Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

presidentti.fi

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

861–870 of 1001 posts

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#861

Post by agapon »

g0ran wrote: post #429
senko wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Croatian president is stupid (as is the Prime Minister, fwiw), with little actual power, and spewing things left and right to make himself more relevant. Thankfully, Croatia doesn't have any real influence in NATO so nobody will be obliged to listen to that stupidity. Source: I live in Croatia.

> Croatia doesn't have any real influence in NATO so nobody will be obliged to listen Unfortunately, same applied when that drone with explosives fell in the middle of Zagreb. Deafening silence from NATO.

What's also strange is that drone flew over a couple of other NATO countries before entering Croatian air space and somehow it wasn't shot down, intercepted, etc. The circumstances around that drone are rather vague and seem to be kept so on purpose.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#862

Post by agapon »

jansan wrote: post #403
sph wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're certainly not Russia-aligned. They've never liked each other, and Turkey has been crucial in strengthening Ukraine's defense with their Bayraktars.

They are not aligned, but they deal with the Ukraine conflict in a very pragmatic way. On the one side they are delivering drones to Ukraine, which have proven to be one of the more effective weapons agains the Russian army, on the other hand they will accept Russian tourists into the country this summer. IMHO Erdogan still owes Putin a favor for being tipped off on the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt.

What's the Ukraine conflict?

Do you mean the war that Russia wages against Ukraine?

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#863

Post by TMWNN »

zsombor wrote: post #818
mariuolo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 perfec…

Don't forget Merkel. There are still people that say that Merkel was always against German dependence on Russian gas but could not do anything about it. For 16 years!

There is more "evidence" that Merkel is a long-term Russian intelligence asset, recruited from her youth in East Germany,[1] than that of Trump being the same. One guess on which claim is incessantly repeated by the bien-pensants of the chattering classes.

Bonus: Trump and Stoltenberg argue on camera (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpwkdmwui3k>). Who turned out to be right? Who turned out to completely, totally, 100% wrong?

[1] Something else never talked about is how her parents moved from West to East Germany when she was a baby

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#864

Post by jl2718 »

GolDDranks wrote: post #754
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?

As a Finn, I sincerely wish we could come along with our Russian neighbors, but Russia need to change for that to happen. Democracy, human rights and the concepts freedom of speech, freedom of press and a concept of transparent, rule-based society with little corruption are the keywords, but they haven't truly taken root in the Russian culture and system of thought.

Assuming the regime falls and leaves a power vacuum, what do you think the best way to help the people toward that is?

My greatest concern is what comes next. The current regime is a kleptocracy, which is awful for the people, but easy to predict and control and siphon cheap natural resources from. They stay in power partly by fear of EU/NATO, but it’s questionable support. Once the kleptocracy is gone, EU/NATO can either embrace Russia or maintain the current stance against them. Embracing Russia will diminish EU/NATO power and purpose. Maintaining the current stance will strengthen the alliance against them, while pushing the country toward extreme nationalism in a new regime with nothing to lose and a lot to prove. There will not be a clear decision point to switch course; it will either be gradual de-escalation on both sides, or gradual strengthening.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#865

Post by agapon »

trasz wrote: post #819
mindslight wrote: post #733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Very few countries in the world have "proper" air force.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#866

Post by pvaldes »

denton-scratch wrote: post #749
simonh wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

> Putin's MO is to openly support dissidents in neighbouring countries; declare that the dissidents are being persecuted or "genocided"; encourage them to declare a republic; and then move an army in, to defend the bogus republic.

Is not confined to neighbors. It seems that Putin secretly offered 10.000 soldiers to the crooks in Cataluña to "defend" the new republic after the independence declaration. Has been playing the amoeba game for a long time:

"During his visit (2017), Medoyev drew parallels between Catalonia and pro-Russian, theoretically independent republics such as South Ossetia and Abkhazia"

https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/10/26/inenglish/15090...

Puigdemont talked with Russia the day before declaring the independence of Catalonia.

https://www.yenisafak.com/en/world/putins-envoy-allegedly-of...

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#867

Post by maratc »

watwut wrote: post #859
maratc wrote: post #834

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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".

In what way did Ukraine doubled down? What exact step made it more likely?

Ukraine has done joint "war games" with NATO ships in 2020 and 2021 (see HMS Dragon and HMS Defender for example). On November 11, 2021 Russian jets were scrambled to intercept "British spy plane". On November 29, 2021, a NATO summit was held in Riga, where the commitment to admitting Georgia and Ukraine was repeated, and the idea of sending NATO soldiers to Ukraine was discussed. Zelenskyy was quoted repeatedly saying that "NATO is the only way to end the war in Donbas".

Now, if the elevated rhetoric and the calls for sending NATO soldiers do not sound like "doubling down", joint war games should certainly do.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#868

Post by jltsiren »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #800
jltsiren wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Economically hard left, socially conservative. There are often no good English terms for political positions that never existed as mainstream options in English-speaking countries.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#869

Post by agapon »

aiilns wrote: post #428
xdennis wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but isn't Kaliningrad part of the Russian Federation It was annexed by Russian in 1945 and had its entire population forcibly moved (a war crime even at the time).

Yes, "annexed" by Russians from Nazi Germany. As in, becoming part of the Soviet Union since the Red Army had taken the city near the end of WWII after the Russians and British had bombed ~90% of the city.

Not sure why used the quotes. Yes, the territory was annexed from Germany.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#870

Post by CRConrad »

denton-scratch wrote: post #756
CRConrad wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Preventing genocide next door is defense, not offense. Just like in Ukraine now. The most Offensive thing here is your defense of genocidal wars of aggression.

> Preventing genocide next door is defense, not offense. If the way you choose to prevent genocide is by marching an army into a foreign country, that's called "offense". Your argument is sophistical.

Yes, but that's what Putler is doing. I was talking about the West helping the victims thereof to defend their homeland.
Post reply on HN