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Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

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Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#471

Post by [deleted] »

eej71 wrote: post #405
koide wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know that the fossil energy sources are also intermittent? No energy plant is ever working 24x7x365. Stop with the fud already. There are real concerns with solar and wind that could be ameliorated with small scale storage, nuclear, geothermal and hydro. But to call them toxic and destabilizing is patently untrue, the destabilizing factor is not renewable energy.

The dream of any kind of small scale storage hinges on mining rare earth elements at a scale that no environmentalist will ever support. The greens will fully reverse course here once it becomes clear what kind of activity is required to make that possible. I call them destablizing because the unjustified attacks on fossil fuels have delivered free countries into the economic hands of despotic regimes.

[deleted]

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#472

Post by noir_lord »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #111
int_19h wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually did consider joining the EU, and even NATO at one point, but it wasn't taken seriously by either. The NATO intervention in Kosovo was also a major stumbling block. Internally, democratic reforms in the 90s became associated with 1) corruption far worse than Soviets had, and 2) right-wing economic measures ("liberalization") that messed up the economy and created a lot of hardship for the population at the…

Yes, the US did not get this right. At all. Russia could have been Germany-fied with a friendlier and supportive hand. Instead it was handed over to evangelical neoliberals, whose imposed economics guaranteed that only the most feral opportunists and violent gangsters would thrive. Russia could have become a modern social democracy, but now it's a crumbling militaristic dictatorship state run by a raging senile paran…

> Even allowing for hyperbole the worry is that Russia is capable of a zero-warning decapitation strike, combined with remote mass infrastructure attacks and internal terrorism. Any response would be relatively ineffective.

Does this hypothetical Tom Clancy scenario also plan how to deal with all the silo's the US has with missiles in them and the ballistic missile submarines which exist exactly as a hedge against these kinds of wild scenario's.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#473

Post by londons_explore »

amcoastal wrote: post #401
londons_explore wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But when a country has joined NATO, it can later declare it will host nuclear weapons loaned from other NATO countries. Russia is powerless to stop this, since any attack on a NATO country would likely trigger a counterattack. Hence, instead, Russia must prevent these countries joining if they want to ensure no nukes on their border.

Russia is already bordered by multiple NATO countries. You should not be parroting Kremlin talking points at this time.

> Russia is already bordered by multiple NATO countries

And they aren't happy about it. At the time, they weren't in a position to do much about it though.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#474

Post by noir_lord »

enimodas wrote: post #441
wiz21c wrote: post #118

Why does Putin try to invade parts of Ukraine ? What's its interest ? Is it economical ? is it for interior politics ? is it to destabilize Europe ? does someone can conjecture a bit ?

Cultural encroachment (think monroe doctrine), nato encroachment (think Cuban missile crisis). Less important but probably considered: geopolitically Russia needs buffer states in the east because there's no natural defenses/borders. It's an easy invasion from that direction. Good article: https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220222-moldova-then-geo... Key quote: “Russia is always anxious about foreign penetration –…

Also Ukraine has massive coal reserves (that's where the name Donbas comes from) and some of the richest agricultural land in the world.

This assumes that Russia tries to capture and hold ground though and we've seen how insurgency wars have worked out for the Russians and Americans for the last 3 decades.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#475

Post by masklinn »

masklinn wrote: post #239
cm2187 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you do that? The reason europe needs russian gas is precisely because renewables are very intermittent, and they use gas to compensate. More renewable means more reliance on gas, unless you build nuclear plants. And if you do, you might as well not build renewables because the cost of nuclear is pretty much the same whether you use it or not.

The reason europe uses gas isn’t even electricity, it’s mostly heating and industrial. For instance in france’s energy budget nat gas is almost as large as the entire electricity production . The policy over the last few decades has been to put everyone on gas distribution networks and encourage switching furnaces (from furnace oil, tbf).

For an other example, nat gas accounts for 13% of germany’s electric production (out of about 600TWh). In accounts for nearly 25% of the primary energy mix (out of about 3700TWh).

Even assuming all the gas plants are simple cycle peaking plants with horrid efficiency (say 20% which is extremely low even for peaking plants), electricity still would account for about 40% of germany’s nat gas consumption.

In reality, much as in france, the vast majority (~75%) of nat gas goes to heating.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#476

Post by doikor »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #330
hef19898 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But also a country with a history of coming to terms with the USSR, and notably one that didn't receive a NATO membership invitation guarantee (working of Wikipedia). Ukraine and Georgia did, both also want to join NATO. Finland has no such plans (again, working of Wikipedia).

Having just watched the Finnish president and prime minister address the situation, the press' pressing questions about joining NATO were continually downplayed, as is customary. Finland is almost militantly neutral, since that was the original condition to independence in the first place. On the other hand, Russia just voided the Minsk agreement with Ukraine to attack, so... Imagine being Russia's border neighbor, m…

> Finland is almost militantly neutral, since that was the original condition to independence in the first place.

Finland a long time ago voided/broke the Paris peace treaty on their own. Basically once the Germany unified in 1990 Finland went "nope we don't like this peace treaty anymore".

If Finland was still following the treaty we would not be allowed to have aircraft that can deploy bombs, mere than 60 planes (including civilian airfact registered to Finland), more than 34k total infantry+border guard, 10k tons total displacement of navy, no sea mines or torpedoes. Finland has gone way past these since.

The only part of the Paris peace treaty we still follow is the no nukes part and that due to signing a separate treaty about not getting nukes in the 70s.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#477

Post by tim333 »

trhway wrote: post #306
rebuilder wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what that reflects. Sanctions would not be very popular among the Russian population, is this just the regime calming down the populace? Or does it genuinely reflect the calculus here?

Realistically Russia can't occupy any significant part of Ukraine, nor Kiev in particular - tens of millions of pissed-off resisting Ukrainians with many taking up arms (on Ukrainian TV they said that they already give arms to such civilians as former police, and Zelenskiy said that they would give arms to all "willing and capable to defend the country") would shake off any army, and any such occupation attempt would…

They may be thinking of installing another Lukashenko type as president and then leaving.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#478

Post by napmo »

jdrc wrote: post #453

Would be interesting to hear from any russians in here, because i can't help to think that large majority of russians are complicit to what seems to be a dictator going mad as much as the dictators in his neighborhood (aliyev, khomeini, taliban etc)

Or Bennett, Netanyahu, and other Israeli maniacs targeting Palestinian people. Illegal Israeli settlers are for sure complicit to these.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#479

Post by llampx »

cute_boi wrote: post #452
nickpp wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving up everything trying to avoid a nuclear war is the surest way to get it. I know, it's counterintuitive, but if you want peace you must be willing to go to war.

The last sentence is an oxymoron. How would there be peace if you go to war?

Current war for future peace.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#480

Post by CodeGlitch »

ricardobayes wrote: post #155
CodeArtisan wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 to "enforce peace". Same with Crimea in 2014. Then Luhansk and Donetsk a few days ago. Now the rest of Ukraine. Discussion with Putin is futile. When Russia started sending troops next to the Ukraine borders, NATO and especially USA should have responded by sending two thousands soldiers to Kiev. It's too late now.

Next up is Finland. Also not a NATO member.

I believe Finland has a compulsory conscription system for all males over 18:

https://puolustusvoimat.fi/en/finnish-conscription-system

Therefore I do not think Finland would be a walk-over for the Russians...not to mention what happened last time Russia fought Finland:

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

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