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Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

presidentti.fi

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Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#591

Post by wolverine876 »

hugg wrote: post #299
omega3 wrote: post #55

Let's hope that Sweden will also follow suit.

I hope not. To me it seems very unnecessary (please hear me out), first of all, it seems to be the common idea that Russia is losing the war, has a weak military, cannot invade another country successfully, but at the same time, we should be afraid of them? I've heard the argument that it's the nukes that we should be afraid of, but does joining NATO really mean that they will surely not use them? I also assume that…

> Russia is losing the war, has a weak military, cannot invade another country successfully, but at the same time, we should be afraid of them?

No matter the outcome, it is a very bad result for Ukraine. Look at all the destruction, loss of life, and loss of money.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#592

Post by aiilns »

CRConrad wrote: post #490
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…

> > Talk about missiles within range of Moscow and so on. Obviously these comments make no sense. > Why doesn't it make sense? Because Moscow has been in range of missiles for decades, Baltics and Finland and Ukraine in NATO or not.

So because the USA has advanced weapons and other bases close enough to reach Moscow, it doesn't make sense that Putin/Russia would be concerned by NATO expansion even closer to Moscow, right next to their borders?

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#593

Post by nonameking2026 »

baud147258 wrote: post #156
nonameking2026 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can do a lot of things. None which are good for Russia but their leaders might perceive this as a direct threat to their sovereignty and take extreme measures. Either they stop this now or it's all over anyway. This is reckless - we need to start a path of de-escalation - give Putin an offramp. Get to back to calm waters. Then let diplomats do their little dances until there is a hopefully more reasonable people…

If I were living in Finland, I'd feel safer (against external aggression) if the country was in NATO than if it wasn't.

Timing is important - this is maybe not the best time to join.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#594

Post by weberer »

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...

Every country has a requirement to pay 2% of their GDP on defense. However not all countries actually comply. Germany was repeatedly criticized for skimping on their payments. They didn't start contributing 2% until after Russia invaded.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2022/02/27/german...

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#595

Post by tiborsaas »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #245
andruby wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about Hungary and it's seemingly pro-Russian leader, Orban? They could vote against.

Hungary has said they will not oppose.

Orbán's opinion changes as the wind blows. He can't be trusted with anything.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#596

Post by fallingknife »

rich_sasha wrote: post #496
andruby wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about Hungary and it's seemingly pro-Russian leader, Orban? They could vote against.

Vetos are somewhat overrated. Agents may have the right to veto, but might not have the power to deal with the consequences. Russia has a UN veto and uses it, because they can weather the consequences. Could Hungary piss off all of its allies, trade partners, basically everyone but Russia? Doubtful. Hungary is playing a skillful, if somewhat devious, game of balancing between Russia and the West. But an outright FU t…

What I don't understand is what Hungary gains from splitting with the rest of the EU and NATO to help Russia. Doesn't seem beneficial to them.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#597

Post by walrusfromspace »

simonh wrote: post #454
Wildgoose wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Except that Kosovo was not a part of NATO so you can't say that NATO is a defensive alliance unless you are going the Roman way of pre-emptive defence[1].

[1] All Roman wars were officially defensive because they believed gods would not support an offensive war

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#598

Post by nxmnxm99 »

M2Ys4U wrote: post #69
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.

>However, adding new members requires unanimous consent from all existing members, so it's not guaranteed to be smooth sailing. I highly doubt that any of NATO's members will veto an application from Finland (or Sweden).

Turkey.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#599

Post by walrusfromspace »

CRConrad wrote: post #503
Wildgoose wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is really telling is your admission that NATO is also an Offensive Alliance, which is exactly the point I was making, and which has led directly to this tragedy.

Preventing genocide next door is defense, not offense. Just like in Ukraine now. The most Offensive thing here is your defense of genocidal wars of aggression.

>Preventing genocide next door is defense

The problem here is that when you give a defensive alliance a mandate to defend entities that are not covered by it's mandate it becomes a de-facto offensive alliance.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#600

Post by CRConrad »

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…

> >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.

I think it's pretty much exactly the other way around: For the last three decades, since the fall of Communism and the end of "Finlandization", there has been air of forced consensus in the "discussion" between media, politicians and people on social media around the holy cow of "Neutrality", perhaps (at least to begin with) out of lingering deference to the memory of Kekkonen. In reality, Finland has always been a "Western" country; the invasion of Ukraine was just the impetus to finally realise it / admit it to themselves / openly admit it.

> People have been branded as "putinist" or "playing into Putin's hand" for merely suggesting that the decision shouldn't be rushed, and that there needs to be thorough analysis before making a decision.

Everybody has been thinking about it for thirty years (in Sweden, for seventy); you wanna take another thirty years, or what? If they aren't done thinking now, they never will be.

[Edit: Added forgotten quote markers. And fixed typpo.]

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