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Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

presidentti.fi

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Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#431

Post by omega3 »

hugg wrote: post #368
omega3 wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we should be afraid of them? If all the war crimes, targeting of infrastructure, civilians, hospitals, forced deportation, looting, torture, setting up of artificial breakaway states hasn't so far convinced you then I'm afraid nothing ever will.

And it still seems realistic to you they will somehow invade Sweden by land and do these things?

It didn't seem realistic that they'll invade Ukraine yet they did (not in Desert Storm fashion but Mongol invasion way) You join an alliance like NATO to prepare for the possibility of a Russia invasion however likely/unlikely it is at a given point. As for Sweden in particular Gotland is 300km from Russia and it was remilitarized in 2016 - makes you wonder why.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#433

Post by ericmay »

b112 wrote: post #174
vlvdus wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's rather incomprehensible and related to local politics. It's not clear if he can do anything at all so it might be just posturing. https://www.total-croatia-news.com/politics/62559-milanovic-...

One of the issues of allowing more and more people into NATO, is that potential for fracturing of the alliance increases. Especially, the original core alliance was very aligned after WWII, politically. However as NATO expands east, the potential for issues down the road grows. Look at the Ukraine. Let's imagine that this horrible war never happened, Russia never attacked, and that the Ukraine would join NATO in 2023…

> What about Croatia? Would the response be the same?

Yes, without a doubt. Perhaps a little slow, but ultimately the response would be the “same”[1]. The US and UK have existential interest in maintaining NATO.

Croatia and Hungary would be kicked out of NATO before Sweden and Finland would be prevented from joining. At the point of Finland announcing that they will apply, all of the negotiations and box checking are done beforehand. They don’t leave things like this to chance.

Some say “but there is no mechanism for kicking out a member”. It doesn’t matter. The primary NATO members will just have a vote and say you aren’t part of NATO anymore and that would be that.

[1] I’m using “same” here because an attack on the UK or Canada could never be treated as equivalent to an attack on Croatia given the circumstances needed to be attacking those countries and the kinship of the US with those countries. A better way of phrasing would be if Croatia was legitimately attacked and invoked Article 5 of NATO (the mutual defense clause) the U.S. and others would come to Croatia’s defense. There is absolutely no doubt about this.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#434

Post by jabl »

antris wrote: post #170
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…

>Translation: During the spring, there has been an important discussion about Finland's possible NATO membership This is a very generous description of what happened. There has been air of forced consensus in the "discussion" between media, politicians and people on social media. People have been branded as "putinist" or "playing into Putin's hand" for merely suggesting that the decision shouldn't be rushed, and that…

Discussion about the "NATO option" has been part of the Finnish foreign policy discourse for close to three decades already. How much more discussion do you think would have been needed? And what kind of change in circumstances would have been needed to switch from talking to doing if the current invasion of Ukraine isn't enough?

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#435

Post by emptysongglass »

herbst wrote: post #250
phatfish wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really need to ask why? Because Ukraine is on the doorstep of Europe, that's why Europeans care more, and by proxy the US. As for Iraq, yes people did care, there were large protests in London and Tony Blair is still hated by the general public in the UK. I don't know the real feeling in the US. The UK government didn't listen because Tony wanted his ego boost on the world stage. The only NATO backed war of th…

> Because Ukraine is on the doorstep of Europe, that's why Europeans care more, and by proxy the US. But only since Russia started invading. When news about Ukraine were still all about their corrupt government, breaking human rights, their horrible prisons and more like that nobody thought Ukraine to to 'close' or anything. It's obvious the whole perception of Ukraine just suddenly changed because Russia is the bad…

That isn't true. Many of us worked with Ukrainians before the war, especially in the software industry, such as myself. There was no sudden perceptual change. I observed the fear and anxiety my Ukrainian coworkers experienced directly.

They are European and they did not deserve this invasion and as far as I'm concerned deserve all the help and compassion the rest of us can offer.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#436

Post by chrisweekly »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #319
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…

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

Bayraktar: Turkish-built UAV (drone)

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#437

Post by xdennis »

cycomanic wrote: post #210
aa-jv wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I do believe that NATO is a war-crime committing, human-rights abusing entity that is bringing much death and destruction and turmoil to the world for the sake of special interests - political and commercial - who stand to gain billions in profit from every single NATO base built. But, I've been paying attention to NATO's war crimes over the last two decades, as well as the immensely evil crimes against humanity…

You didn't answer the previous posters question. I actually am well aware of the crimes committed by NATO members (I would argue that they were not under NATO mandate though, except maybe Serbia, but that's a different argument). BTW the most atrocious crimes go back way more than 20 years. I also know that many western nations have been very nonchalant about violations of international law by their own allies, and I…

> You didn't answer the previous posters question.

That's how you troll. You reply to everything by pointing out something bad about NATO/USA/The West without answering anything.

Serious people assume good intentions on your part and waste their time with thoughtful replies only creating more opportunities for your drive-by replies.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#438

Post by lnxg33k1 »

myko wrote: post #427
lnxg33k1 wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Joining NATO is literally in the Ukrainian constitution. It is not optional, attempting to join is a requirement of the government of Ukraine and not working toward that end would be unconstitutional.

No post body was provided.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#439

Post by CRConrad »

londons_explore wrote: post #148
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…

Does the NATO membership process have negotiable elements? For example, do different members have different terms, or pay different contributions to costs? Announcing your firm intention to join before negotiating those parts seems like a good way to be paying over the odds forever...

As I understand it, NATO is not a cost-sharing arrangement. Everyone pays for their own defense forces.

Sure, that means if some country were to pay nothing for theirs -- i.e. don't have any -- then the others would have to do all the defending of that country, and so "pay indirectly"... If that country were attacked. That's why NATO agreed that members should spend at least two percent of their GDP on defense, and it is many of them not having got up to that level yet that the USA (especially under Trump) has been complaining about.

But still, that's all within each country's own budget. There are no monetary transfers to and from countries such as "membership fees" or "subsidies" within NATO. (At least not any significant ones that I know of. Maybe some smaller stuff like, Idunno, base rentals or port fees?)

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#440

Post by aa-jv »

cycomanic wrote: post #344
aa-jv wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You didn't answer the previous posters question. I, in fact, answered it. YES, I believe NATO will commit further war crimes and continued crimes against humanity in its lust to demolish Russia. It has a long history of doing so already and shows no signs that it will stop its criminal behaviours in the near future.

You said: >Yes, I do believe that NATO is a war-crime committing, human-rights abusing entity that is bringing much death and destruction and turmoil to the world for the sake of special interests - political and commercial - who stand to gain billions in profit from every single NATO base built. >But, I've been paying attention to NATO's war crimes over the last two decades, as well as the immensely evil crimes agai…

The question was:

"do you think any of said war crimes would actually be committed against Russia directly?"

And the answer is YES, because NATO has already set a heinous precedent for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, with seeming impunity, for decades and shows no signs of stopping its criminal war regime.

So yes, I did answer the question. You maybe don't like the answer, though.

>NATO force Russia

NATO brought weapons of mass destruction to Russias borders. Unfortunately, this has now escalated into a war where, indeed, crimes against humanity are being committed. This is not unexpected, given the nature of war as a whole. It is inexcusable whether Russians or Americans are doing it, and that is entirely the point: the worlds' powers have already set a precedent, which Russia is clearly following.

Now here is a question for you: Why is it okay for Americans to support genocide in Yemen yet call for the end of Russia for its invasion of Ukraine?

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