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Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

presidentti.fi

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Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#71

Post by Maakuth »

thematrixturtle wrote: post #18
fsloth wrote: post #2

There was some discussion on plausible NATO membership of Finland and Sweden. At that point the disucssion was based on guestimates from media. But now it's official. This is not the NATO membership application, but a statement from the political leadership in Finland that they support and suggest parliament proceeds with the application process with maximum urgency. The President and Prime Minister of Finland have p…

This more or less seals Finland applying for NATO membership. However, adding new members requires unanimous consent from all existing members, so it's not guaranteed to be smooth sailing. Russia is also obviously deeply unhappy about this and will do its best to disrupt the process via direct and indirect pressure.

The process has been going on in unofficial sense since the start of Putler's war, but to minimize risks, the official process is only kicked off now. It was only started after it was verified that there are no internal or external blockers and that Sweden is in lockstep.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#72

Post by GolDDranks »

rightbyte wrote: post #40
durnygbur wrote: post #31

Look at the map, the NATO doesn't have much land borders with Russia. With Finland joining... the length of land border will multiply. This will surely pose a challenge.

There is much talk about Russia not wanting Finland in NATO but why would NATO want Finland in NATO with yet another expensive border to patrol. "Buffer states" work both ways.

The current Baltic NATO states and Norway are much easier to defend having control over the Baltic Sea, plus Finland has a considerably strong military that now joins to strengthen NATO, so it should be a win-win for the both sides.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#73

Post by blibble »

ssl232 wrote: post #52

Usual caveats that I'm not a diplomat, don't have all the facts, etc etc., but this doesn't seem like a rational move for Finland or NATO. The UK just yesterday agreed to protect Finland in the event of an attack, and the UK's involvement would likely bring in many other NATO powers anyway, so arguably they're getting protection they'd otherwise have to pay for for free. And actually, officially joining NATO will hav…

> The UK just yesterday agreed to protect Finland in the event of an attack, and the UK's involvement would likely bring in many other NATO powers anyway, so arguably they're getting protection they'd otherwise have to pay for for free

this was likely done to fix the race condition of starting the application process vs being under the alliance umbrella

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#74

Post by tremon »

nymalt wrote: post #21

Didn't Russia (last month) threaten Finland/Sweden with 'consequences' should they decide joining NATO? Wondering what would those be. Putting both countries in a new list of 'very unfriendly countries'?

Russia has been threatening Finland/Sweden with consequences for years. As the Finnish PM mentioned in his speech with Boris Johnson a few days ago, Russia has shown with Ukraine that complying with Russia's threats is not a guarantee that the future will be consequence-free.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#75

Post by jka »

fsloth wrote: post #23
noselasd wrote: post #20

Title is not quite right, this seems to be the President and Prime Minister recommending to the parliament that Finland should join NATO. The final decision is not made.

This is basically THE signal to start of the process. Given the majority popular support (76% !!!) and this statement from the political leadership it would be extremely unlikely parliament would not follow through. Before this was made public there might have very well been some secret discussions, and the President and Prime minister might have very well used this statement to signal "please wait". This is as green…

Very likely, although it still makes the decision to upvote a little more difficult than it should be; the current title ("Finland will seek NATO membership immediately") isn't really true (yet).

From the English-language translation: "We hope that the national steps still needed to make this decision will be taken rapidly within the next few days."

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#76

Post by benjymo »

ssl232 wrote: post #52

Usual caveats that I'm not a diplomat, don't have all the facts, etc etc., but this doesn't seem like a rational move for Finland or NATO. The UK just yesterday agreed to protect Finland in the event of an attack, and the UK's involvement would likely bring in many other NATO powers anyway, so arguably they're getting protection they'd otherwise have to pay for for free. And actually, officially joining NATO will hav…

Maybe the UK only agreed to protect Finland as part of a greater plan to join NATO.

In any case joining NATO would allow them to trigger Article 5. This is a much better deterrent than some vague "would likely bring in many other NATO powers".

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#77

Post by sph »

mariuolo wrote: post #57
sph wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can Russia pressure and disrupt the process when NATO members are the ones most afraid of Putin? Finland's doing this only because of Russia's actions. I can't imagine anybody vetoing Finland's membership. In fact, the more the merrier^Hstronger.

> How can Russia pressure and disrupt the process when NATO members are the ones most afraid of Putin? Hungary is also a NATO member and yet its president (Mr. Orban) has been quite chummy with Putin.

Fair enough. I must imagine there will be intense pressure from NATO members towards Hungary if they're the only ones protesting. Is there a process for booting a member?

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#78

Post by 2000UltraDeluxe »

thematrixturtle wrote: post #18
fsloth wrote: post #2

There was some discussion on plausible NATO membership of Finland and Sweden. At that point the disucssion was based on guestimates from media. But now it's official. This is not the NATO membership application, but a statement from the political leadership in Finland that they support and suggest parliament proceeds with the application process with maximum urgency. The President and Prime Minister of Finland have p…

This more or less seals Finland applying for NATO membership. However, adding new members requires unanimous consent from all existing members, so it's not guaranteed to be smooth sailing. Russia is also obviously deeply unhappy about this and will do its best to disrupt the process via direct and indirect pressure.

Oh, there was little doubt a Finnish application was on the way. From what I can tell from Swedish media, it's more or less decided there aswell.

Both Finland and Sweden signed a defence agreement with the UK yesterday. Norwegian newspapers has claimed Denmark, Iceland and Norway are also going to offer Finland and Sweden military aid in case of Russian shenanigans during the application process. That leaves both Finland and Sweden fairly safe, and the only noteworthy risks would be cyber warfare and Russian psy-ops used to turn public opinion against a NATO membership.

As for the application process itself, Stoltenberg pretty much promised a swift handling in the NATO end of things, but as you mention, it has to be unanimous and there is always a chance someone with power might be in Putin's pocket, or oppose the idea for other reasons.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#79

Post by blibble »

Deukhoofd wrote: post #59
rightbyte wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is much talk about Russia not wanting Finland in NATO but why would NATO want Finland in NATO with yet another expensive border to patrol. "Buffer states" work both ways.

With Finland being part of the EU, an invasion of Finland by Russia would already pull in 90% of NATO (per Article 42 of the EU). With most of NATO already needing to care about the border, this should not pose too much of a challenge.

no one (including the Finnish government) believes that article 42 has any teeth

https://www.is.fi/politiikka/art-2000008697709.html

(ironically because Finland insisted on it in the last treaty renegotiation)

and I don't think you can really say that it's 90% of NATO without the US, more like 10%

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#80

Post by M2Ys4U »

ssl232 wrote: post #52

Usual caveats that I'm not a diplomat, don't have all the facts, etc etc., but this doesn't seem like a rational move for Finland or NATO. The UK just yesterday agreed to protect Finland in the event of an attack, and the UK's involvement would likely bring in many other NATO powers anyway, so arguably they're getting protection they'd otherwise have to pay for for free. And actually, officially joining NATO will hav…

>Usual caveats that I'm not a diplomat, don't have all the facts, etc etc., but this doesn't seem like a rational move for Finland or NATO. The UK just yesterday agreed to protect Finland in the event of an attack

This pact is designed to protect Sweden and Finland between (deciding to) apply for NATO membership and actually becoming a NATO member.

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