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Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

presidentti.fi

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Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#451

Post by CRConrad »

belter wrote: post #423
klibertp wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post was dead when I stumbled upon it. I don't agree with it, for the obvious reasons, including the fact that I'm not American. Yet, my understanding is that this kind of opinion is shared by a large number of US citizens. I don't believe censoring it is the correct way to deal with it - it's not even off-topic as we discuss NATO membership in the first place.

I agree with you. Sadly you sometimes see comments being downvoted not because of the quality of the argument, the technical correctness of the analysis or validity of the logic arguments. Instead because they are presenting a less popular view.

IIUC, "because they are presenting a less popular view" is supposed to be a valid reason to downvote. Just not to flag.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#452

Post by sorokod »

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…

a proxy war between Russia and NATO

That is not how people of Ukraine see this.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#453

Post by xdennis »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #119
spaniard89277 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see it (am spaniard), and there's definitely propaganda. But ultimately it was Russia who invaded Ucraine and the reasons provided are very vague, at best. The Speech Putin did had some etnonationalism BS and claims of defending the land agains the threat of NATO. In most bordering NATO countries what you have is SAMs (anti-air missiles), and honestly pretty much any NATO country could claim that they feel thre…

thank you. i am not sympathizing with anyone for that matter. i am pointing out what i observe.... you know when america invaded iraq for "WMDs" and they turned out to be nothing and literally nothing happened? "strong anger" does not equate to waging a war against america like its being done against russia. let me ask you, you and me are neither americans nor russians. did the world care when america invaded afghani…

> i am not sympathizing with anyone for that matter

For someone who is neutral, when Russia is committing war crimes, you spend a lot of your time talking about the US.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#454

Post by simonh »

Wildgoose wrote: post #312
simonh wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Surely you mean the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia? Unless you're implying that was a sham political cover for naked Serbian self interest. Perish the thought.

NATO was defending Kosovo from a war of aggression and ongoing genocide.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#455

Post by ericmay »

belter wrote: post #441
ericmay wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you know that you can like spend money over time right? Or maybe even raise the budget? Or maybe they have a savings account that they draw from?

Of course it will be spent over time, but we are talking about a single weapons system, unproven in combat so far, that represents four times the overall annual defense budget of Finland for Army, Air Force and Navy.

Yes that appears to be correct. I’m not following what point you are trying to make here.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#456

Post by doikor »

Gravityloss wrote: post #64
thinkingemote wrote: post #4

Has Finland significant pro-Russian politicians? Or at least pro before February 2022? I visited there a while ago and there was a feel of Russian friendliness at the least with significant independence on the streets. But that's just my feelings and I wasn't paying attention back then.

There is this one person. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ano_Turtiainen Not a lot of material about him written in English though. But he is a member of parliament and has been openly pro Russia recently. He was expelled from his party already earlier and now runs his own party. I don't think people take him seriously.

He is basically anti everything mainstream including Russia, US, EU (yes all 3), vaccines, any covid measures, etc while being pro almost any conspiracy theory you have ever heard of. And all of this changes week by week. Basically your standard populist politician turned conspiracy nut.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#457

Post by forferdet »

suture wrote: post #329
klibertp wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I'm not American, and don't care that much. I was referring to this part: > I'm just tired of the USA paying for everything when we don't have the money. Which seems to be one of the things that made the previous President the President.

I’m an American. For many decades the idea that the U.S. props up the rest of world at the expense of focusing on our people has been a strong one. It was very strong going into the 80s but has becomes less so since then. It is still used from time to time galvanize right leaning people. There is a strong isolationist bent within the U.S. too. I do believe Trump was correct to criticize the lack of defense spending b…

Hmm, wonder how many billions European/NATO-countries/Australia have spent of their own money in an effort to help the US on its somewhat 20 year long misguided war on terror...

That being said, I understand the american feelings about this, as a lot of stuff have had the wrong priorities in the US for a long time, which I would argue is an internal matter and nothing to do with NATO (or its members).

/offtopic

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#458

Post by CRConrad »

thow-58d4e8b wrote: post #426
helloworld11 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But will Russia really win? As of the last that I saw, Ukraine was doing remarkably well in getting Russian forces to pull back from many positions they initially captured, and what they have captured has cost them considerably. A German invasion of Poland this is definitely not in terms of agility. It's more like Italy's invasion of Greece, but without a bigger power to step in and take the reins. Putin can try othe…

Notice who is pushing the narrative of Russia bogged down - journalists, politicians and their nominees, economists, and people with an active career in the military. There are also some dissidents in the West pushing the opposite narrative - ex-marine, retired intelligence officer, weapons inspector, colonel from a neutral country. Which group knows more about how a modern war is waged? Which group has a better trac…

> There are also some dissidents in the West pushing the opposite narrative - ex-marine, retired intelligence officer, weapons inspector, colonel from a neutral country.

And above all, right-wing kooks, useful idiots, and outright Putler trolls. Quite a few of the people you mention also seem to belong to at least one of these categories.

> Notice who is pushing the narrative of Russia bogged down - journalists, politicians and their nominees, economists, and people with an active career in the military.

> There are also some dissidents in the West pushing the opposite narrative - ex-marine, retired intelligence officer

> Which group knows more about how a modern war is waged?

Ahem...

> Which group has a better track record so far?

Well, not the ones who said "This will be over in less than a week!" eleven weeks ago.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#459

Post by ethbr0 »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #315
NicoJuicy wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> What would NATO ships do there?

Sail an unarmed NATO-flagged vessel to the Azovstal Steel Plant and evacuate troops?

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#460

Post by causi »

koolba wrote: post #275
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.

Not just difficult, it impossible. There’s no provisions for removal. The closest thing to kicking someone out of NATO would be all the other countries simultaneously withdrawing and forming NATO 2.0.

That would also open the door to make the new alliance less Europe-centric.
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