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Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

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Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#791

Post by blibble »

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…

liberal in the US sense seems to mean left

whereas in Europe it means anti-authoritarian

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#792

Post by trashtester »

rich_sasha wrote: post #587
pastacacioepepe wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet Ungary alone is stopping the 6th round of Russia sanctions from the EU. They are not afraid to veto to protect their interests, like any nation should do. It's not a coincidence that von der leyen wants to change the voting system from hunanimity to majority. They don't like to lose, and the rules are fine only as long as they can do what they want. So vetoes have more power than you would let us think.

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…

> Would there be consequences to ruining the plans of US, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Slovakia and Romania, and many other countries? No doubt, and beyond what Hungary is prepared to pay.

You can add Norway and probably Denmark to that list. With Finland and Sweden in Nato, all of Scandinavia becomes significantly more defendable. This would enable all Scandinavian countries to combine their defensive efforts, and would it make it extremely hard for Russia to attack any individual country.

And keep in mind that Stoltenberg is Norwegian....

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#794

Post by mordnis »

mrits wrote: post #741
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.

I wonder what do you think would happen if Russia, for example, nuked Helsinki? You think USA would nuke Russia and risk getting San Francisco burned to the ground? I personally find it rather unlikely. I'm not trying to be pro-Russian here, but I just don't see how provoking the second largest nuclear force is a good idea.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#795

Post by kukkeliskuu »

thematrixturtle wrote: post #471
kukkeliskuu wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a neutral characterization. They are not communists in the sense that they would oppose capitalism. A real communist party exists as well. They are left of US democrats, and major driver seems to be identity politics.

The Left Alliance is the successor of SKDL, which started out as a thin disguise for the banned Finnish Communist Party after the Soviets arm-twisted the Finnish government into allowing it. Obviously their politics have been diluted since the early days, but older folk recall their heritage well.

Downvoting for disagreement?

Anyway, it is about definition. For you communism appears to be about heritage. For me, it is about observed behavior. Communism means advocating for communistic world order.

Left Alliance is consistently voting pro-market, pro-EU, pro-globalization, anti-government etc., all of which are goals of the economic right, i.e. the opposite of communism.

Their former chair-woman (Suvi-Anne Siimes) even moved directly to become Director General of Pharma Industry Finland, and was promoting right-wing coalition party member in 2009 EU elections.

Sure, there still exists hard core left wing, even communist members within that party (taistolaiset).

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#796

Post by brabel »

mint2 wrote: post #662
brabel wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Your version of what happened seems extremely incomplete to me. Ukraine was basically fighting a war against Russia for 8 years already [1]... and that war started when the Russia-friendly government was removed by revolution (the demoted president fled to Russia after that) after which a very anti-Russian government was immediately instated with the whole objective of joining NATO and the EU, to Russia's dismay...

Not that just because of that Russia had the right to do what it was doing... but let's not forget everything that actually lead to the hostilities like you're simply doing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#797

Post by trashtester »

pastacacioepepe wrote: post #758
rich_sasha wrote: post #737

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll remind you that Russia is a democracy and Putin is a democratically elected leader, as much as Biden is. And people in the USA have much less trust for the democratic process than Russians at the moment. Erm... huh? You cannot, not in a million years, compare the democratic processes of US or EU states with what's going on in Russia. I'm not even sure where to start. How about this then: Russia's premier oppos…

Quoted post unavailable.

> And yet, Russia has usually a higher voter turnout for presidential elections. Yet, Putin approval is at a sky high of 82% while Biden is plummeting at 42%, just the half

The most important mark of a democracy is the ability to get rid of unpopular leaders at the end of their term, as the US did in 2020 and may be doing in 2024.

The mark of a dictatorship, on the other hand, is that they subdue any opposition by any and all means available. When the totalitarianism is total, the leader will get 99% of the votes in elections and a similar reported approval rating. Those who do not support the regime and not already eliminated, are too scared to say so.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#798

Post by jacquesm »

justin66 wrote: post #750
jacquesm wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Already done... sadly.

https://kyivindependent.com/national/transnistria-becomes-po...

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#800

Post by AnimalMuppet »

jltsiren wrote: post #515
thematrixturtle wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For readers not versed in Finnish politics, the only party with a majority opposed is Vasemmistoliitto (Left Alliance), the rebranded former Finnish Communist/Socialist party.

The original Left Alliance was like that, but the current party has very little to do with that heritage. The younger generation started a slow coup in the late 90s and eventually pivoted the party to a completely new direction. In the process, they lost many of their old supporters. The left-wing conservatives who had traditionally voted communists didn't really feel at home in a party of liberal environmentalists.

> The left-wing conservatives who had traditionally voted communists...

As a person with US-oriented political definitions, I find that phrase almost impossible to parse. I can put "left-wing" and "traditionally voted communist" together, but in what sense are they "conservatives"?

I'm not saying that you're wrong. I'm just saying that I don't understand how the terms are used over there.

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