Finland will seek NATO membership immediately • Hacker News Board

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#691

Post by JumpCrisscross » Thu, May 12, 2022, 3:20 PM UTC

stoltzmann wrote: post #173

mcv wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be a serious problem for NATO if a pro-Russian Hungary could basically act as a fifth column and cripple NATO by vetoing everything. There simply has to be a process to kick out insincere members.

The issue with kicking out members is that it starts a precedent. The idea is that NATO got your back if you're in, you won't get kicked out if your membership starts being inconvenient, and that the other members will act when Article 5 is invoked.

> idea is that NATO got your back if you're in, you won't get kicked out if your membership starts being inconvenient, and that the other members will act when Article 5 is invoked

None of that is violated by kicking someone out before they are attacked.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#692

Post by pc86 » Thu, May 12, 2022, 3:21 PM UTC

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.

There is a big difference between "there are no provisions for removal of a member state" and "removal of a member state is explicitly prohibited."

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#693

Post by CRConrad » Thu, May 12, 2022, 3:21 PM UTC

ssl232 wrote: post #52

Usual caveats that I'm not a diplomat, don't have all the facts, etc etc., but this doesn't seem like a rational move for Finland or NATO. The UK just yesterday agreed to protect Finland in the event of an attack, and the UK's involvement would likely bring in many other NATO powers anyway, so arguably they're getting protection they'd otherwise have to pay for for free. And actually, officially joining NATO will hav…

> so arguably they're getting protection they'd otherwise have to pay for for free.

"Pay for..." To whom? Do you think NATO works like the EU, redistributing money from "membership fees" to "subsidy recipients"? All the NATO countries pay for their own militaries out of their own budgets.

> I'm no fan of him nor his regime, but thinking he'll back down if we just escalate the situation a little more is fantasy.

Whoa, resurrection! Hallelujah! But why you, of all people?!? We'd all hoped you'd stay dead, Mr Chamberlain.

> EDIT: sigh, are we really just reddit these days, using downvotes to express disagreement?

No, this is HN. According to a comment I got from dang some time ago -- or was it just a link to the guidelines, so it's there? -- downvotes are a legitimate expression of disagreement.

> I'm not going to change my mind based on downvotes. Comment to tell me how I'm wrong.

Done. Keep whining, and you can have a downvote on top.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#694

Post by CRConrad » Thu, May 12, 2022, 3:22 PM UTC

koshergweilo wrote: post #3

I'm not surprised that it's happening but I am surprised that it's taken less than three months for this to turn from a rumor to reality

Answered a similar comment by someone else here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31354470

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#695

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 12, 2022, 3:23 PM UTC

skissane wrote: post #642

vitus wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: illiberalism: https://budapestbeacon.com/full-text-of-viktor-orbans-speech... "in this sense, the new state that we are building is an illiberal state, a non-liberal state. It does not deny foundational values of liberalism, as freedom, etc.. But it does not make this ideology a central element of state organization, but applies a specific, national, particular approach in its stead." https://miniszterelnok.hu/pr…

Question: when Orban says “liberal” or “illiberal”, what does he actually mean by those terms? Worth keeping in mind that Americans and Europeans (especially Continentals/non-Anglophones) may have rather different definitions of “liberal”: “American conservatism, with its Lockean roots, is—from a Continental point of view—not really conservatism, but rather, old-school liberalism.” [0] Similarly: what’s the differenc…

[deleted]

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#696

Post by Tabular-Iceberg » Thu, May 12, 2022, 3:25 PM UTC

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…

Is it not possible that it would be preferable to both sides, even in a hot NATO-Russian war to stick with conventional weapons?

Russia just wants Lebensraum, which would be ruined by nukes, and NATO would probably not want to seem excessively cruel to Russian civilians when their purpose is supposed to be entirely defensive.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#697

Post by helloworld11 » Thu, May 12, 2022, 3:26 PM UTC

Melting_Harps wrote: post #517

dmix wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even Ukraine said they aren’t interested in fighting for the eastern parts of the country because the local population will likely be hostile and make their jobs much harder. They are strictly focusing on preventing any greater expansion than what happened prior to the invasion. There are arguments that Mariupol and maybe even Kherson have a relatively large pro-Russian population compared to other parts but I still…

> Even Ukraine said they aren’t interested in fighting for the eastern parts of the country because the local population will likely be hostile and make their jobs much harder. Source? This is simply not the case, their is intense fighting in the Donbas region by both UA and Foreign legions, and places like Bucha and Kharkiv are all on the East and are all subject to the indiscriminate shelling of residential areas o…

I'm honestly curious, how did/are bitcoiners using BTC and crypto tech to help people in these regions? What's the methodology? And also for actually spending/using the coins.

Also, from your wider comment, by the way you phrased it, I can't quite tell who you're saying is shelling ethnically Russian men, women and children in these areas a crime against humanity, the Ukrainian military or the Russians?

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#698

Post by watwut » Thu, May 12, 2022, 3:28 PM UTC

calf wrote: post #388

fsloth wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Manufacturing Consent! Even though I don't agree with it's implied worldview I enjoy Chomsky's skill as an eloquent polemiscist. But Chomsky does not really understand the world outside US. I am a Finn and I can guarantee Chomsky does not help you in understanding what happened here. We share 1500km border of Russia. We feel the geopolitic shifts in our backbones. Almost every finnish male regardless of wealth…

I see this point a lot but I don't understand it. I'm of both Taiwanese and Hong Kong ethnicity. The world has already seen what China did to Hong Kong's autonomy. But Chomsky's essays and lectures have helped me understand my old countries' political issues more clearly than many other sources, even when he isn't directly talking about Asia. So I don't understand the frequent assertion that Chomsky's arguments or hi…

> So I don't understand the frequent assertion that Chomsky's arguments or his general political views are invalid when it comes to Ukraine or other European countries.

That because those complains come from people who do know about history and politics of countries he talks about. And he has really hard time to admit that something like genocide can happen for reasons that are not caused by Americans. I mean, he has hard time to call genocide the one when it happens (unless done by Americans).

Specifically with Ukraine issue, he is one of those people who cant even hint toward non-Americans having agency or own ideas about future. If you talk about Eastern Europe as if only Russia and America existed, as if no one else was even involved and could not had ability to make own decisions, then you are the one trying to create false worldview ignoring reality.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#699

Post by JumpCrisscross » Thu, May 12, 2022, 3:28 PM UTC

logifail wrote: post #322

fsloth wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Surely the risk of NATO being involved in any conflict only increases as NATO grows?" No, it diminishes. NATO is a defensive alliance. The more members it has with credible military spending (which Finland has) the higher the cost for Russia to invade.

> No, it diminishes. NATO is a defensive alliance. The more members it has [..] A similar line of argument about alliances and treaties preventing war was used before the First World War. We all know how that ended.

> similar line of argument about alliances and treaties preventing war was used before the First World War

NATO was formed with that in mind. A single treaty document publicly ratified. No secret pacts. No back-alley alliances.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#700

Post by CRConrad » Thu, May 12, 2022, 3:29 PM UTC

ahoka wrote: post #298

ssl232 wrote: post #52

Usual caveats that I'm not a diplomat, don't have all the facts, etc etc., but this doesn't seem like a rational move for Finland or NATO. The UK just yesterday agreed to protect Finland in the event of an attack, and the UK's involvement would likely bring in many other NATO powers anyway, so arguably they're getting protection they'd otherwise have to pay for for free. And actually, officially joining NATO will hav…

My main problem with these "buffer zone" arguments is that I'm from one of those countries, and I don't want my people be some kind of sacrificial second class citizens of Europe, just so other countries can have it easy.

I am very sorry that I had only one upvote to give you.