Vladimir Putin, in speech, hints at further territorial expansion for Russia
smh.com.au
smh.com.au
More competent would be fine. Well, not for Russians. It will be terrible for them. But a competent Putin wouldn't have invaded Ukraine.
The risk and historical pattern is the people surrounding a paranoid autocrat tend to be more zealous, not less. They've internalized the propaganda. And they never had to drop the act to make the good decisions that got o.g. autocrat onto the throne. Putin was and likely remains a competent spook. His cronies are good at embezzling.
However, as I understand it, Putin has undermined any obvious successors and stoked divisions in the Kremlin to secure his grip. If so, infighting may let a united opposition under Navalny succeed.
Another alternative would be the breakup of the Federation. Some of the republics in the federation like Komi, Tartarstan, Ossetia, Sakha and Karelia have strong national identities and may unilaterally declare independence during the choas. Many of those will end up like the 'stans, but many would at least try to follow the example of the Baltics.
To be clear I'm being more hopeful than realistic here, but one can always hope. But the clear prerequisite for the hopeful scenarios is a resounding defeat in the Ukraine war. We in the west need to strongly support Ukraine not just to save Ukraine but also on the off chance that it might save the Russian people too.
That's highly unlikely. In a dictatorship, competent people don't survive long in positions of power.
https://twitter.com/MarkGaleotti/status/1531956066451394577 (https://nitter.it/MarkGaleotti/status/1531956066451394577)
I'm a fluent Russian speaker and sometimes I watch a few Russian nightly "talk-shows", start to finish, to get a feel for how Putin's propaganda machine is changing over time. Well, since February, it's been in such overdrive, pumping Russians full of vicious hatred of all things "Western" and delusions of grandeur, that I honestly think it's possible for the regime to lose control. They are convincing the riff-raff that they're about to take on NATO and win. Maybe they don't have intentions of starting WW3, but what if Putin is offed or dies suddenly and the populace, driven to such jingoist frenzy that it lost all sense of reality and actually believes they can take on NATO and win, puts an even more evil and reckless "rebuilder of empire" on the throne? Even authoritarian dictatorships are affected by the mood of the mob.
In the first couple months of the war, there were lots of explosions/fires at major Russia industrial or infrastructure sites that got reported; I’ve seen fewer reports recently, but I don't know if it is happening less or Russia has clamped down on the news more effectively.
At any given moment there are a million foreign people freely traveling around the US- some on vacation, some visiting family, some for school, some for work, some for medical treatment, etc. It's relatively trivial for a nefarious organization to find a person who speaks English and can legally enter the US.
For Russia (among other places) none of this is true. Visas to enter the country are harder to acquire, movement within the country on such a visa is still constrained, a smaller number of foreigners means easier for intelligence to monitor, and far fewer people have the language skills or physical characteristics to blend into the local populace.
>refineries venting poison gas into populated areas
Hard to think of a better way to become the villain in the story. This has not occurred, but not necessarily because the means of making it happen aren't there.
That seems like a job for the Russian propaganda machine. Just as they manipulated malleable minds towards one idea, they can do it towards another: "We were never at war with NATO".
> Attempts to meet this expansion with appeasement will end in WW3.
Or, perhaps, this war already is WW3, the question is how it ends, not whether it starts. (Yeah, most of the big powers aren't openly directly engaged, just supporting one of the belligerents with military and economic aid and intelligence and sanctions on the opposing belligerent. But that's a choice of how to fight the war, and that's been made very clear—the US explicitly invoking lend-lease in naming it's aid bill for Ukraine couldn't be a more pointed declaration of how it sees the situation.)
There's plenty of arguments, some reasonable, that there have been one or more World Wars since WW2.
Feel free to read WW3 in GP as “WWn+1”; I’m not interested in arguing against any particular construction of the number of prior world wars.
Things are always building up to one major event. Those events are as much responsible, as much as the last event before the big war?
Can't agree more on this part, its a bully that understands only force of the stronger, any concept of law, fairness, democracy etc. are simply not present there. Soft approach is publicly maybe welcomed, but privately laughed at as clear show of weakness.
I am vastly disappointed by Macron's attempts to still please him, to have some sort of 'graceful loss' like something similar is possible right now or acceptable by either side. I guess you can afford some pompous PR bullshit like that if there are multiple big countries between you and the invader.
A bit sad considering France didn't have it rosy with germans in WWII but I guess that memory is too old now, and its more important to get french car factories in Russia again running (or honestly I can't get another good reason for such stance, EU is facing by far biggest military threat since its existence and such stance is completely irrational when looking on it from long term perspective).
Ukraine cannot win in the traditional sense (capturing Moscow (although even that was insufficient for Napoleon) and forcing a surrender). It has to force Russia's surrender through other means - making the war unpopular, too costly in men and money, etc. This could literally take years since Russia is a dictatorship with lots of humans to sacrifice. Giving Putin an "honourable out" is probably the fastest way to bring the war to a stop. It's highly unlikely it will work, on multiple levels - Russia wouldn't agree, Ukraine sure as hell won't, and even if they did, it wouldn't last. Still, you can see where Macron is coming from - be it for humanitarian or practical reasons ( like the fact that the EU needs Russian gas for the foreseeable future and keeps paying to Russia, or that pushing an unhinged man with nuclear weapons to desperation might not end well).
In any case, yes, Russia must lose decisively, Germany WWII style, not Germany WWI style where the population didn't get it.
I almost agree, except on democracy. This type is not something strange unseen at home, it is a common mindset among ambitious powerful persons in Europe and the West as well. And here at home just as in Russia, these types often enjoy democratic support. Hitler was a democratically elected and supported leader. Orban is too. Brexit leaders were too. Trump just as well.
We can't just magically get rid of this type of leader and its threat to us, calling for more democracy and law. Our politics, business and culture are full of such gangster types, and in some cases they do have democratic support.
I write this to point out that we should be realist on these things, not indulge in indignation and moral superiority. Russia has a strongman leadership that we fear, but they probably look at us the same way, with valid reasons. After all, the West did reveal its nasty face in Serbia, Iraq, Libya, and so on. That did not evade Putin's attention.
> I am vastly disappointed by Macron's attempts to still please him... A bit sad considering France didn't have it rosy with germans in WWII...honestly I can't get another good reason for such stance, EU is facing by far biggest military threat since its existence and such stance is completely irrational when looking on it from long term perspective).
France benefited by folding to Hitler - they limited destruction and loss of lives. And Hitler did not even have nuclear weapons. Some people do not realize it, but the game has changed, it now involves planetary scale destruction. Americans/NATO understand this and measure their response carefully. Macron's activities seem a valid strategy, considering it is just good manners, keeping that channel opened. It is infuriating for the Ukraine leadership, yes, it helps Putin, yes, it is not ideal, yes, but it is in the interest of big business to get back to business.
A gangster knows when to go to war, and when to make a deal with another gangster. That's the realpolitik.
> EU is facing by far biggest military threat since its existence and such stance is completely irrational when looking on it from long term perspective
Soviet Union was much bigger threat. Nobody expects present-day Russia to take on any NATO country.
I've been really struck by how one of the most popular shows features presenters and guests standing on a stage discussing or arguing about the day's news in front of an audience; literally news theater. Of course, one could argue that western TV formats are also theatrical in their way; sitting around or behind desks to give an air of collegiality or authority, respectively; or just explaining visual events with a disembodied voice, inviting its adoption as internal monologue.
Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media was written early the cold war and though it's dated in many respects, it was sufficiently forward thinking that it's still a useful and thought-provoking read today: his basic idea is that there are different paths toward the construction of meaning in the mind of audience members, and that the way in which information is presented is often far more important than the content of the information.
So, they've copied CNN Crossfire (first aired in 1982), but added “standing up”?
the recordings of those shows will be a class material for the classes on modern nazism for the decades to come. A "master-nation" constantly talking on TV about getting rid of "ukraininess" while the Putin's SS force "Russian Guard" abducts and disappears on the occupied territories Ukrainian business an political leadership, activists and armed forces veterans (the same approach what USSR did in 1939 in Poland) - after days of torture some of them appear back very lifelessly claiming change of views and becoming pro-Russian and collaborating with the occupant regime while others just disappear probably into the mobile crematoriums and mass graves like in Bucha.
They also have a huge amount of oil and natural gas and coal.
They also have plenty of brilliant people who are happy to work on a variety of projects where the outcome maybe a rapidly spreading drop tables computer virus or possibly even a rapidly spreading virus virus, certainly they've got a variety of boutique poisons for all occasions.
Having fewer resources than everyone else isn't a serious constraint if you're not constrained morally or legally, and vlad the underware poisoner isn't constrained by anything except possibly father time.
Nuclear winter and the fallout will probably weaken or destroy much of the rest of the world, but if places like China/India/Africa survive them better, maybe they can rebuild faster and"conquer" what's left of the current first world in a century or two.
Depends on the type of the bomb. For Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was mostly over in a matter of months.
Yes, but this sword can cut both ways and time is not in the side of Russia. Once the Pandora box is opened, is opened and you don't need to poison massively people to face retaliation. If millions of people in many countries of Africa would start starving by one man stealing and blocking all the grain, is practically guaranteed that Moscow would meet casually a lot of African diseases not previously seen in the area.
In any case, the words of Putin are just propaganda to convince more naive Russian men to join the army and die for his delusions of grandeur.
To put it another way, around 8 years ago the U.S. found its own nuclear arsenal had deteriorated due to the usual organization reasons, to the point that only a singular wrench existed for servicing the MinuteMan warhead and thus had to be constantly FedEx-ed between bases like a stupid game of hot potato[1]. In response, the U.S. is undertaken one of the largest overhaul of it's arsenal ever, that's planned to take place over the next 30 years. The first decade of this program is estimated to have cost $348 billion dollars and will ultimately come out to around trillion once all is said and done[2].
The current entire military budget of Russia is $65 billion. A budget they have masterfully used to buy cheap Chinese tires, moldy MREs, cardboard ERA, and funny tank cages. Despite this, they claim to maintain an aresenal of 4500 warheads, or around 700 more than the global hyperpower that ran out of wrenches.
[1]https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-wrench-nuclear-bases/stor...
[2]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renovation_of_the_nuclear_we...
And with nuclear weapons, the exact number of them is not that important. Even if Russia's working warhear number is 1/10 of the declared one, it is still a valid deterrent.
On any given day you can read both that Russia is struggling and that Ukraine is ceding territory fast.
Plenty, yes. FT, Reuters, Guardian, etc.
Fast is pretty relative. Considering the fact we've been hearing about fighting in Severodonetsk for what, a week, at least, now? Russia's advance is dangerous, brutal, but very narrow and slow compared to the initial "blitzkrieg" they tried to pull of. But not WWI ten meters a day slow.
We coined the word "blitzcringe" (блицкринж) to describe this situation.
Those aren't incompatible situations in this kind of war. Russia is advancing fairly quickly (though not without significant reverses) since focusing on taking a strip of southern territory rather than decapitating and forcing the surrender of the Ukrainian regime.
There are also still taking insanely high casualties and material losses that cannot be replenished on any reasonable timescale (Ukraine is taking high casualties, proportionately more than Russia, but also defending their homes; this matters in terms of casualties that can be taken without collapsing the populations will to fight; and Ukraine is getting a flood of material from outside supporters.)
While there's wide variance in estimates, Russia's casualties in its four month war look to be at least in the neighborhood of those the Soviet Union took in its decade long war in Afghanistan, which was widely seen as the USSRs Vietnam and a major contributor to the fall of the country, and the USSR was much bigger than Russia. And it's ever worse when you look at the casualties among senior officers and combat pilots.
Russia also has a bad habit of advancing and then failing to hold territory. Ukraine, for good measure, has become good at baiting them into overextending.
41M (Ukraine) vs 145M (Russia)
I'm curious on what are the numbers for military age men as Russia is demographically fucked.
Pretty much none. Everything is too opinionated and post-truth-ish, best strategy would be to diversify sources pushing different angles, and then cross-reference.
That's true on different fronts. Recently Ukraine lost territory in Donetsk & Lugansk while recovering territory at Kharkiv and Kherson.
Russia concentrated forces at Donetsk & Lugansk, it's their biggest offensive. Ukraine concentrated forces at Kherson, it's their offensive.
In other words both sides are trading territory with no clear winner while losing a ton of men and equipment where Russia is apparently losing a lot more. Giving this it's said that Russian campaign is unsustainable on the long term but Ukrainians are also under equiped and depend on donations & leases.
Doesn't seem to be stopping them. The problem with crazy is it will do things not in its self interest.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluge_(history)
Peter the Great indeed did “take back” the land from Sweden, which Sweden had conquered from Russia about a century beforehand.
Nyenschantz was built in 1611 to establish Swedish rule in Ingria, which had been annexed from the Tsardom of Russia during the Time of Troubles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Stolbovo
> From the outset, Sweden had gone into the negotiations with very high ambitions and hopes of fulfilling the old dream of making all Russian trade pass through Swedish territory. As a consequence of that ambition, the Swedes originally demanded far-reaching territorial gains into western Russia, including the important northern port of Arkhangelsk.[3]
> However, King James I of England sent a delegation to mediate, and the United Provinces did the same, mostly to ensure that Arkhangelsk did not fall into Swedish hands, which would have made the extensive trade between Western Europe and Russia far more difficult.
Alongside Russia [1]. Also, all this happened in the 17th century. When Russia was still finishing its conquest of Siberia [2].
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Polish_War_(1654–1667)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_conquest_of_Siberia#17...
Certainly no one was “justified” here, I just meant to point out that the article is written to be misleading. The region in question (St. Petersburg) does indeed seem to have been occupied by Russians for a considerable period of time prior to Sweden occupying it.
I’ll steal that.
Others are not.
Try to read something you know very well in the media and understand that there is no reason for other parts that you know less to be more correct (even if you believe naively that there is no propaganda).
They’re all appalling but really effective. They’ve been trained well.
Kyiv recapitulating Kabul was basically every Western analyst's assessment until at least several days into the war. If Russia had executed a lightning strike there would have been little war and, likely, few long-term consequences.
But it's also important to know that Ukraine's army today is far different than that of 2014. In 2014, Ukraine's army was far more like Russia's in training and leadership, except it also had many pro-Putin leaders that have now been purged from leadership. There has also been a big change in style of leadership, as has been shown throughout this phase of the war.
In 2014, there was an argument for doing more:
https://www.armytimes.com/opinion/2014/11/28/opinion-a-case-...
You mean his policy of building up the capacity of the Ukrainian military so that they could stand against Russia might be validated by Ukrainian victory now? Or are we going to timewarp into an alternate reality where we instead rush them arms and convince them to fight to the death over Crimea in 2014 to prove that that policy would have been wrong?
I think west as whole should really focus now on trying its best to make sure russians can't do high tech anymore, military or not. Can't stop such country making dumb ammo and cannons but nothing fancy.
Ukraine had much smaller, and less well trained, armed forces in 2014 to use any weapons that would have been sent; much of the US aid from 2014 on was directed at dealing with capacity building and training, as well as providing basic nonlethal gear like helmets and body armor and a whole bunch of core logistical equipment. Weapons are necessary, but not sufficient, for an effective military.
- Russia feeling threatened by NATO expansion
- Ukraine having plenty of natural ressources
- Building the infrastructure to harvest the natural ressources by western companies would mean closer ties to the west and accelerated EU / NATO membership talks and also less dependence of the west on Russias energy (or a direct competition)
The true goal was to distract the attention of regular Russians from his failures inside the country, from the looting by him and other KGB cronies, make sure he stays in power, gets elected again. Or alternatively, no one would challenge the local status quo, all the oligarchs keep their wealth, continue sucking on mother's Russia titty while 99% of population is poor as fck. Why the hell each Russian soldier would then try to loot a washing machine, a TV set or a toilet and bring that back some 1000+ kilometres into the depth of Russia?! Because they are already piss poor, and then don't know it. And in their wildest dreams none of them would ever believe that it's Putin and his cronies that have put them in this missery. Putin is a fcking thief, a dictator whom TV-zombied avera Russian adores.
Provide any evidence of that, at all
Only in the minds of the most fevered Kremlin apologists is that a promise by NATO not to let other nations join.
Also, I’d like to stress that the fact that those assurances were made, and later not adhered to, in absolutely no way excuses Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, or their previous annexation of the Crimea.
Already soviets did this with warsaw-pact countries (poland, czechoslovakia, hungary) - shield against western europe, a battlefield where WWII was supposed to be fought. Invaded these countries that are not even close to russia and kept their iron hand above (and large military bases).
Also it's not like Europe sent so much there is nothing left. It's mostly stockpiles of older kit that was in reserve.
Plus Putin is not that insane to attack EU, his plan was revealed by an idiot that it is to go in Moldova next, then probably the other neighbors that are not in NATO yet.
End This War - not Endless War
where did I see that?
They _are_ nervous. Serbia might start acting Serbian again too
It's a client, but not quite like (certainly, not as cooperative as) Belarus. But, for the USSR, that was true of Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion, too, but the invasion still happened.
And Kazakhstan turned down the public request Russia made for troops for Ukraine, a request that would not have been publicly made if Putin didn't expect a positive response, and declined to recognize the DPR and LPR.
(Regarding how, I have no useful input. )
It clearly intends to connect at least enclaves in Moldova to the swath of southern Ukraine it seeks to take (having likely abandoned any near term prospect of displacing the Ukrainian regime generally), probably also at least parts of Georgia.
It may also seek to bring other CSTO members into the Russia/Belarus “Union State” and make that Union State into a tighter confederation. (And possibly not just by diplomacy; invasion of insufficiently cooperative clients is something that the USSR—hardly uniquely among major powers—did quite a lot of, and a Russian leader who openly sees the USSR as a prior incarnation of Russia whose empire was squandered and improperly dismantled might well turn to the same tactics to restore it.)
Beyond that, unless it can somehow neutralize NATO or is willing to go directly to war with it, Russia seems pretty constrained.
Strategically speaking, Moldova and Baltic states, which Russia wants very much too, automatically become an easy prey in such a scenario. Russia really hates and very afraid of Intermarrium or anything resembling it. And Putin promised Lukashenko Baltic ports. Basically Russia is trying to make 4th partition of Poland and it starts to look like West Europe, though fortunately not US, start to give a bit of consideration to it.
Most probably Poland will get baited into the fight outside article 5 when Russia starts butchering deep inside Central and West Ukraine.
Poland loves the opportunity to bloody Russia, but they also love not being the ones to be bleeding for their sovereignty.
The rest of the world, at least the ones that stand to gain by weakening Russia, should absolutely follow in their footsteps.
Some idiots in the US have been crying that we've sent 1/3rd of our Stinger stocks to Ukraine, as if 1) the stinger is a desirable anti-aircraft platform and should be pushed as a mainstay of American defense, instead of an oldish system that could use a serious upgrade if we wanted it to be useful in a peer conflict, and 2) America actually relied on stingers at all, and didn't have the two largest air forces, designed specifically to murder peer adversary air forces.
Remember, as an American, your safety comes mostly from everyone being very far away. We could sent Ukraine our entire air force, and even though they wouldn't know how to use it, America would still have the largest air force in the world in our Navy! Anyone bitching about depleting our own defensive capability helping Ukraine is not arguing in good faith
There is usually not much of a choice. My ancestors from a nobility family (schlyahta) of Grand Douchy of Livonia from before the union with Poland were fighting Moscow Dukedom and later Russian Empire for half a millennia, with for example a far relative being among the leaders of the 1863 Polish uprising. (To their would be dismay i grew up in USSR and was for many years a "Great Russia" chauvinist, a disease very hard to treat :)
Pre-WW2: USA was happily supporting allies in the their fight against Mr. Evil. But Mr. Evil sunk an American ship. WW2 started and soon after Mr. Evil died.
Pre-WW3: It's where we are now. Can you skip the sinking of the ship detail and just go kill Mr. Evil so that life can continue normally? Please.
World War I - 116,516
World War II - 405,399
This was only military deaths, at the time no major bombing of US cities occurred, the closest was the ships destroyed in Pearl Harbor. There are no guarantees that Russia wouldn't start bombing US cities in an all out war, in fact it is quite likely. There is also no telling what China would do. If China were to become involved and join the Russian side after a lengthy battle between the US and Russia, it would essentially play the role that the US did in world war 1 and 2.
There are heavy costs for engaging in a war with an advanced military.
(Preferably without pictures: In the days of printed newspapers one could read at least some articles without seeing Putin's picture 100 times per day. It really gets annoying.)
The simple truth is that Putin succumbed to a temptation few dictators can resist, the temptation of a short-and-glorious-war.
The Mafia, now with nukes, soon at a border near you.
All empires have to face their end eventually and it's well past the time for Russia to demilitarize and make amends for their violent past.
A good place to note I fully condemn Russia for the invasion and loss of lives... I just don't find it surprising in the least and do think NATO expansion catalysed much preventable harm.
Also, as said you shouldn't say "NATO expansion". That's the imperialistic Russian viewpoint. NATO doesn't expand, countries join the alliance.
Imagine this nightmare scenario that we just dodged: Trump in US, Corbyn in UK and Le Pen in France. And just like that, the nuclear shield against Russia is gone.
Its interesting to look back and see clear pattern - all nationalist politicians all being overly friendly with Russia. I can see exactly same pattern also in ie Czech republic and Slovakia where I come from. How ridiculous that is - you are supposed to have your country's interest above other interests, yet actually cheaply sell it off to long term enemy, who is not even hiding much that he is your enemy.
IMHO - they did a good psy-ops span over almost 20 years, dividing, sowing paranoia against everything that made west strong (EU, US, illuminati, soros, gates, covid vaccinations etc.). But not good enough to succeed even though parts of populations are lost probably forever into this primitive them-against-us paranoia hell.
It's not clear to me that they ever stopped the continuous Soviet efforts to undermine the West; one of the reasons, I assume, that Communist groups in the West are so often channels of Russian propaganda despite Russia very much not being Communist is because the Russians just continued to use the channels the Soviet services had in place, as well opening new ones.
There is alternative explanation to being friendly with Russia - some people believe it can work, especially when they are part of NATO. Look at what Merkel was doing, what Orban is doing - Russian oil, gas is all benefits and no drawbacks to their country. Not all friendly relations with Russia are a scheme set up and controlled from Moscow, sometimes it really makes economic sense. Plus there may have been some nice bribes flowing to the right pockets, of course.
https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/e/7/233896.pdf
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_briefs/R...
If we just go to the recent past:
- "Operation Unthinkable" (1945-6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable
- Operation Dropshot (1957) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dropshot
- https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/AERODYNAMIC%20%20%20VOL...
And who knows how many more. Or do not blame those who fight back.
II point: Russian Fed. have the vastest natural resources of the planet in their land. Alone it's fable it's industrial system is not much developed since Soviet era and internal corruption do the rest, BUT with a strong partner, let's say EU (the best tech/industry skills in the world) OR China (the most intensive industrial-State in the world) it's next to be unstoppable.
In the recent past Russia have made various proposals, at least two to the EU to enter the EAEU (EurAsian union) in a fair partnership, one to the USA: enter NATO. All was declined.
What Russia Fed. can do than? Well, the potential partners are on three of it's border: EU, the best. China the most stable. India, the least reliable. Few minors of course, but nothing of similar strength. They try the west first. A fail. They try the est: a suffert success. That's is.
To ensure their own safety and development they need to rebuild the territorial and human extent of Soviet Union, at least to compensate China, they have tried with various degree of success in central Asia, but China is a competitor there. They have collected interesting partnerships in Iran and Africa, but both are not that strong, then they can go to their west. Surely easter-european countries are not that pleased BUT the post-Soviet (not)free-market corruption and destruction is not less strong so some will be against, some will be for.
That's a SIMPLE clear game.
The least simple is understanding neoliberals intentions. Their enemy is China and knowing they lost EU they decide (it's clear from actual economical flagellum) to destroy the EU thanks to local corrupted élites. It's not clear how they can think to been able to counter China WITH Russia allied to it. With EAEU extended to the EU China have an unsafe border with a historic enemy, but like that...
The Finland-Sweden-UK mutual defense pact should be a firewall against that, even before considering the fuzzier interim individual commitments from other NATO members.
An attack on a single EU nation is to invite war with all EU nations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Security_and_Defence_Po...
This is far from settled. Legally, the EU's mutual defence pact [1] has a lot of outs. What counts as "armed aggression"? "Aid and assist[ance]"? "In [one's] power"?
Contrast that to NATO's Article V [2]. "Armed attack" is clearly defined in Article VI and includes no wiggle room on what counts or doesn't count as aggression. "Will assist" is unconditional. (There is the "as it deems necessary" bit.) Most pointedly, NATO trains and strategises together. European common defence is much less organized.
" [1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/glossary/mutual-d...
[2] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.ht...
Also Finnish land sucks, they don’t get anything of value except for a buffer zone (which is what they claim they want but they have nukes so they don’t really need it)