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Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

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Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#811

Post by brabel »

AuthorizedCust wrote: post #802
brabel wrote: post #796

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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... N…

What is your point? Defending your country against an invading force and self determination of a republic are not provocations.

This is your opinion... if you believe everyone should agree with you on that, then yes, seeking membership on a military alliance whose aim is to keep your country at bay is not a provocation. But can you maybe consider that Putin and most Russians do not share your opinion? Would an American consider that Canada joining a Chinese-led military alliance to defend its members against USA's increased aggression (in Canadian's and Chinese opinions) count as a provocation to America? Well, to Americans it most certainly would... even if the Chinese disagreed completely with them... this is my point. It's easy to believe our opinion is the only one that counts and fuck anyone who doesn't share it.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#812

Post by toyg »

trashtester wrote: post #787
BenoitP wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 expelle…

> they could expel Hungary from Nato

I don't think anyone wants that big hole on the alliance's border. Hungary might not be as critically positioned as Turkey, but it's still in a pretty awkward place.

But as you say, Orban could drag his feet a bit. Chances are his party enjoyed direct funding from Moscow, like others in their orbit all over Europe.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#813

Post by Supermancho »

myko wrote: post #427
lnxg33k1 wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Joining NATO is literally in the Ukrainian constitution. It is not optional, attempting to join is a requirement of the government of Ukraine and not working toward that end would be unconstitutional.

> Tell them that if their president didn't say he wanted to join NATO

Ukraine already applied to NATO. NATO's adherence to it's own acceptance rules are purely political. NATO did not accept Ukraine's application because there were lands in dispute - with Russia - which disqualifies you from membership until it's resolved. NATO obv does not want to accept new members that immediately put the whole organization in a conflict. Other countries, with similar land disputes have been accepted, but that's largely because none of the contesting countries were Russia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations

It doesnt take decades to for NATO to accept a country. The org has been dragging it's feet because it didn't want to trigger the likely Ukraine conflict and be involved in it directly.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#814

Post by indemnity »

nonameking2026 wrote: post #108
sph wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can Russia pressure and disrupt the process when NATO members are the ones most afraid of Putin? Finland's doing this only because of Russia's actions. I can't imagine anybody vetoing Finland's membership. In fact, the more the merrier^Hstronger.

They can do a lot of things. None which are good for Russia but their leaders might perceive this as a direct threat to their sovereignty and take extreme measures. Either they stop this now or it's all over anyway. This is reckless - we need to start a path of de-escalation - give Putin an offramp. Get to back to calm waters. Then let diplomats do their little dances until there is a hopefully more reasonable people…

The exact same arguments used by Chamberlain, etc. Putin has the off-ramp he needs - move out of Ukraine, return all of cupped territories.

Anything less is appeasement.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#815

Post by AndrewDucker »

jl2718 wrote: post #740

Regimes change. I expect soon. Then what? Are we still locked into opposition with the Russian people? Given a blank slate, what relationship do we want between NATO/EU countries and Russia?

NATO is opposed to Russia insofar as it has a mutual defence pact against any Invader.

If Russia isn't invading any NATO country then there's no opposition.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#816

Post by AnimalMuppet »

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…

Russia also has not committed to a NFU policy. In fact, they have explicitly stated that, if Russia's survival is threatened (such as, you're rolling tanks over their border), then nukes are in play.

Of course, the problem is that Putin has a very expansive idea of "what threatens Russia"...

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#817

Post by senko »

notafraudster wrote: post #665
senko wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 B…

I went on a hyperbole there, true.

But: that was then, and this is now.

Russia escaped sanctions for a long time, for many things, because of EU countries giving it the benefit of the doubt, and because of oil and gas.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#818

Post by zsombor »

mariuolo wrote: post #57
sph wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can Russia pressure and disrupt the process when NATO members are the ones most afraid of Putin? Finland's doing this only because of Russia's actions. I can't imagine anybody vetoing Finland's membership. In fact, the more the merrier^Hstronger.

> How can Russia pressure and disrupt the process when NATO members are the ones most afraid of Putin? Hungary is also a NATO member and yet its president (Mr. Orban) has been quite chummy with Putin.

Orban is the prime minister not the president. As for being chummy no Hungarian prime minister or president current or former has ever served as board member for Gazprom, nor served as head of shareholders for Nordstream AG, or director of the board for Rosneft the Russian oil company. All these positions were/are held by a former german chancellor Gerhard Schröder whom had put Germany onto the path of closing perfectly working nuclear plants and thus leading to the current dependence on Russian oil and gas:

https://bigthink.com/pessimists-archive/germany-nuclear-powe...

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#819

Post by trasz »

mindslight wrote: post #733
tsimionescu wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that Russia couldn't even cleanly occupy Ukraine, it's laughable to suggest they could attack NATO countries such as Poland and Romania.

That doesn't follow. Even though Russia has not been able to occupy most of Ukraine, they've still been able to attack the civilian population. Either through medium range missile strikes, or with occupation forces committing war crimes before being pushed back (to put it mildly). I assume the citizens of Poland and Romania much prefer being able to go to a shopping mall without being subject to missile strikes.

Russia wouldn’t be able to hurt Ukrainian population if the latter had proper Air Force.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#820

Post by rightbyte »

CRConrad wrote: post #707
rightbyte wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am arguing that the risk of 'sparks' outweights the benefits of joining NATO right now.

Yeah, and you're wrong. There could always be "sparks", so then Finland could never join. Honestly, feels a bit suspicious with all these "only well-meaning" comments from various people... Comments that just "coincidentally" seem to further Putler's agenda. (Yeah, I may be being a bit paranoid here. But this page has some pretty obvious trolls [and at least one total tinfoil-helmet kook]. So even if I'm wrong, maybe…

It is a fallacy that to not support NATO is to support Putin.

NATO's main members has been involved in multiple bloody and failed wars since 1991 and is no beacon of light and humanism when it comes to war to put it lightly.

And I don't think actual government shills would bother discussing on HN. But I might be wrong.

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