Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Finland or Sweden joining NATO would spark Russian response, Russia warns

tbsnews.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 317 posts

Re: Finland or Sweden joining NATO would spark Russian response, Russia warns

#101

Post by jdminhbg »

whatshisface wrote: post #29
voisin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why were you skeptical of NATO membership? What are the downsides?

America runs NATO and does not have a perfect history of only getting involved in justified wars itself. Being a NATO member means that other members can drag you in to something you wouldn't join yourself. For example, NATO helped in Iraq and Afghanistan (in small ways, by supporting the US-supported local forces), which weren't going to attack France for example any time soon. What Russia has done is made the odds…

> NATO helped in Iraq and Afghanistan

A number of NATO countries joined both Iraq wars, but not all. The only one where Article V was invoked and NATO was officially involved was Afghanistan.

Re: Finland or Sweden joining NATO would spark Russian response, Russia warns

#102

Post by gerikson »

whatshisface wrote: post #29
voisin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why were you skeptical of NATO membership? What are the downsides?

America runs NATO and does not have a perfect history of only getting involved in justified wars itself. Being a NATO member means that other members can drag you in to something you wouldn't join yourself. For example, NATO helped in Iraq and Afghanistan (in small ways, by supporting the US-supported local forces), which weren't going to attack France for example any time soon. What Russia has done is made the odds…

Sweden was a participant in ISAF too.

Re: Finland or Sweden joining NATO would spark Russian response, Russia warns

#103

Post by actuator »

causi wrote: post #72
ethanbond wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This obviously has nothing to do with finances and everything to do with the fact that no one wants soldiers of two nuclear powers shooting guns at each other. This is the actual logic of nuclear weapons, and there is no going back to the world as it was before they existed.

It wouldn't be the first time two nuclear powers fought in a country bordering one of them. Chinese and American soldiers fought in Vietnam.

India and Pakistan both have also fought wars with each other after getting nukes.

Sadly, getting nukes seems to be the way out of costs of doing anything bad. Pakistan has waged guerilla warfare against its neighbours and got money from US while harboring their enemy, but can't do anything about it, because nukes.

Re: Finland or Sweden joining NATO would spark Russian response, Russia warns

#104

Post by hnarn »

GoodJokes wrote: post #38
ceejayoz wrote: post #3

"We'll invade you if you join NATO" loses its power a bit when you invade people who haven't joined NATO.

Putin has been saying for the past decade that he would not tolerate further eastward expansion of NATO, a thoroughly anti-russian alliance. It is a reasonable position. No, invading independent countries is not reasonable. One can hold both these thoughts in their head.

> It is a reasonable position.

It is not. Russia does not have any say in what alliances other nations choose to join -- apart from the "last argument of kings" of course, and what's scary to me is that there are so many people like you around that seem to have this Clausewitz idea of war being "politics by other means" even in the present day.

Your comment clearly makes excuses for Russia's actions, so no, in your case you are not keeping both of these thoughts in your head.

Would you be so quick to defend the United States in the same manner if they had expressed concerns about Mexico's foreign policies for the past ten years? Or an invasion of an alternate-reality Cuba with a democratically elected government tomorrow?

Re: Finland or Sweden joining NATO would spark Russian response, Russia warns

#105

Post by wavefunction »

sandworm101 wrote: post #68

I don't understand why Russia, or anyone else, thinks that Ukraine was anywhere near joining NATO. Ukraine had bits of it that were occupied by Russia, specifically Crimea. There was no way Ukraine would have been allowed to join under such circumstances because such occupations would have immediately triggered Article 5. Letting Ukraine into NATO would be tantamount to declaring war on Russia. It was never a real op…

Putin is lying when he proffers reasons and rationalizations for the evil and illegal acts of his government.

Re: Finland or Sweden joining NATO would spark Russian response, Russia warns

#106

Post by causi »

octopoc wrote: post #80
causi wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would defending Ukraine with US soldiers be good for the US? Absolutely not. The best outcome for the US is if Ukraine turns into a Vietnam for Russia for the next couple decades, with high casualties for the Russians and high casualties among Ukrainian civilians to keep the whole world strongly against Russia. That doesn't make it right , though. The right thing to do is to help other people even when it doesn't ben…

> The right thing to do is to help other people even when it doesn't benefit you. Why does it have to be the American men and women getting killed? Russia is never going to cross the ocean and attack us, and if they did they would never win. Why can't the EU defend itself? It ought to be strong enough. If the EU is sustainable it should be able to defend itself without outsourcing 95% of its defense to a foreign powe…

Ukraine is not in the EU.

Re: Finland or Sweden joining NATO would spark Russian response, Russia warns

#107

Post by dragonwriter »

mindslight wrote: post #62
dragonwriter wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the “justification” for invading Ukraine was that they didn't rule out joining NATO in the future, and in fact have an official policy of seeking NATO membership, which puts them farther along the process than Sweden or Finland. OTOH, Sweden or Finland could probably join more quickly and with less friction if they decided to seek membership, and I can easily see the result of this being pushing Sweden and/or…

I'm sure NATO could come up with some way of quickly accepting a country as something like a protected candidate, making a pledge to defend them against retaliation during the democratic process of deciding to actually join or not. There would be a strong incentive to continue joining NATO afterwards (or face the pending retaliation), but it would certainly mitigate this bullying posture.

I think in the short term, there's a couple NATO countries that have been leary of expansion that Russia doesn't like (I think Hungary particularly), but it's not clear how the situation in Ukraine (and/or, in Hungary’s case, specifically, it's upcoming election) will impact that.

Re: Finland or Sweden joining NATO would spark Russian response, Russia warns

#108

Post by avgcorrection »

causi wrote: post #22
belter wrote: post #5

As I wrote in another thread today, current EU and US leaders are asleep at the wheel. We have a different dynamic. Talking about sanctions looks almost pathetic. The analogy here is, you live in a community and one of your neighbors just lost it completely and is shooting and shelling another neighbor. Not to raise the hostilities...you scream at him he wont be invited anymore for the Christmas party and you will co…

Seven hundred billion dollars a year and we can't even defend the weak unless it looks profitable on the balance sheet. Never have I been more ashamed to be American than I was yesterday.

Well the point of that budget isn’t to defend the weak.

In this case though it is the right choice to make regardless since a Nato country can’t attack Russian forces without risking nuclear war.

Re: Finland or Sweden joining NATO would spark Russian response, Russia warns

#109

Post by tedivm »

whatshisface wrote: post #29
voisin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why were you skeptical of NATO membership? What are the downsides?

America runs NATO and does not have a perfect history of only getting involved in justified wars itself. Being a NATO member means that other members can drag you in to something you wouldn't join yourself. For example, NATO helped in Iraq and Afghanistan (in small ways, by supporting the US-supported local forces), which weren't going to attack France for example any time soon. What Russia has done is made the odds…

I think part of this is that the non-US NATO countries basically let the US run it. The only NATO countries which seem to meet the financial and military requirements of the organization are the ones on Russia's border. So the US pays the money to support the alliance while Germany uses the money it's saved to purchase gas and oil from Russia so it can close down it's nuclear plants.

Re: Finland or Sweden joining NATO would spark Russian response, Russia warns

#110

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

causi wrote: post #22
belter wrote: post #5

As I wrote in another thread today, current EU and US leaders are asleep at the wheel. We have a different dynamic. Talking about sanctions looks almost pathetic. The analogy here is, you live in a community and one of your neighbors just lost it completely and is shooting and shelling another neighbor. Not to raise the hostilities...you scream at him he wont be invited anymore for the Christmas party and you will co…

Seven hundred billion dollars a year and we can't even defend the weak unless it looks profitable on the balance sheet. Never have I been more ashamed to be American than I was yesterday.

The USA is helping a lot, much more than Germany. Sending soldiers is not an option for obvious reasons - but everything else is.
Post reply on HN