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Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

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Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#781

Post by 0x737368 »

GolDDranks wrote: post #745
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?

It's a vague question but an appropriately vague answer to that is media narrative is not to inform you of what's happening but to make you think the way the people who control those media channels want you to think - you can only form your opinions from what you see.

But in this case the media narrative is very much "this why we need everyone to join NATO/be West-aligned" whereas it's exactly the expansion of NATO that has lead to these conflicts. As much as we'd all like for everyone to do what they want, in reality you need to consider the position of your neighbours especially if they have power. For an alternative example - see how USA reacted to Cuba becoming communist aligned, very much pot calling the kettle black, no? ;)

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#782

Post by denton-scratch »

herbst wrote: post #652
walrusfromspace wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it is not 1:1 with regards to human rights there was a pivot in the media away from Ukraine's "Problem with far right violence"[1] after the war started[2] into "Azov battalion is only 10% Nazi so there are no Nazis in Ukraine" [1]Here I am quoting one of the articles in the image [2] https://i.imgur.com/tfJ7PtX.jpg

Calling all citizens to a crazy war to die in pride for their lands and forbidding men to leave to country also is a very nationalist move for a non nationalist country IMO

Forbidding men to leave the country is rather natural, if you think you may have to mobilise or implement conscription (Russia's done it).

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#783

Post by pmontra »

pbourke wrote: post #679
pmontra wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most Russians don't seem to want to invade other countries. This is true for basically every people every time in history. People care about food, family, a house, medical care. All is well until some government starts pushing them into a warring state of mind. Examples from the previous generation of European wars, when Italy invented fascism, Germany followed suit ten years later and both countries started to thi…

> What we don't have to do is to start a process like the one that led Germany from the defeat in WW1 to desires of revenge and WW2, or Russia from the defeat in the Cold War to the current attempt to create its empire again. I note, grimly, that your positive example (Germany and Italy post-WW2) was precipitated by the total defeat, occupation and renovation of those two states by the victors of the war. That is not…

Invasions end governments sometimes. There are many processes that can result into a change of leadership. Ultimately it will be up to the Russians because nobody will ever invade them (the nuclear deterrent), no matter their fears.

Actually I wonder if the Kremlin really fears an invasion. We were happy to pay for anything we wanted from Russia.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#784

Post by kukkeliskuu »

2000UltraDeluxe wrote: post #232
kukkeliskuu wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it is not a contract, because it is not contractually binding. It is more a promise to help. And Churchill promised to help Finland in WW2 and did not keep his promise.

On an international level, there is nothing but promises and sanctions, unless we resort to warfare. Let's hope it won't be neccesary to put those treaties to the test.

Ultimately you are of course right, but this is not a fair characterization for this case.

Some agremeents are made through the normal legislative process for each country, and are enforceable by international courts.

These promises by heads of UK and Finland are not that kind of enforceable agreements, as they have not been approved by the legislature. They are just political statements by heads of state.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#785

Post by twoquestions »

cycomanic wrote: post #172
alkonaut wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia has argued that having NATO on its borders is a threat. Talk about missiles within range of Moscow and so on. Obviously these comments make no sense. But Russian domestic politics is always using a narrative of being a victim and having risk of being invaded. The Second World War doesn’t exist in Russian storytelling. The great patriotic war on the other hand, conveniently started in the 40s. The Finnish borde…

RealLifeLore has an excellent analysis of the reasons for Russia's invasion [1], including the military motivations. I highly recommend watching it. In particular the reasoning around gas and oil reserves in the Black Sea have not been given the due attention in the media IMO. He doesn't talk about Finland, but I would imagine the fact that it would broaden the front for a land-based invasion is what motivates Russia…

There's never been a war that he didn't like, the excitement in his voice when he describes the Chechen or Georgian conflicts or the Chinese annexation of Tibet or Iraq's annexation of Kuwait really skeeves me out.

Good info, but keep is frankly weird perspective in mind.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#786

Post by comrh »

toxik wrote: post #714
wolverine876 wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All 8 parties represented there have collaborated on this. Imagine a country where one major party doesn't sell itself by obstructing everything.

To be fair, there is no partisan issues in the US over helping Ukraine either. People unite against a common enemy -- it's like that old wisdom, the worst thing to happen to the US was winning the cold war.

It's bipartisan but not completely. There are elements on the right with the "it's not our problem, leave Ukraine to it's fate" point of view.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#787

Post by trashtester »

BenoitP wrote: post #631
jcranberry wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be realistic fallout from vetoing their application?

Something along these lines: https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220405-top-eu-body-laun...

Probably much more severe than that, at least if they were not able to provide a good excuse for the Veto, and this is seen as them forming a 5th column more loyal to Putin than Nato.

In such a case, Nato could in principle invoke Article 60 of the Vienna convention, and if all other members agreed, they could expel Hungary from Nato. Similarly, if their conflicts with the EU continue to escalate, they may be expelled from the EU in a similar fashion.

This would be a catastrophe for Hungary.

Not that I believe that it would ever come to this. Just a hint of this from key Nato/EU countries should be enough to make Hungary back down.

More likely, if Hungary wants to buy some favour from the Kremlin, they would drag out the expansion process by a few months.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#789

Post by pessimizer »

jcranberry wrote: post #557
rich_sasha wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 would be realistic fallout from vetoing their application?

In the name of democracy the US would attack Hungary economically, and leverage any dependency that other countries have on the US to force them to also attack Hungary economically or to join them as an official enemy.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#790

Post by finiteseries »

VictorPath wrote: post #753
toxik wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, there is no partisan issues in the US over helping Ukraine either. People unite against a common enemy -- it's like that old wisdom, the worst thing to happen to the US was winning the cold war.

That was why Victoria Nuland was in Euromaidan Square stirring up this new cold war.

The Cold War involved competing blocs of military & economic peers fighting over the alignment of uninvolved nations, it isn’t just a fancy laymen word for proxy or general US - USSR remnant conflict.

This is not a world wide conflict involving superpowers with the ability to project power (hard/soft) globally, it’s at best a regional power struggle involving regional powers.

You can make a case this is the American dagger to Russia’s future aspirations beyond regional powerdom, but peers, and blocs, and cold war there is not.

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