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Comment by durnygbur | Hacker News Reader

Look at the map, the NATO doesn't have much land borders with Russia. With Finland joining... the length of land border will multiply. This will surely pose a challenge.

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It essentially doubles the length of the border with Russia for NATO. Currently it is 1,215km long [1] and the Finland/Russia border is 1,340km long [2].

1: https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2021/10/p... 2: https://finland.fi/life-society/a-border-that-once-divided-n...

Only in a technical sense obviously, not in any way that actually matters.

St Petersburg is less than 100 miles away. But yeah most of the rest of the border is useless, given its nature.

St. Petersburg is already less than 100 miles from Estonia, which is a NATO country.

There is much talk about Russia not wanting Finland in NATO but why would NATO want Finland in NATO with yet another expensive border to patrol. "Buffer states" work both ways.

I would argue that NATO already has to care about that border. Finland joining NATO just makes that reality easier to handle.

They only have to care about the Finnish border in a military fictional grand plan sense not a everyday practical sense.

My sense of what is "fictional" and what isn't shifted markedly in the last few months.

With Finland being part of the EU, an invasion of Finland by Russia would already pull in 90% of NATO (per Article 42 of the EU). With most of NATO already needing to care about the border, this should not pose too much of a challenge.

no one (including the Finnish government) believes that article 42 has any teeth

https://www.is.fi/politiikka/art-2000008697709.html

(ironically because Finland insisted on it in the last treaty renegotiation)

and I don't think you can really say that it's 90% of NATO without the US, more like 10%

The current Baltic NATO states and Norway are much easier to defend having control over the Baltic Sea, plus Finland has a considerably strong military that now joins to strengthen NATO, so it should be a win-win for the both sides.

Why are we pretending conventional war between NATO and Russia is a thing?

If that's the case, why does the border need "expensive patrolling" (which is already done by Finland anyway)?

Because Russia is currently doing conventional war inside Ukraine?

Because Russia could easily start a conventional war and there is no way NATO would escalate that to nuclear without Russia using nuclear weapons first.

What makes you think NATO nations wouldn't do such a thing, if there were a conventional war between them and Russia? War is essentially irrational, and it causes governments and the general population to desire ends that can only be pursued by harmful, immoral means. What makes NATO immune to this?

In principle nothing, but in practice NATO has shown considerable restraint so far and I see no reason why they would suddenly and catastrophically deviate from that. So unless Russia uses nuclear weapons first - which they have threatened now multiple times - I do not see this or any other conflict NATO is involved in escalate to nuclear.

NATO has never publicly committed to a NFU policy because that would weaken their hand on the political stage but in practice they seem to be following that line. It's a smart way to position themselves, and other nuclear capable entities have done the same.

To add some more context, NATO's refusal to establish a NFU policy dates to the Cold War, when NATO military leaders concluded that defending central Europe from Soviet invasion required a credible threat to deploy tactical nuclear weapons. Confronted with that threat, Soviet forces would have spread out to avoid concentrations large enough to be vulnerable, making a conventional defense feasible by preventing the outnumbering Soviet army from massing to take defended positions, which in turn would provide time for the USA to deploy large armies into Europe. Without this credible threat, the Soviet army would have had the option to pick off a NATO country (i.e. Western Germany) by massing armor columns and forcing a surrender before the USA could deploy a comparable army across the Atlantic.

NATO no longer faces this threat, but the policy remains.

Russia also has not committed to a NFU policy. In fact, they have explicitly stated that, if Russia's survival is threatened (such as, you're rolling tanks over their border), then nukes are in play.

Of course, the problem is that Putin has a very expansive idea of "what threatens Russia"...

Putins ideas of what threatens Russia are not rooted in reality.

I absolutely agree. It's just that, if Putin has these unrealistic ideas of what threatens Russia (like an independent Ukraine), and Putin has stated that Russia can use nukes if it is threatened, and Putin is the one who gets to make the call about whether Russia is threatened enough to use nukes... then I really don't like that one man, disconnected from reality, can start a nuclear war.

Yes, but he's so decoupled from reality that if he wants to do that any pretext will serve so I don't think this will make a difference at all. Putin will do what he thinks he has to do regardless of the rest of the world. It's well beyond logic by now. Russia will suffer for decades after Putin is gone on account of what is happening today no matter how much worse he makes it.

Because NATO would overwhelmingly defeat Russia in a conventional war. There is no real upside and there is very real downside for NATO to escalating a conventional war with Russia to a nuclear war.

The US maintains nuclear ambiguity. A first strike wouldn’t happen under current conditions, but one could easily imagine it happening if the US had credible evidence that Russia was preparing a nuclear attack. Nuclear logic and the ladder of escalation are very terrible things.

Finland joining NATO benefits the military-industrial complex immensely. There are HUGE profits to be made in the effort required to get NATO and Finnish military standards aligned.

Bullshit. Both Sweden and Finland have "NATO-compatible" militaries and took part in many NATO exercises over the years.

.. and will now be recipients of billions in funding towards the cause.

Don't even try to pretend NATO isn't a major profit center for the American military-industrial complex. That is the only reason for its funding and existence in lieu of actual diplomacy and sane foreign policy.

> .. and will now be recipients of billions in funding towards the cause.

Any money for their militaries will have to come out of their own budgets, just like before. NATO doesn't have any coffers for "recipients of funding".

No wonder you're opinions are so warped; you just don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

> Finland joining NATO benefits the military-industrial complex immensely. There are HUGE profits to be made in the effort required to get NATO and Finnish military standards aligned.

Those profits have already been made, because both Finnish and Swedish military standards have been NATO-aligned for decades already.

Maybe you'd have a somewhat more sane perception of the world if you actually knew anything about it.

Why would it cause NATO more expenses? Finland takes care of patrolling the border, just like before. There's no intention to get foreign troops to guard our borders (or even foreign troops at all in Finland beyond exercises).

> There's no intention to get foreign troops to guard our borders (or even foreign troops at all in Finland beyond exercises).

Preferably quite a few exercises in the near future... Until ratification is through.

Finland knows all about Russian/Soviet aggression and have had to build and maintain a strong military force for that reason.

Plus, speaking as a fellow Nordic... The Finns are our brothers and sisters. Of course they are welcome.

The Baltics are very vulnerable and with Finland nearby they can easily be supported.

Looking at Russias performance against Ukraine Finland and Sweden alone would easily hold them off. Nato won’t need to spend much resources to protect Finland.

Ukraines terrain is as easy as as it gets for Russia. Finland is full of lakes, forests and mountains. Logistics is 100 times harder.

Finland and Sweden both have strong militaries (for their population size) that have been using NATO-compatible hardware for years, along with taking part in exercises with other NATO militaries.

They’ll be self-sufficient assets to the alliance, and being in NATO makes their status unambiguous should Putin or whoever follows get any more bad ideas.

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