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Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

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Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#831

Post by Agamus »

watwut wrote: post #274
nonameking2026 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Nobody wants war. Objectively, this is not true. Putin wanted war. Leadership around him wanted war too. They wanted war they will win fast, but even if that succeeded it would be war too.

I'm not convinced of this. One of his leads seems to have trouble getting the 'Da' out: https://youtu.be/MsfUiTJv2lE?t=123

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#833

Post by maratc »

Ciantic wrote: post #705
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…

It's not seen as a gamble here anymore, few months ago it seemed so. Finnish government have been busy building the support for Finnish application in NATO members for few months now. Even NATO's Jens Stoltenberg has already said we are not alone even during the application process and they welcome Finnish and Swedish application. Finnish military is built against Russia. We rely on huge conscription army of 900 000…

> We rely on huge conscription army of 900 000

This is about what the Soviets lost in the first two months of WW2.

Considering Russian population of 144 million, half of which are women and half of the rest either too old or too young to fight, the Russian army reserve can be (conservatively) estimated at about 30 million men.

With that in mind, in the possible conflict Finland would need to continuously maintain a loss ratio of 30:1 or more.

In the Winter war, the loss ratio was about 5:1, which is a "good" news tactically, but not "good enough" news strategically. It meant that Finland moved to the point of not being able to fight faster than the Soviets did.

Another discrepancy — the one that did not exist in either the Winter war or the Continuation war — is that the Russian nuclear arsenal is somewhere between 3,000 and 10,000 nuclear weapons, while the Finnish nuclear arsenal is none.

Finally, Russia won't fear any sanctions for its conflict with Finland, because the sanctions weapon is already used against them.

> You may ask why would we need NATO if we have such a military?

I may ask why you think that seeking NATO membership is putting Finland in a less dangerous position and not in a more dangerous one. After all, getting in an alliance with Germany in the past proved as a costly mistake.

> After what Russia did to Ukraine

Russia is in a process of wrecking Ukraine because Ukraine wanted to join NATO. They seem to have achieved at least the goal of keeping Ukraine out of NATO, because NATO will not admit Ukraine while it fights the Russians.

I fail to see how doing exactly the same thing that Ukraine did is not a very dangerous gamble.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#834

Post by maratc »

tyleo wrote: post #684
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 think folks wanted to maintain that wise policy. Even in the days leading up to the war Ukraine dismissed the fact that Russia would attack as fear mongering. The problem is that Russia has now proven themselves an untrustable party. "Keep the status quo and we won't attack," they say but now they are attacking Ukraine anyways. What do you do if you are Finland? You want to make peace, you want to maintain nonaggre…

> "Keep the status quo and we won't attack," they say but now they are attacking Ukraine anyways.

This does not fit my understanding. In my understanding, Ukraine doubles down on NATO membership, and Russia attacks. Am I missing something? Somewhere between 2014 and 2022 Ukraine denounced its NATO aspirations?

In no way I condone the Russian attack, but I also can't see how they're "untrustable".

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#835

Post by emptysongglass »

denton-scratch wrote: post #778
emptysongglass wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't true. Many of us worked with Ukrainians before the war, especially in the software industry, such as myself. There was no sudden perceptual change. I observed the fear and anxiety my Ukrainian coworkers experienced directly. They are European and they did not deserve this invasion and as far as I'm concerned deserve all the help and compassion the rest of us can offer.

> They are European "European" is a rather loose term. When I was a kid, Europe stopped at the border with East Germany. Later, a bunch of former soviet countries became "european" countries. Then Ukraine. For a while, Russia was acclaimed as a european country (it's still often described that way in the UK press). Call me an old fogey, but I'm still doubtful that the former East Germany is really european yet. Being…

Yes, and I say Ukrainians are European in culture and an inspiration to other Europeans in their bravery. Danes recently celebrated the liberation of their country from Nazis. Thousands of us packed the city square to listen to Zelensky speak to our cultural memory of oppression at the hands of invaders.

My Ukrainian coworkers were easy to work with, easy to communicate with, hardworking and an equal to any of us in ability.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#836

Post by avgcorrection »

fsloth wrote: post #280
antris wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You can't game a 76% support for any cause in a few months in a liberal democracy. I suggest reading on Manufacturing Consent. People living in liberal democracies are swayed all the time. It has happened over and over again. Probably the most notable example being USA after 9/11. Bush approval rating spiked from 60% to 92%. When scary things happen, media coverage and politicians can together make drastic changes t…

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…

So you originally made a claim about liberal democracies, which both Finland and the US are. Now after the counter-argument/proposal you change your tune and claim that a book about how the media operates in the US and by a extrapolation similar liberal democracies has got nothing to do with how Finland works. How convenient.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#837

Post by mcv »

denton-scratch wrote: post #744
mcv wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I guess the UN could pass a resolution to authorize an invasion (though they can't really enforce anything). It's why the US presented their case against Iraq to the UN 20 years ago.

Though in this particular case, the demands Putin made before the invasion, that NATO should promise never to allow Ukraine in, and should abandon eastern Europe entirely, sounded a lot to me like Putin was basically demanding permission to invade those countries.

Because while NATO can't give permission to invade, it can most certainly enforce a denial of that permission by defending the target of the invasion. And that's what Putin was asking from NATO: a promise not to defend Ukraine or any other country in eastern Europe.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#838

Post by maratc »

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.

> the removal of Russia from the planet

The smartest people on the planet, since the 60's, have worked on this problem, and that's how we got to the concept of "mutually assured destruction" (triad and all that). That means that this "removal" would likely also mean a symmetrical "removal" of the West.

I have a privilege to live in neither a NATO country nor Russia, nor anywhere near, so for me it still looks like a chess game, but the stakes are unbearably high.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#839

Post by ochoseis »

To appreciate this may require some understanding of the historical context. I’d heard of the Winter War between Finland and the USSR prior to WWII, but had no idea that:

- Finland was formerly part of the Russian Empire

- Finland held out, but conceded a significant chunk of land to the USSR (Karelian Isthmus, now part of Russia…sounds kind of like eastern Ukraine)

- The Soviet forces were generally inept

- The West essentially abandoned Finland to avoid confronting the USSR

- Ever since WWII, Finland has been careful to remain neutral

The “World War Two” channel on YouTube has a series of entertaining videos detailing the history starting around here: https://youtu.be/HZunUjmHTeA

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#840

Post by stult »

Regic wrote: post #729
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…

The hungarian leading party (fidesz) has already declared they will not veto Ukrain's adoption to the EU so I personally really doubt they would veto Finland's entry to the NATO. They are playing a double-game (sorry, this probably doesn't make sense in english, it's a hungarian expression): Orban had a famous quote he said to EU leaders "don't listen to what I say, only to what I do", which in practice means alienat…

We don't have that phrase in English but it translates very clearly. Interestingly, your description of Orban's behavior exactly matches a somewhat famous game theoretic analysis of international leaders' behavior called "the two-level game." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-level_game_theory

He's not unique in this regard. Every national leader has to consider the interests and perceptions of their domestic power base when negotiating with international leaders. Very often a mismatch between their rhetoric and actual behavior indicates that they are trying to sell an unpopular but necessary international agreement to the people back home, or that they must accept an international reality that does not match their domestic political framework.

For example, Putin finds himself in a difficult position right now because he has convinced his people that the Russian military is invincible and the Ukrainians are dominated by a small number of Nazis who need to be removed from power. Meaning, his domestically acceptable "win set" only includes scenarios in which Ukraine cedes large swathes of territory and makes at least some notional concessions around governmental reform toward "de-nazification." Anything else admits the political framework he uses to justify his power is premised on falsehoods and risks destabilizing his regime.

These positions are of course not consistent with reality and therefore not within the Ukrainian win set, and so no agreement will be reached until something changes. I suspect that is why Russian journalists/propagandists have recently started recasting the war as a conflict against NATO, because that will make defeat more palatable to the Russian people. Getting beat by NATO doesn't mean the Russian military was horrifically incompetent and their government deeply corrupt, but rather that it was an unfair fight sprung upon them by evil westerners. It feeds their sense of grievance while excusing Putin and his lackeys from any personal responsibility for the widespread military failures.

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