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Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

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Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#661

Post by rendall »

rendall wrote: post #120
kreeben wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse! The enemy list. But what are they going to do, is what I want to know. Baltic sea will soon be pretty much closed for them and they sure could start WW3 over that but would they? They don't seem to have that in them.

> Baltic sea will soon be pretty much closed for them Why would the Baltic Sea be closed to Russia? How would this be enforced?

"Just look at the map" and related responses are non-sequiturs. Without a declaration of war, what is the legal mechanism by which Russian ships would be restricted from the Baltic Sea?

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#662

Post by mint2 »

brabel wrote: post #305
tremon wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Russia has shown with Ukraine that complying with Russia's threats is not a guarantee that the future will be consequence-free. When did Ukraine actually comply with any threat from Russia since at least the Maidan Revolution??

Well in the run up to the Russian invasion Ukraine wasn’t provoking Russia, and Russia officials continually denied it had plans to invade until oh wait they’d had plans for a super long time. I’m not sure about Ukraine complying with Russia orders, but they weren’t really antagonizing them other than by existing and not being completely subservient like Belarus. So yeah after top Russian officials spent so much time lying about the plans and showing they had no sincere intention to negotiate, it’s no wonder Finland and Sweden have decided not to trust Russia.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#663

Post by CRConrad »

xadhominemx wrote: post #516
CRConrad wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Russia's perception is out of whack with the actual facts of the world, it seems smarter to adapt Russia's perception to the actual facts. Russia chose to try the other way. Sooner or later it will end up with them having to adjust their perception anyway.

But that is not Putin’s actual perception. It’s something he’s said to establish a pre-textual justification for an imperial war of aggression

Yeah, his actual perception is the same old defense in depth --> need of buffer zones one Russia has had since the Grand Duchy of Muscovy emerged from its vassalage to the Mongols. Problem with that is, that also clashes with current reality, since it demands a return to the status quo of the Cold War, with Russian satellite states up to about Berlin(1).

Sooo... Which do you think needs adjusting; current geopolitical / geographical reality, or the Russian perception of national security? Are you saying he's right that the status quo ante, up to Feb 23 was an "existential threat" to Russia by NATO? Or even a variant with Ukraine in NATO -- would that have made NATO suddenly much more likely to attack Russia than without it?

___

(1): But preferably: Paris. Or, better yet, Lisbon.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#664

Post by rendall »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #510
rendall wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Baltic sea will soon be pretty much closed for them Why would the Baltic Sea be closed to Russia? How would this be enforced?

Denmark controls access to the Baltic Sea. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Baltic+Sea/@55.685476,11.0... And Estonia and Finland control access to Russia's only ports in the Baltic Sea. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Baltic+Sea/@60.5931556,25....

> "Estonia and Finland control access to Russia's only ports in the Baltic Sea"

Not a true statement, your map notwithstanding.

Denmark has an ironclad, centuries old agreement with the international community called the Copenhagen Convention never to restrict shipping or charge toll. Did you not know this?

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#665

Post by notafraudster »

senko wrote: post #447
g0ran wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Croatia doesn't have any real influence in NATO so nobody will be obliged to listen Unfortunately, same applied when that drone with explosives fell in the middle of Zagreb. Deafening silence from NATO.

Yeah. If that happened in Berlin, we'd have WW3 by now.

Given that Russia directly, intentionally, and provably shot down a plane full of Dutch nationals, lied about it, and escaped major sanction let alone active war, I think it's fairly safe to say that an almost surely accidental airspace incursion almost surely caused by a technical error, of unclear national origin, that could have been from a presumptive ally, probably wouldn't have caused WW3 even if it landed in Berlin instead of Zagreb.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#666

Post by avgcorrection »

kqr wrote: post #12
golergka wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putin's pan to not let NATO on Russian borders worked out great.

I mean there's that joke that the Apollo missions were the greatest scientific accomplishment by the Soviet Union.

Like how the first man in space was an accomplishment by the US?

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#667

Post by martindbp »

tsimionescu wrote: post #537
baud147258 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Perhaps, but trying to become a NATO member has a much higher chance of getting you embroiled in a war than not doing that. This continued escalation can't help but lead to nuclear war, our leaders are playing an extremely dangerous game of chicken. If anything, Russia's botched invasion of Ukraine should show other countries in the region that there isn't so much to fear from them, and that NATO can be counted for h…

Appeasement worked great with Hitler and Mussolini... Finland is a sovereign nation and has the right to join any defensive union it wants.

Interesting with all the down votes, wonder if Russian bots have reach even on HN? The fact is that this is happening, and Sweden is joining too, and I'm glad we are.

You need some very twisted Russian logic to see sovereign states joining of their own accord, with majority support in the population as a valid excuse for Russia to attack us.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#668

Post by CRConrad »

supergirl wrote: post #551
stackedinserter wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sole purpose of NATO is to defend from Russia. Nations join NATO because they afraid of Russia, not because they want to conquer Smolensk.

defense doesn't have to mean "wait to be attacked and then fire back". obviously defense is an ongoing process to weaken the enemy: e.g. arranging coups. NATO even bombed countries without having been attacked (Yugoslavia, Libya); I'm sure they have no issue with launching more covert, deniable, attacks.

> e.g. arranging coups.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31354277

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#669

Post by senko »

foobarian wrote: post #558
senko wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Croatian president is stupid (as is the Prime Minister, fwiw), with little actual power, and spewing things left and right to make himself more relevant. Thankfully, Croatia doesn't have any real influence in NATO so nobody will be obliged to listen to that stupidity. Source: I live in Croatia.

You know what bugs me about Croatia. Everyone complains about how terrible it is, politicians are stupid and corrupt, nepotism everywhere, etc etc and please leave somewhere better as soon as you can, but then when you do the tune changes and now it is the nicest place on Earth with natural beauty and beaches and good life and come back as soon as you can. It's a real conundrum.

Every word of what you've just said is correct.

Croatia really has natural beauty. It has gorgeous beaches. Those beaches are usually overcrowded and in many places turned into concrete slabs. It has good life, unless you can't find a decent job. It has free healthcare, in which you wait a year for an urgent medical examination. It has low taxes (10% capital gains tax! 0% LTCG!) but extensive red tape and extremely inefficient bureaucracy and judicial system.

Corruption is a way of life (ask your grandma if it's decent to visit a doctor without a gift). Politics is a joke to such an extreme Boris Johnson looks like a Stoic philosopher. He partied during COVID restrictions, right? Well, our Minister of Health partied during COVID restrictions he invoked, and nothing, whatsoever, happened.

We're like that country in Tropico (the game), only in real life. Even on a map, if you squint, we look like a banana country.

Still, we've free speech, we're fairly well integrated into the EU (barring some unforseen problem, like, dunno, a war on a doorstep, maybe we'll even adopt the Euro next year), we're pretty safe. Child-care is inexpensive, schools are okay for the most part, public universities are free, and if you work in a well-paid industry (like tech, which is booming), it can be a good life.

So, a banana country with benefits?

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#670

Post by maratc »

Warning: hot take.

While it is unlikely that Putin would care a bit about Sweden, this is a huge gamble on Finland's side. HUGE.

This can go in one of the two directions: either Putin dislikes but somehow swallows it (the way he did with Baltic states in 2004), or he can go about preemptively wrecking Finland (the way he did with Georgia and Ukraine in 2008 and 2014 respectively).

Considering Russia was very negative on a prospect of having NATO some 450 km from Moscow, the prospect of having them 150 km from St. Petersburg might aggravate Putin even more. And St. Petersburg is not just another Russian city — it's Putin's home city.

Starting with Mannerheim, Finland had a wise policy for the last 70 years, where they largely refrained from taking sides on the USSR/West thingy, and the Soviets let them be. Joining NATO is a complete reversal of that policy, and it is an extremely dangerous gamble at an extremely dangerous time.

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