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Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

presidentti.fi

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Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#311

Post by jusssi »

ssl232 wrote: post #182
jusssi wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the Finnish point of view the case for NATO has become quite clear. There were a number of reasons why we used to believe Russia won't be invading us any time soon. 1. The invader would suffer a massive penalty for their reputation: didn't stop them from invading Ukraine. 2. The invader would be hit with massive economic sanctions: see 1. 3. Even unassisted, we would be able to mount a defense that can cause maj…

Those are good points to that I hadn't considered. As a Finn (?), what are your feelings with regards to your historical neutrality being broken by joining NATO? Surely many Finnish politicians past and present will have fought hard for that to remain the case and this will be breaking that precedent.

A major driving force for us is the desire to not to become Russians, which is indoctrinated into us from birth.

The "neutrality" was originally forced on us at the end of WW2. Maintaining it worked ok for co-existing peacefully with our eastern neighbor. In reality it ended in 1995 when we joined the EU. Back then there was talk that the EU is going to have some sort of co-operative defense, but that hasn't materialized into anything concrete, because NATO is in reality already providing that function in Europe for most of current EU members.

I suppose the main argument against us joining NATO is the perceived risk of getting pulled into some local conflict of dubious nature far away from us.

Edit: Personally I would prefer an European defensive alliance without US involvement, but such an option is not available at short notice, so I'm willing to accept NATO for the time being.

Edit2: I should point out, that me, and IMHO the current generation of Finns in general, don't have anything in particular against the Russians, as long as they manage to keep their tanks and missiles within their own internationally acknowledged borders. We just don't want to become them.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#312

Post by Wildgoose »

simonh wrote: post #257
aiilns wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Talk about missiles within range of Moscow and so on. Obviously these comments make no sense. Why doesn't it make sense? I'm not for Russia nor for NATO, but what is the purpose of the alliance if not against Russia as a remnant of the cold war? Wasn't the same kind of reasoning used by the USA for Cuba resulting in its ~blockade~ "quarantine" and almost war/invasion? It seems to me there's a certain rhetoric meant…

NATO is purely a defensive pact, nowhere in it's charter is there any provision for initiating hostilities and there is zero political support in the west for aggression against Russia or the acquisition of Russian territory. Until February the west was absolutely more than happy to funnel billions into Russia in return for oil and gas, and almost pathologically avoided any thought of taking any action that might aff…

NATO aggressively bombed Serbia over the issue of Kosovo. I don't know how anyone can seriously claim "NATO is purely a defensive pact" with a straight face.

I think that bombing Serbia was probably the rupture that has led us to the terrible situation we have in Ukraine now.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#313

Post by skissane »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #251
skissane wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NATO has really benefited from having Turkey as a member in this war (which is essentially a proxy war between Russia and NATO)-Turkey exercised its right to close the Bosporus to military ships not based there, which prevents Russia from reinforcing its Black Sea fleet. An ex-NATO Turkey might have taken Russia’s side and left the straits open. Closing them disadvantaged Russia far more than anyone else, since Ukrai…

Turkeye is balancing things. They also closed it for NATO and did it after Russian ships arrived.

Turkey does have some recent history of "balancing" with Russia, but I'm not convinced its decisions on the Straits are an example of that. My understanding is that under the Montreux Convention, Turkey closes it for everybody involved in the war or nobody, I don't believe it allows Turkey to block one side of a conflict's ships but not the other, unless it is a conflict in which Turkey itself is directly involved. (In a direct war between Russia and NATO, Turkey would probably just tear up the Convention anyway–but doing so in peacetime would likely be considered by Russia to be an act of war.)

In practice, however, closing the Straits has a much more negative impact on Russia than NATO, since the major NATO naval powers (US, UK, France) were never likely to send ships near Ukraine anyway, and as non-Black Sea states the Montreux Convention subjects them to special limits to which Black Sea states are not subject. In fact (according to some sources), the Straits are still officially open for the US/UK/French/etc navies, so long as they don't directly join the conflict – although I imagine they'd be rather hesitant to exercise that right at the moment, due to the risk Russia might interpret such an act as hostile.

If it is true they allowed some Russian ships through before closing it–that could have been simply the slowness of government decision making, plus the legal complexities involved, rather than a deliberate "balancing" act.

If anything, I think this conflict has caused Turkey to turn away from the "balancing" and move more firmly into the NATO column. Reminding NATO of their value helps silence the ongoing "can we expel Turkey?" debate, refusing to do so would have given it more steam. Turkey has been selling its TB2 drones to Ukraine, which Ukraine has been using to great effect against Russia – not a very good example of "balancing". Ukraine's successful use of Turkish drones is very helpful to Turkey, because it gives them more information on how they perform in an actual conflict (which they already had to some extent with the Syrian civil war, the KPP, etc, but Russia is a very different kind of adversary from the Syrian government or the Kurds), and also helps attract potential buyers.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#314

Post by rodgerd »

sph wrote: post #47
thematrixturtle wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

He has poured considerable amounts of time and money and other forms of backing into regime change in a number of NATO members; he extensively backed Le Pen and Zemmour, Trump (and enjoys public support from a number of US senators), has close ties to Gerhard Schröder, and of course has extensive networks in the British Conservative Party - sufficient for the current Prime Minister to appoint a Russian as a member of the House of Lords over the objections of British intelligence agencies - and Brexit.

It only takes one of those to pay off at the right time.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#315

Post by KptMarchewa »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #251
skissane wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NATO has really benefited from having Turkey as a member in this war (which is essentially a proxy war between Russia and NATO)-Turkey exercised its right to close the Bosporus to military ships not based there, which prevents Russia from reinforcing its Black Sea fleet. An ex-NATO Turkey might have taken Russia’s side and left the straits open. Closing them disadvantaged Russia far more than anyone else, since Ukrai…

Turkeye is balancing things. They also closed it for NATO and did it after Russian ships arrived.

What would NATO ships do there? "Balancing" would only make sense if NATO was directly a part of the conflict.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#316

Post by watwut »

somenameforme wrote: post #107
michaelmrose wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most Russians don't seem to want to invade other countries. What are you basing this on? https://www.levada.ru/en/ratings/ This seems to show strong support for the Russian government and this analysis seems to suggest that few Russians are concerned about Russians crimes and as many as half are very supportive of horrific violence against people they see as nonhuman. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14…

When looking at things like this you always need to consider a rally around the flag effect. When a country is threatened by outsiders, it tends to result in a dramatic increase in support for government and its leaders. After 9/11, Bush's approval rating hit 90%, the highest ever recorded for any US president. And it stayed inflated (though not to such insane highs) for years, including through at least the start of…

Even sociologists/antropologist who put emphasis on "rally around the flag effect" claim that support for war in Russia is actually high right now. And that hate toward Ukrainians is high too. Your explanation completely disregards the distate and hate toward Ukraine/Ukrainians that was hyped up for years.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#317

Post by thraxil »

rightbyte wrote: post #115
thraxil wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Finland should have applied for NATO 10 years ago or in 10 years, not now with the tense situation. 10 years ago, it was reasonable to believe that Russia would never invade a neighboring country, so joining NATO wasn't seen as necessary or preferable to maintaining neutrality. 10 years in the future, based on what we're seeing now, Russia may have already invaded/attacked Finland and it would be too late to join N…

I am arguing that the risk of 'sparks' outweights the benefits of joining NATO right now.

Then you're effectively arguing that Finland never should join NATO. That's fine. But if someone believes that Finland ought to join NATO (and many people do), now is the time to do it, sparks or not. I just think it's misleading to argue it as "they should've done it before anyone realized it might be needed or wait until it's too late".

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#318

Post by refurb »

RandomLensman wrote: post #303
refurb wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is you’re using your own perspective to imagine how Russia is assessing the situation. That’s the big mistake. You could run the same analysis for the US involvement in Vietnam. 1) The US was anti colonial after WW2 (the US assumed colonial holdings would foment communist uprisings), and had given the Philippines it independence. 2) The US had no real strategic interest in Vietnam beyond a non-communist a…

In what way is 2) or 3) of my points related to a perspective? Those are either historical fact or current situation. On territory, Russia can have a different view and they are entitled to it - but doesn't change that it is a wrong perception. Not sure, if Russia's perspective should then guide policy "in the West".

I agree 2 and 3 are facts, but the error is you think they are relevant to how Russia see the situation.

I understand you think that perception is wrong, but remember, global geopolitics is not about "who is right", it's about "how do we find the least violent solution to this conflict".

If you read MacNamara's book on Vietnam, he actually goes back and talks through the war with the North Vietnamese leaders at the time. The big takeaway was there were plenty of opportunities to de-escalate the conflict (acknowledged by both sides), but each side was so sure they were right that there was no backing down.

It's a tough pill to swallow to realize you could have gotten the same thing as you have today without killing a few million of your own citizens.

Edit: Your reply "If Russia wants to go nuclear over this, then so be it" is the most horrifying thing I've read in a while. But regardless there is a lot of evidence to show if Hitler had been restrained early in the lead up to WW2, before Germany had rearmed, it could have prevent WW2.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#319

Post by KptMarchewa »

skissane wrote: post #202
rocqua wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK kicking someone out of NATO is very difficult. Otherwise I suspect that about 5 years ago Turkey would have been at risk of being removed.

NATO has really benefited from having Turkey as a member in this war (which is essentially a proxy war between Russia and NATO)-Turkey exercised its right to close the Bosporus to military ships not based there, which prevents Russia from reinforcing its Black Sea fleet. An ex-NATO Turkey might have taken Russia’s side and left the straits open. Closing them disadvantaged Russia far more than anyone else, since Ukrai…

And, Turkey delivers one of the most useful weapons Ukraine has - Bayraktars.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#320

Post by klausjensen »

aa-jv wrote: post #242
klausjensen wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, you are just deflecting, trying to distract from the core: The neighbours of Russia do not want to be invaded by Russia, so they join NATO.

It could as easily be stated that nations join NATO in order to participate in NATO's war crimes, and share its war treasures. For the same reason that immigrants come to USA - because that's not where the bombs are falling. Both statements are valid, and have just as much evidence supporting them.

...So now the Finns are joining NATO to participate in NATO war-crimes?

I did once have to sit through a Finn slaughtering a karaoke version of "Sweet Caroline", but I would hardly consider it a war-crime.

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