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

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

#111

Post by siekmanj »

iso1631 wrote: post #11
vinceguidry wrote: post #4

It's like Russia was expecting to be able to conduct the largest aggressive conventional military operation in Europe since WW2 and not completely flip the apple cart of the global order.

In terms of troops and materiel deployed in the first few days, how does this compare to (either) Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam or Korea?

From some cursory googling:

Afghanistan peak US troops: 102,000 (2011)

Gulf war peak US troops: 700,000 (1990-1991)

Iraq peak US troops: range from 168,000 - 192,000 (2007)

Vietnam peak US troops: 543,000 (1969)

Korea peak US troops: 320,000, unclear what year

edit: obviously, Russia's involvement in Ukraine over the last few days would be by far the biggest operation in Europe since WW2. Just not globally (by a long shot).

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

#112

Post by actuator »

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…

Oh, this is more on the European nations definitely. Outsourcing their defense to US and being so weak that they can't even do sanctions properly because they need to buy that sweet gas from them.

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

#113

Post by Someone1234 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #32
rhino369 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even worse, when you invade someone who tried to join NATO, was given the same warning, didn't join NATO, and then was invaded anyway. Finland and Sweden should join now while Russia doesn't have the ability to invade (because their forces are busy in Ukraine).

Whether they join or not, Finland and Sweden better beef up their defenses, starting yesterday...

I agree; I think there was this kind of default assumption (due to MAD) that wars in Northern Europe were mostly over. All these recent events have done is prove that nuclear nations will swallow up non-nuclear nations if they don't have a MAD assurance from an alley.

Finland and Sweden should decide themselves what is best, but I only wish the best for both countries and after this I cannot bring myself to believe it couldn't happen again.

The only major benefit Finland has over Ukraine is geography.

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

#114

Post by hnarn »

rhino369 wrote: post #77
voisin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You'll get nuked if Russia and the West ever are stupid enough to start WWIII.

Even if you were correct, does it matter that your European country is not nuked when the rest of them are?

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

#115

Post by dragonwriter »

jdminhbg wrote: post #101
whatshisface wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

NATO was officially involved in several post-invasion support missions in Iraq; not every NATO mission (not even combat missions) results from Article 5.

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

#116

Post by Animats »

zucked wrote: post #27
voisin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

NATO has not been viewed favorably in recent years, and some of it is for good reason. As much as I dislike Trump, he is right that many NATO members don't contribute their fair share. Many countries, even wealthy, highly developed ones, are missing the 2% target by a wide margin. On the name and shame highlight reel is: Norway, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the list goes on. I suspect we will se…

Most European countries have surprisingly dinky armies today. Germany has only 60,000 troops for a population of 83 million. Norway has only 3,725. France has 118,000. The UK has 82,000. There hasn't been much for them to do in decades. That just changed.

Sweden has 24,000 on active duty. Finland has about 21,000. Large for the size of the countries. Both have a draft. Switzerland has 120,000 troops on active duty, a draft, and a large, regularly exercised reserve, for a country with only 8 million people. All are outside NATO and prepared for self-defense.

Of the big powers, the US has 1.3 million. Russia has about 1.4 million, and China has about 2 million.

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

#117

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

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…

> asleep at the wheel

It's worse than that. Some of them are pro-Russia simply because of their knee jerk reaction to be for whatever the president is against.

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

#118

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

djxfade wrote: post #64
tyre wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a world war. The fighting is specific to a single area. The Vietnam War involved at least double the number of involved countries and wasn’t considered a world war.

World War II also started with fighting in a specific single are, until suddenly it wasn't in a single area anymore...

But what about the denominator. All the wars that started in single areas and ended in them too.

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

#119

Post by tedivm »

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.

Yeah but the fact that he invaded an independent country makes all of his other claims baseless. NATO didn't expand to Ukraine, he invaded anyways, so there is no point in appeasing him.

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

#120

Post by belter »

sharken wrote: post #40
lawn wrote: post #2

Then if they did join NATO, then Russia would declare an attack on NATO? Or the more likely explanation is that this threat makes it less likely NATO would accept them.

This is an empty threat from Putin, he may be close to a madman but he is not stupid. Attacking NATO will mean his removal from power, most likely by someone within his own ranks. If Sweden or Finland wants in, then NATO should comply as fast as possible.

Technically, if there were attacked this evening, nobody in the US or EU would come to help them. They would be AND are in the same situation as Ukraine.
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