineligibility was just a problem to resolve, not an insurmountable obstacle. And of course increasing military cooperation can be done without joining.

I agree that "calling bluff" is not the best word. Rather, it was politically infeasible for both Ukraine (runs counter to their stated goals) and the West (looks too similar to what Chamberlain did) to enter into an agreement with Russia. So it didn't happen.

> And of course, the real lie is that Russia was going to war no matter what. Leaked conversations of Kadyrov show that Russia was prepared to go in since last year, and the negotiations asking for impossible things was just a distraction. Like the Austrians did with Serbia in WWI.

Even if the leaks are true, how does it prove that the invasion was inevitable? Yes, Russia was preparing for war to make the threat credible and this preparation included making detailed plans. Doesn't mean that Putin couldn't scrap those plans.

> Please go whatabout something else, people are literally getting slaughtered over the delusions of an ageing autocrat who has lost touch with reality.

Your comment was better without this addition.

You forgot a little thing that happened before this, that Russia had already invaded and taken Crimea in 2014. Its not like after that Russia should have been treated like a rational actor and their past actions ignored. What should Ukraine have done, just sat there and watched as Russia ate them piece by piece naively believing that this annexation will be the last as long as we do exactly what they say?

> The sequence of events: 1) Ukraine government states that it is their priority to join NATO

I would say the more complete sequence of events is more like:

-2) Ukrainians are largely against joining NATO according to public polls pre-2014 (with neutrality being also a clause in the Constitution)

-1) Russia annexes Crimea and invades Eastern Ukraine

0) Ukrainians become largely pro-NATO.

...

Did you forget #0?

0) Russia invades Ukraine in 2014: annexes Crimea and funds an insurgence in its 2 eastern regions.

>"What we learned in this "special operation" is that NATO expansion is just a convenient excuse for Russia and that they constantly lie and lie and lie about lying."

I'll skip subject of Russia lying in general. Somehow poisoning of former spies and lying about it does not make me loose my sleep. What Russia does with its own population is disgusting though.

On this particular NATO issue I was that idiot that did not believe that Putin will really start the war. Now looking back I think the warning and the message from Putin was pretty clear and consistent. He went from wanting to join NATO, to bitching about the expansion, to annexing parts of Georgia and Ukraine when NATO had started to entertain the ideas, to starting accumulating large military presence on the border of Ukraine later on, to issuing the ultimatum and giving last warning, to finally starting the war.

>"Sure, in essence of fairness, US would probably be pissed if China would make Canada allies, but in all fairness, you also need to see that there's no US missiles butchering children in Mexican train stations."

Well. Mexico does not exactly let Russia to deploy their missiles. I am not sure what will happen if they would start the process. I think they will be given "offer they will not be able to refuse".

If we skip the Mexico and start count since say WWII you won't have much difficulties finding cohorts of children, women and civilians in general killed, maimed, starved, displaced etc. etc. All for way less reason than deploying missiles near the US. Of course it was all with good intentions and for a common benefit of humanity /s

Somehow poisoning of former spies and lying about it does not make me loose my sleep.

What about shooting civilian airliners out of the sky and lying about it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MH-17#Russian_media_coverage

If this is what really happened then yes they should be punished. No questions. But it was most likely a mistake anyways. It happens often enough. Ukraine shot down Siberia Airlines Flight 1812. It then tried to deny etc. etc. The US shot down Iran Air Flight 655 and had also tried to cover it up and after being cornered had never apologized.

The US admitted that they shot down Iran Air Flight 655 within hours and issued an apology.

Russia still denies Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 years later.

This is a bad comparison.

There was settlement. No official apology. The US "expressed regret" you can read about it on Wikipedia. The USS Vincente shot down civilian aircraft that was transmitting whatever signal it was required to be recognized as civilian. Yes it was an accident. They did not have it as their mission to down passenger airliner.

You have the timeline wrong. Russia had decided to invade Ukraine long before they had their impossible ultimatum ( for NATO and Ukraine to promise Ukraine will never join) rejected.

The Russian government lies about everything. They lied about Crimea, Donbas, MH17 and a ton of other things. They have assasinated dissidents, journalists alongside former spies. Anything coming out of Moscow should be treated as flat out wrong, or at most indicative of what they want to do ( they're claiming Ukraine has chemical weapons? They're probably going to use chemical weapons on Ukrainian civilians).

>"The Russian government lies about everything."

You do not need to convince me. I know it.

As for journalists I've already said that Russia stinks when it comes to treatment of its own populace.

> The Russian government lies about everything. They lied about Crimea, Donbas, MH17 and a ton of other things.

They even deny invading Ukraine. We can't really discuss anything with them when they're living in a parallel reality.

> Somehow poisoning of former spies and lying about it does not make me loose my sleep.

Russia used chemical weapons in a NATO country which harmed 3 and killed one (innocent UK civilian). The UK would have had cause for war. It should have at least responded in kind and assassinated Russians.

>"The UK would have had cause for war."

Sure. For some inexplicable reason they've decided to act in a rational matter and not to start WWIII.

>"It should have at least responded in kind and assassinated Russians."

Yep. And they did not. Probably to their credit they do not go down to the same level and do not for example behead people like their other enemy does.

Interestingly the UK does have a strange case of their own spy committing "suicide" and stuffing themselves in a duffel bag.

Why reach for what-if scenario. Finland and Sweden already have an example of a country that did not join NATO and see the consequences of it.

They also have an example of...themselves - that all it takes to be left alone is being reasonable and not needlessly bellicose towards their great power neighbor

Ukraine was bellicose by objecting to Russia’s multiple invasions of its territories?

I think you forgot to add 'so far...' that all it takes to be left alone is being reasonable and not needlessly bellicose towards their great power neighbor so far.

and either way, there is nothing at all that Ukraine did that justifies the murder and rape of thousands of civilians including children. Russia has forfeit their place on the stage to be treated as a rational actor. At this point its like saying all you need to do is not purchase a firearm to provoke your serial killer neighbor.

Like how invaded Finland, stole a bunch of land, and then interfered with Finland's internal politics so much they came up with the term "Finlandization" for it?

Not a great example dude. Everyone eventually hits the "Poland" moment, where you can't keep appeasing a dictator.

From Russia's perspective, almost everything is a provocation and a threat. Not rationally, but because Russia's official viewpoint is about as irrational as it gets. There isn't anything to appease them with, because they've chosen to ignore the facts.

And from an outside perspective it's not hard to see why two states, one with a border to Russia, would join a military alliance after Russia invaded a sovereign neighbor.

You know what seems like a terrifying step towards nuclear warfare? Removing one countries nuclear weapons by promising not to invade, then invading. What a boon for nuclear proliferation.

>John Mearsheimer made the analogy "What if China became close allies with Canada and stationed troops and missiles north of the border, how would the USA react?"

Most likely by reflecting on what went so horribly wrong in the relationship with Canada that a formerly closest ally of them all has decided to turn to a different power from across the ocean for help. Then, by attempting to fix said relationship without starting a futile and criminal war of aggression that will cement multi-generational hatred of all things American north of the border.

>Then, by attempting to fix said relationship without starting a futile and criminal war of aggression that will cement multi-generational hatred of all things American north of the border.

He has no interest in fixing any relationships. This is a war of genocide. Things are only getting started, and the sooner the world realizes we are already at war, the better.

Yes, I'm aware. Here we are discussing the absurd parallels that some people are attempting to draw with North America, and a hypothetical Canada that has turned to China. As a Ukrainian Canadian, I am fully aware of the absurdity of this scenario and of the fact that Ukrainians are being denied their right to exist.

>"...and of the fact that Ukrainians are being denied their right to exist."

This is what is actually happening. It is a crime and I wish Putin, his close circle and other directly responsible would end their days rotting in jail.

As for Canada turning into China and hosting their nukes. Of course this will never happen and is absurd. But in pure hypothetical world I am pretty sure the situation like this will turn into invasion if all negotiations fail. As a mini example see what happened when Noriega had started switching his allegiances from the US to a Soviet block.

>As a mini example see what happened when Noriega had started switching his allegiances from the US to a Soviet block.

Hm... Not quite. Noriega began switching allegiances to the Soviets well after the relationship with the US became hostile, and well after the US made it clear they want him gone, due to Iran-Contra and other reasons. He was also a dictator who lost an election by a factor of 3 to 1 a few months before the invasion. Bush was still hesitant to invade until a group of unarmed off-duty US soldiers was attacked, one of them killed and others abused in custody. Not defending the idea of propping up dictators or invading countries to remove them, just that this is not a good example of the point you're trying to make.

Wasnt Canada viewed as potential enemy for a long time after Independence War? Both Canada and US had plans for invading each other IIRC, with the Canadian forces hoping they would hold on long enough for UK to arrive and help. Though at that time UK was already seeing US more as a partner.

That was long ago in a different world.

Other than the San Juan islands, there are no territorial disputes between the countries. The Canadian military is utterly dwarfed by the USA's, so any aggression on their part will likely result in a total loss. And if the USA really wanted Canadian territory, they could probably ask for it and be granted some in a popular vote (at least in the south western provinces).

Even if China and Canada become besties, China still can't do anything militarily. Canada is still gigantic; protecting the east of the country is impossible. And it would be straight forward for the USA to deny access to the Atlantic.

Yeah, the US government would not at all like the idea of China stationing troops or missiles in Canada, but Canada would see the stupidity of allowing such a move long before it came to pass. And if they didn't, the USA has diplomatic options (mainly, "hey, BC/Alberta/Sas, u wanna b american? :cowboy:"). Getting one to come to the red white and blue side effectively divides the country in half.

If you're going that far back you might as well bring up the Revolutionary War and the war of 1812 and ask why the US isn't still at odds with the UK.

> John Mearsheimer made the analogy "What if China became close allies with Canada and stationed troops and missiles north of the border, how would the USA react?"

I think we have an clear example of how this _could_ play out. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962

It's completely stupid to compare the Cuban Missile Crisis with NATO expansion. You need to completely ignore history to do that. And the only motivation would be to justify the motives of a dictator, mass murder and war criminal....

My reply is based on the sentence which I quoted in my original comment. It was about the U.S and how it would respond to missiles near its borders. Please don't take my comment out of context

The USSR's alliance with Cuba is a good analogy. The US viewed deploying nuclear weapons to Cuba as provocation, but did nothing to prevent the alliance itself, which continued for decades after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Merely joining a defensive alliance is not provocation.

Mearsheimer and the entire school of "neo realists" have absolutely zero credibility. It's really a shame that his youtube videos started to spread so much on youtube following Russian invasion given the amount of bullshit he's spreading.

> 'defensive' missile installations that can be easily converted to offensive missiles without any visibility

That's not true in any meaningful way. It's a massive process to convert a silo made for anti-ballistic missiles (ABM) into one for ICMBs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) or other type of offensive missiles. It's not an easy or fast thing to do and would definitely be visible from the outside.

I don't know who this Mearsheimer is, but your comment is essentially ad hominem because you haven't addressed the point. If it helps you, the same thing has been said by others e.g. Chomsky.

Could South Africa join NATO? Thailand? Russia themselves asked to join but were rejected.

Do Chomsky has much credibility on the topic of Finland, Russia, NATO and Ukraine? Mearsheimer was litigated and relitigated on HN lately a lot.

OP used Mearsheimer as argument from authority. It is ok to respond to it with "nah, that man does not have authority".

> Russia themselves asked to join but were rejected.

"In 1991, as the Soviet Union was dissolved, Russian president Boris Yeltsin sent a letter to NATO, suggesting that Russia's long-term aim was to join NATO."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93NATO_relations#....

A lot has happened since then.

> Russia themselves asked to join but were rejected.

https://euobserver.com/news/27890

“‘Great powers don't join coalitions, they create coalitions. Russia considers itself a great power’, the Russian ambassador stressed."

That was their position once NATO had expanded eastward.

Here's an extract from a NATO report[0] in 2000. The whole chapter is genuinely worth a read:

> Nevertheless, in August 1994, Boris Yeltsin again said to the reporters, that Russia could join NATO in due course. Then, during 6-7 years, this question was not raised by the Russian political elite and the mass media. The main reason for that was NATO’s expansion to the East...

Russia actually has a long history of wanting to join [1]

[0] https://www.nato.int/acad/fellow/98-00/davydov.pdf

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/jun/17/russia.iantray...

Here's your introduction to Mearsheimer in his own words then: https://youtu.be/hH3s7MRJkAI?t=3653

"You talked about Putin targeting civilians, or the Russians targeting civilians. It’s obviously very hard to tell what’s exactly happened here."

This was just four days ago, in a closing rebuttal to another speaker, during a panel hosted by Katrina vanden Heuvel - yeah I'm thinking the civilians shot in the head with hands tied behind their backs show he is no real authority: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/11/world/europe/...

>‘They shot my son. I was next to him. It would be better if it had been me.’

>Russian soldiers set up in this school. A sniper in a high-rise fired at anybody who moved. Other soldiers tortured, raped and executed civilians in basements or backyards.

>A mother killed by a sniper while walking with her family to fetch a thermos of tea. A woman held as a sex slave, naked except for a fur coat and locked in a potato cellar before being executed. Two sisters dead in their home, their bodies left slumped on the floor for weeks.

> Could South Africa join NATO? Thailand?

South Africa or Thailand are not in the area covered by the treaty so no. Hell even an attack in Hawaii would be outside the treaty according the the US department of defense.

This is also why Australia and New Zealand are not part of NATO.

> Russia themselves asked to join but were rejected.

Except they were not. They were told to apply like any other nation and they did and were in the program but their constant threatening (and actual use) of force against their various neighbor countries slowed and eventually stopped the process with a final severing of official relationships due to the invasion of Crimea in 2014. Again the treaty is quite clear in this as a requirement to join nato.

Russia had no issue deploying such weaponry on NATO's doorstep (Kaliningrad teaming with weaponry, including short-range ballistic missiles that Russia claimed to no longer hold, long-range AA missiles, constantly flying bombers into NATO airspace, etc.).

So for the analogy of Canada-China alliance, you'd need, hmm, East China Sea to be already teaming with US or NATO weaponry. Not just an aircraft carrier here and there, but sizeable army ready to attack. (clearly doesn't work so very well with a maritime border, but that's where China's fragile bits are. US troops in Kyrgyzstan clearly stir far less emotions. Indeed Americans were in Afghanistan which borders China and they didn't seem to mind).

Well, we had this happen in the 1960s with the Cuban missile crisis. No need for a thought experiment.

But more broadly: We have excellent relations with Canada. If we step back, what would we be doing to Canada that would make them think "Holy crap, we need to join a defensive alliance with China to prevent a possible US attack!"?

Is the US entitled to treat its neighbors so poorly they seek defensive alliances elsewhere?

I do not get this. Why you need to create unreal analogies just to state some point?

Especially now, when non-NATO neighbour of Russia was attacked by Russia?

What if USA invaded Mexico and Canada became close allies with China? I do not know this is hardly going to happen like ever.

Between my country and Russia is one country: Ukraine. If Ukraine was in NATO there would be peace today. I'm so glad that my country is in NATO. And what you are trying to say seems to me like you do not consider us as sovereign nation.

Side note: it is not "whatabboutism" more appropriate term is "Putinversteher"

The alternative is the doormat strategy that failed before. Putin will not stop until he is stopped. There is no way to do that without incurring the risks so the logical choice is to not let him take strategic positions before incurring the risks.

Following the Kremlin's logic, the advent of hypersonic missiles and the neoconservative bent of US/EU politics, it is seemingly inevitable that war is here.

I've asked experts repeatedly and have yet to hear back one example of where the Mearsheimer realism school predicted any international relations occurrence correctly in the past 30 years. It seems to have no predictive power as a theory. I think it only gets the traction it does for it's catchy misleading name.

The amount of ad-hominems in replies to your comment is simply staggering.

> Joining NATO means millitary bases, troop exercises, and 'defensive' missile installations that can be easily converted to offensive missiles without any visibility.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine, there was no NATO military presence in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Norway, the only defensive missile base was in Romania, with another under construction in Poland and both Finnland and Sweden already extensively train and cooperate with NATO troops. Troop deployments were token-sized in the order of low five digits in total. (1) All troop presence in the Baltic states is at the explicit request of those states - it ensures that if any of those states is invaded, other NATO members are immediately directly involved: Attacking any of those states means attacking US, British, French, German soldiers. Unsurprisingly, countries on the eastern border have requested and received more troop deployments, for example German air defense batteries have moved to Slovakia as part of a new NATO battle group.

(1)Pre-Invasion Situation, early February https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/10/europe/nato-troops-easter...

> The interesting and difficult thing to process here is whether this is a provocation without turning it into 'whatabboutism'

I don't know what you mean with whataboutism in this context, but traditionally non-allied European countries considering their defensive options when Russia has invaded a sovereign nation is certainly not a provocation.

> Joining NATO means millitary bases

Not automatically. Not all NATO member countries have e.g. American military bases [1]. The Baltic countries have a small NATO military presence, but not a large enough one that it could pose any offensive threat towards Russia.

It's entirely possible for a NATO member country to say "no thanks" to foreign military bases. That might even be likely at least in case of Finland which has maintained its own credible defensive capability.

If Sweden or Finland consider joining NATO, it's because they'd like to have someone's back in case of a crisis, not because they'd want to host someone else's offensive capability.

> troop exercises

All military forces conduct exercises.

> and 'defensive' missile installations that can be easily converted to offensive missiles without any visibility

Again, that's up to the individual member countries. Also, I'm not an expert on missile tech, but I don't think e.g. anti-air missiles can be easily turned into cruise missiles or other kinds of offensive weapons.

Russia would likely consider Sweden or Finland joining NATO as a provocation. But it's not really possible in good faith to believe it would actually be one.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_military...

> John Mearsheimer

is a well known supporter of Russia and China and of their whole imperial way of thinking.

Unless you want wherever you live to look more like China or Russia do, I would recommend not listening to him, and definitely not spreading his disgusting ideas.

https://archive.ph/P8TNK

Why isn't Russia already a member of NATO?[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia–NATO_relations#Suggesti...

Standard ** measuring between the US and Russia for one.

If Russia ever drops the corruption and becomes a strong democracy, then it could conceivably go into NATO. It would require the US to be much much more passive and a team player (as an American I view this as a good thing, provided it is by other democracies w/ good human rights)

It would also require Russia to have some reason for doing so, mainly if it couldn't defend against China, or some developed Central Asian or Islamist superpower near it. Its also likely that Russia would ally with these forces instead of NATO, or just play them off each other like India is doing with the US/Russia now.

On the NATO side, it would require additional defense commitments by NATO towards Russia (and in the Pacific, the US). I doubt there would be appetite for it in the EU (and maybe not in the US), unless something went really really bad.

Russia has already asked to join nato in the past

Third would be Austria then. Anyone knows the approval numbers there?

Didn't think women would be so anxious to end the world too

Russian army has been revealed to be a joke, so I don't see the why all the rush to join NATO because of their fiasco in eastern Ukraine. We bordered USSR and they had a military that went toe-to-toe with the Nazi Germany; USSR military was a much greater threat and yet we brought them to stalemate and had enough deterrent to stop them from conquering us later.

It may be "fiasco in eastern Ukraine" but I guess that residents of Mariupol or Bucha would prefer if they were in NATO.

Isn't Ukraine a fairly large country, compared to the European average? For example they appear to have around 9x as many people as Finland. Of course, Finland has a more high tech economy, maybe a much better army. But I don't think getting stalled by the 8'th largest European country, particularly given the outpouring of high tech western weapons, makes Russia non-scary. (8'th largest by population, and that's with the no-EU Turkey and Russia included).

If I were Finland I'd join NATO ASAP, while Russia is distracted and before a bunch of mysterious "border disputes" arise.

The Russian fiasco in Ukraine is that they haven’t won, and it seems less and less likely that they will ever win. They’re still doing plenty of damage in the meantime. Damage that could perhaps have been avoided if Ukraine had direct military backing from NATO.

All things considered, I’d rather not get into a fight at all than get into fight I win.

I don't know if you refer to Winter War or Continuation war, but both ended by Finland surrendering territory to the Soviets. After the first one, Finland allied with the Nazis, after the second one it lost freedom and sovereignty through Finlandization.

I'm not sure how both can be seen as anything but Soviet victories?

I think your sense of history is quite misguided.

"we brought them to stalemate"

In the continuation war of Finland and Germany against Soviet Union, German troops formed a large part of the front.

"had enough deterrent to stop them from conquering us later."

Without allied pressure Soviet Union could have steamrolled over Finland after Germany receded.

Instead Finland got the bitter pill of being in Kremlin leash for decades - but still much preferable to death or rule by communist junta.

It is better to call Putin's bluff now rather than wait for Ukraine to fall which might force cooler heads to prevail. Also a dual ascension dares Russia to go to war on two perhaps three fronts?

For Russia, the choice is: war now or war later?

Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war.

Seriously, why doesn't Russia join NATO?

NATO membership is only open to democracies who respect other sovereign countries, and they must be invited by the existing members.

LOL. Does it include Turkey and US currently occupying sizable chunks of Syria? Also calling Turkey democracy is questionable at best considering current regime and multiple military governments before whole Turkey was in Nato.

How is Turkey a member then? How was fascist Spain a member? And it's all lead by a country that respects sovereignity the least of all on the entire planet, lmao.

Seriously? Because Russia is the main aggressor that NATO is trying to defend against. The chickens don't invite the fox into the hen house.

Alternatively, it would be more problematic for the US to invade and bomb Russian allies if Russia were a fellow NATO member

> Vladimir Putin wanted Russia to join Nato but did not want his country to have to go through the usual application process and stand in line “with a lot of countries that don’t matter”, according to a former secretary general of the transatlantic alliance.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-s...

Russia would love to join if it could, and there was some talk about it in the 90's when Russia was drawing closer to the west. There are several reasons why it didn't happen.

NATO has requirements for membership, and Russia is too corrupt and undemocratic to meet them ( this is also why full membership for Ukraine was always in the future).

NATOs main purpose is to project American power and influence foreign policy. Russia being in NATO would make this more difficult.

> Russia would love to join if it could, and there was some talk about it in the 90's when Russia was drawing closer to the west. There are several reasons why it didn't happen.

The main reason is that the reason Russia wanted to join changed from cooperative regional security (which was at least plausibly the motivation early on) to “NATO works by consensus not majoritarianism, so if we can get in we can screw everything up“, which it firmly was when Putin demanded immediate admission without the onboarding other ex-Warsaw Pact states were getting.

> NATO has requirements for membership

To be fair, NATO decides those on a case-by-case basis, not like they are common binding rules (I mean, there are the latter, too, but that's not usually the main issue.)

Here is a quite detailed article about the Russia-NATO relationship:

https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/russia-could-have-joined-n...

also on Wikipedia too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia–NATO_relations#Suggesti...

Bad

Does anyone have a list of the actions NATO has taken since its inception?

The main power of NATO is dissuasion, and I assume (maybe naively) that it's hard to measure dissuasion.

Qaddafi would like a word.

That wasn't NATO... and he could have stopped the air raids by stopping his artillery attacks on civilian areas at any time.

> That wasn't NATO

what is a framework to distinguish NATO and non-NATO intervention? Let's say a conflict is small enough for a single country like the US to handle it. Is it still NATO or is it only the US with other members not objecting to it?

The NATO has no power to restrict actions of its members - it can just decide not to support them, which is common. Any action unilaterally taken by a member state or a group of member states that is not explicitly adopted by the NATO council is not a NATO mission.

I know that. I am asking about a framework to distinguish between a NATO intervention from the sole US intervention for the side on the receiving end of it.

Has the nato council voted on it and unanimously accepted the mission? It’s a NATO mission. Has it not? It’s not. Turkeys actions in Syria? Not a NATO mission. Germany and France providing troops to the Minusma mission in Mali? Not a NATO mission. German soldiers getting killed in Mali doesn’t trigger Article 5.

Many NATO interventions happen because the UN Security Council asked the NATO to take leadership on them, others without UN involvement, but all of them require that there’s a political decision before the intervention happens.

Of important note: there is currently no NATO support for Ukraine - many NATO member states do support Ukraine, but others are very reluctant- Hungary for example. NATO certainly is a body that acts as coordinator and supports states that feel threatened by Russia at the moment, even backfilling for capabilities that they’re handing over to Ukraine, so that distinction is mostly political - but it has real effects. Should any of Ukraines neighbors decide to unilaterally send troops into Ukraine and they get attacked there, it’s not an automatic trigger for Article 5 either.

It was a NATO mission, but based on a UN resolution. The UN has asked the NATO multiple times in the last few decades to lead military missions.

I am pretty sure Libya was never a NATO member. I am pretty sure you too are talking about different things. Grandparent was talking about difficulty of measuring the upside of joining NATO while you are talking about the more easily measurable downsides. There is no contradiction here.

Does this help?

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

Afghanistan comes to mind. Also, if the neocons weren’t so arrogant, there would have been German and French planes over nyc on patrol after 9/11.

Bombing civilians in Beograd.

NATO is primarily a defensive alliance. The organization has been used to coordinate some non-defensive activities under UN mandate, mainly intervention in the Yugoslav Wars, enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya during the Arab Spring, and fighting piracy off the coast of Somalia. All of these operations took place after the end of the Cold War.

The defensive clause of the treaty has only been invoked once, by the United States after the September 11 attacks.

Judging by actions, it would seem primarily to be an offensive alliance. What's the point of its existence after the Cold War? Operation Gladio is another facet that seems to be much more offensive than defensive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

A lot of memberwannabes rely on Article 5 of NATO, but as Nigel Farage asked himself, do you really believe NATO will start WWIII over a small country?! And how is these countries joining NATO benefiting the existing NATO members? Obviously, Russia has nothing more to lose given the sanctions, so, the only thing left is a direct NATO conforntation, but it seems that the West is more afraid of such conflict than Putin, who believes that this is inevitable and that if you're faced with an inevitable flight, it's better to strike first.

A Russian attack on a small NATO member state would result in a proportionate NATO response ... not whatever you understand by "WWIII".

All NATO members have allied troops stationed within their borders, so non-involvement isn't even possible.

I don't personally like the idea of joining a military alliance with state like Turkey in it. I mean, Greece and Turkey are both in NATO but Greece tries to maintain "rough" parity with materiel with Turkey for obvious historical reasons ..

So what happens if they decided to go town on each other someday? A5 invocation, first come first served? I really don't know what that would imply.

> And how is these countries joining NATO benefiting the existing NATO members?

Stability in Europe. The west doesn't want refugees from whatever country Russia decided to invade this week to show up on their doorstep all the time, or the supply chain interruptions that happen when war constantly breaks out. You might remember that NATO arose almost immediately after World War 2 which had a rather negative effect on Europe and European influence in the world.

> Obviously, Russia has nothing more to lose given the sanctions, so, the only thing left is a direct NATO conforntation,

Russia has plenty more to lose. Namely every major European power and the US unloading all their armaments on Russian cities that are very close to the border.

> but it seems that the West is more afraid of such conflict than Putin, who believes that this is inevitable and that if you're faced with an inevitable flight, it's better to strike first.

This is an absolutely unrealistic take. Russia _can not_ win major combat against NATO in any shape or form. They couldn't do it with their made up propaganda army and they certainly can't do it with their actual army.

> And how is these countries joining NATO benefiting the existing NATO members?

Finland has one of the bigger armies in Europe (way bigger then many of the existing european NATO members). At least for the baltic NATO members Finland being a member is a huge boon basically blocking Russian fleet into the bay where Saint Petersburg is as the Gulf of Finland is rather narrow (you can literally see from Helsinki to Tallin if you go top of a tall building) completing the encirclement of Russia on its western border.

Sweden also helps with controlling the Baltic sea due to Gotland.

If NATO wouldn't react then it's a joke and effectively dissolved and Russians are free to invade whoever they feel stronger than. Trashing the invading force seems like fast way to prevent the war from escalating.

I'm baffled as to why anyone would listen to the shit coming out of Nigel Farage's mouth, let alone quote them as some sort of authority on anything. The man is an empty populist and doesn't deserve any attention.

I've heard others calling it "an article of faith", not just Farage. Well, NATO's existence is not preventing Russia's aggression assuming people believe Putin is crazy, a murderer, soulless, a war criminal, etc.; it's provoking it. If there was no NATO, Russia would be focusing on economic partnership, not feeling cornered by an obsoleted since 1991 alliance, which is increasing the member state's risks as now Russia builds alliances on the East. As a Bulgarian, I really doubt NATO will protect Bulgaria if Turkey or Russia attack our territory, so, pretty much to us this alliance is useless as it earsed our army and left our security in the hands of NATO, which member states have their security interest as top priority. We've prepaid 8 F-16 Block 70 years ago and they got severely delayed - just got an approval by congres (why was that necessary?!) for 8 more. So far, all we've got is a webpage [0] - not jets at least 2 years from now! Also, should I mention that Article 5 has never been tested yet? Also, if Trump wins in 2024, interesting thigns may happen to NATO then!

[0]: https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/f-16/f-16-bulg...

It's a confidence and trust thing thing. If NATO doesn't protect any of its members in case of attack , even Bulgaria, even against Turkey, NATO is dead - nobody would ever trust it and the alliance will fall apart. ( Of course for Bulgaria that would be of limited impact because there's the EU mutual defence clause). Yes, a Trump like character in the White House might refuse to help, but the US isn't the only NATO member.

> Also, should I mention that Article 5 has never been tested yet

It has, the US invoked it after 9/11

As for you presumptions about NATO and Russia, you're just guessing, same as anybody. However seeing Russian atrocities across the world, I'm very happy there's an alliance containing them. They can't use NATO's existence as an excuse for their war crimes in Ukraine and you shouldn't be using that excuse for them. Their narrative has been that Ukraine isn't a real country. Without NATO, do you think they wouldn't have said the Baltics, Poland, and who knows who else also aren't real countries?

Other nations would be wise to oppose their admittance. There is no upside for them, only risk.

Do you mean the risk is that Russia will invade Finland and NATO will have to get involved?

This is short term thinking.

What if Finland does not join NATO and Russia invades? What if Russia succeeds? In the next decade it will invade Sweden that’s also not in NATO. At the end of this process, Russia will still border NATO in the North. Only this time Russia will be a much bigger and a more powerful state. What’s the upside for NATO in that?

That is a good point. USA should quit NATO entirely unless we start getting paid in direct cash payments.

From here looks like we’re headed into the fall of the Russian Federation, and an endless series of NATO interventions in regional conflicts all over Russia. The Chinese strategy will be to trade debt for resource access, and wait for this to end. 100 years from now, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, and the rest, will all be considered one historical chapter, like the 30 or 100 years war.

In your scenario, why would NATO get involved in any regional conflicts in Russia?

For the same reason western countries, especially the usa, have been involved in "regional conflicts".

If you are predicting an ethnic breakup of Russia you are very wrong.

Most minority republics in the Russian Federation have been fully Russianized.

I don’t think that ethnicity will be a factor. It will be an economic breakdown and then a fight to control natural resources and trade routes.

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