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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

#131

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

pacetherace wrote: post #98
ch4s3 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's starting to look like Putin may have miscalculated here.

Really? He is fighting to have veto over who gets to join NATO. It will be a victory for him if he is able to freeze NATO membership to the current number. Russian economy maybe be ruined for next decade or longer and most likely Putin will be dead or retired by then but he would be looked in Russia as the guy who keep Russia relevant. Putin is embarrassing US and NATO by destroying Ukraine while they watch helplessl…

> I have utmost sympathy for Ukraine but where were the angry people when US attacked Iraq?

There were massive protests. I was at one in San Francisco.

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

#132

Post by twox2 »

iso1631 wrote: post #15
cjbgkagh wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making triggering WW3 his only remaining choice does not sound like a good idea

When do the billionaires backing him decide they don't want to rule over a nuclear wasteland? Can they even stop him?

billionaire's do not "back" him, they are his proxy. It's his money they are holding, not theirs.

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

#133

Post by whatshisface »

tedivm wrote: post #109
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…

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.

I have wondered if the NATO system would be better-designed if it had specific defense requirements from all countries, but I presently think its current structure (where Germany is allowed to reduce military spending because they're surrounded on all sides by other NATO countries) prevents a worse outcome, where they'd find it in their interest to leave NATO and get the buffer states anyway. Voluntary multilateral treaties like this only work when every signatory believes they're benefiting, and if you asked Germany to raise defense spending they'd respond with "okay, and how will we be compensated?"

Then, you'd say "nevermind, I'd rather spend it on my own armed forces," and you arrive back at NATO.

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

#134

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

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…

The EU sat on it's thumbs while Milosevic ran another mass extermination campaign in europe until the US stepped in. They will never take a proactive stance on their own initiative.

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

#135

Post by Ekaros »

watwut wrote: post #129
Ekaros wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Nah, if this is dig at Biden, he is not doing that badly and is actually better predictable. Also, you don't seem to know what NATO is.

I know, but I have observed what countries in NATO have done. And it's nothing but pure evil. And sadly there has been zero consequences...

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

#136

Post by xoa »

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…

>Being a NATO member means that other members can drag you in to something you wouldn't join yourself.

Of course? That's the entire point of it isn't it? NATO is primarily about "dragging the United States into European war" if you want to phrase it that way, though equally the point is that the threat of doing so prevents a European war involving alliance members in the first place. But the USA is at absolutely zero risk of direct invasion by Russia (or China for that matter). America is the only nation on the planet right now with any significant conventional power projection and logistics capability. NATO members all certainly kind of hope America would nonetheless come anyway.

Along with that is the risk that they'd be called on in turn, so that's a tradeoff but an obvious and straightforward one. When you sign up for insurance, you constantly must pay even if you never collect. Indeed most people very much hope never to need to collect. Hedging against black swan events costs money with by definition a low likelihood of return, but can be worth it anyway at a high enough cost (particularly since the insurers themselves have incentive to prevent rather then react).

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

#137

Post by avgcorrection »

travisgriggs wrote: post #24

We seem to be at an impass. NATO exists to help people not feel threatened by Russia. Putin has decided that the mere existence of a real NATO is a threat to Russia (he's fine with a paper tiger institution that is all but imaginary). It's like a European version of 1860 in the US. As an American, I'd be (emotionally, but not rationally) glad to just put an end to 100 years of Russian aggression, mostly because I'm a…

What concretely does it mean to “put an end to 100 years of Russian aggression” for America? Maybe be more mindful of what you say.

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

#138

Post by svarnypetr »

speeder wrote: post #89
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…

Ukraine added that they will join NATO to their constitution, and in the past months NATO started to ramp up the amount of NATO weaponry in or near Ukraine. Russia reaction is basically the reaction of anyone cornered, something Sun Tzu warned about, if someone is cornered they will fight back hard because they can't retreat, they can only go forward, through whoever is cornering them.

I did not make a reconstruction of the timeline, but weren't the NATO amounts growing only after the Russian troops started growing and doing their larger and larger exercises that seemed worrying (and escalated now into the invasion)?

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

#139

Post by hnarn »

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?

It doesn't, because none of them are in Europe, as the comment you replied to specified.

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

#140

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

pakitan wrote: post #94
hnarn wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine is not a member of Nato. Reconsider the logic in your line of thought.

Maybe you should reconsider your logic? Ukraine wasn't attacked because it's a NATO member, it was attacked because (among other things) it wanted to become NATO member. There isn't a process where you just submit your wish to become a member and the next day, voila, you're accepted! It's a long process and that's when you'll be most vulnerable to attack.

Then presumably Georgia, Chechnya, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and the rest were also attacked because they wanted to join NATO?
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