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Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

presidentti.fi

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Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#741

Post by mrits »

maratc wrote: post #670

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…

I don't see it as a gamble at all. It would be a huge gamble for Russia to react to this though. The only possible negative outcome for Finland would also result in the removal of Russia from the planet.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#742

Post by 0x737368 »

Wow, some real hot takes in here. It's particularly funny that commenters here mention what happened in Georgia and Ukraine as reasons for Finland joining NATO, when it's exactly those countries cosying up to NATO/the West at Russia's security what lead to the conflicts.

Goes to show how people will happily swallow the media narrative without thinking about the big picture.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#743

Post by medo-bear »

senko wrote: post #669
foobarian wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

> It has low taxes (10% capital gains tax! 0% LTCG!)

Besides capital gains and corporate income, Croatia has some of the heaviest income taxes in the world (up to 45%), and i think the highest VAT tax in EU (25%)

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#744

Post by denton-scratch »

mcv wrote: post #301
refurb wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is you’re using your own perspective to imagine how Russia is assessing the situation. That’s the big mistake. You could run the same analysis for the US involvement in Vietnam. 1) The US was anti colonial after WW2 (the US assumed colonial holdings would foment communist uprisings), and had given the Philippines it independence. 2) The US had no real strategic interest in Vietnam beyond a non-communist a…

I don't think anyone is disputing that the US was wrong in Vietnam. And in Iraq (the second time at least) for that matter. Yet I often see people use these examples where the US was clearly wrong as reasons why Russia should be permitted to invade Ukraine.

> why Russia should be permitted to invade Ukraine

That's awkward language. Who gets to grant permission for the invasion of a foreign country?

The question is whether it's legitimate to go to war against the invader. NATO is not a schoolmaster, issuing invasion passes. Unfortunately NATO doesn't have clean hands (Libya, and arguably Iraq).

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#745

Post by GolDDranks »

0x737368 wrote: post #742

Wow, some real hot takes in here. It's particularly funny that commenters here mention what happened in Georgia and Ukraine as reasons for Finland joining NATO, when it's exactly those countries cosying up to NATO/the West at Russia's security what lead to the conflicts. Goes to show how people will happily swallow the media narrative without thinking about the big picture.

As a Finn (so I happen to know _my_ reasons for why I support joining NATO perfectly well), I'm curious: how do you perceive the media narrative to be biased or wrong?

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#746

Post by dodobirdlord »

jacquesm wrote: post #567
JasonFruit wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think NATO nations wouldn't do such a thing, if there were a conventional war between them and Russia? War is essentially irrational, and it causes governments and the general population to desire ends that can only be pursued by harmful, immoral means. What makes NATO immune to this?

In principle nothing, but in practice NATO has shown considerable restraint so far and I see no reason why they would suddenly and catastrophically deviate from that. So unless Russia uses nuclear weapons first - which they have threatened now multiple times - I do not see this or any other conflict NATO is involved in escalate to nuclear. NATO has never publicly committed to a NFU policy because that would weaken th…

To add some more context, NATO's refusal to establish a NFU policy dates to the Cold War, when NATO military leaders concluded that defending central Europe from Soviet invasion required a credible threat to deploy tactical nuclear weapons. Confronted with that threat, Soviet forces would have spread out to avoid concentrations large enough to be vulnerable, making a conventional defense feasible by preventing the outnumbering Soviet army from massing to take defended positions, which in turn would provide time for the USA to deploy large armies into Europe. Without this credible threat, the Soviet army would have had the option to pick off a NATO country (i.e. Western Germany) by massing armor columns and forcing a surrender before the USA could deploy a comparable army across the Atlantic.

NATO no longer faces this threat, but the policy remains.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#747

Post by denton-scratch »

aiilns wrote: post #592
CRConrad wrote: post #490

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? 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?

> right next to their borders?

Having a state that you don't trust on your borders is not a justification for invasion. Hell, the UK trusts neither France nor Germany; both have attacked the UK, and planned to invade it, in the last 200 years. Lots of countries have neighbours they don't trust, but (on the whole) they don't launch unprovoked wars.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#748

Post by [deleted] »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #688
rich_sasha wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's been convenient to blame Hungary, but the truth is, plenty of countries are unhappy about banning Russian hydrocarbons, with Germany leading the list. They can weather the consequences of their veto, because there isn't much will to make it happen anyway - i.e. there are no consequences. I can imagine Finland/Sweden being very different. Who benefits/loses from Finland/Sweden joining? These countries are…

> plenty of countries are unhappy about banning Russian hydrocarbons But only one is blocking.

[deleted]

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#749

Post by denton-scratch »

simonh wrote: post #257
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…

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…

> Putin has been crystal clear, in numerous speeches and written statements, that he considers several other countries 'Russian territory' including Belarus, Georgia, the 'stans' and Ukraine.

Don't know why you've been downvoted; Putin's MO is to openly support dissidents in neighbouring countries; declare that the dissidents are being persecuted or "genocided"; encourage the dissidents to declare a republic; and then move an army in, to defend the bogus republic.

Declaring that Ukraine is part of Russia doesn't make it so.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#750

Post by justin66 »

jacquesm wrote: post #225
omega3 wrote: post #55

Let's hope that Sweden will also follow suit.

They more or less have to, the chances of Sweden becoming the next target for Putins belligerence have just gone up by 50%. It's the only country left that he can attack without immediate repercussions from NATO, though I suspect that even without NATO membership the EU would react very strongly to any attempt to make a mess in Sweden.

> It's the only country left that he can attack without immediate repercussions from NATO

Moldova?

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