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Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

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Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#891

Post by shreyshnaccount »

kn0where wrote: post #851
shreyshnaccount wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To stray from the topic, the double game phrase does make sense to me, possibly because it's also a Hindi phrase

I think the English equivalent is "playing both sides of the fence." Double game makes intuitive sense too though.

And one of the Hindi phrases my mom uses "thali ka baingan" literally translates to "eggplant of the plate" doesn't make any sense in English but I love it xD. Hindi is a pretty beautiful language and people use so many colourful metaphors it's incredible!

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#892

Post by mint2 »

brabel wrote: post #811
AuthorizedCust wrote: post #802

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Can…

In the two years prior to the war, what addition steps had Ukraine taken to become a nato member?

Second, why all the Russian lies about nazis? If nato was a legitimate concern why do they need those lies?

If nato was actually a concern, why would they take the step most likely to get Finland and Sweden on board with nato? It seems like many other statements by Russia, nato concerns are lies as well.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#893

Post by amrangaye »

brabel wrote: post #811
AuthorizedCust wrote: post #802

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Can…

I think the fact that you keep framing this as a matter of “opinion” is revealing in itself. You speak of “provocation” as if it’s equal and commensurate to bombing and invading a country. I really cannot understand people who keep pushing this point. Ukraine decided they might like to join NATO - so therefore Russia has a right to invade and level the country. Please make this make sense to me. The bombs dropping on Ukrainian citizens every night while Russian citizens sleep in peace should tell you enough - this is not a matter of “opinion” - how easy to say that from a privileged position in which you and your home are under no threat.

And your analogy with Canada and China doesn’t hold up either. In that case too the US would have no right to invade a sovereign country for making decisions about its own future. You speak as if this imagined scenario somehow justifies Putin’s actions when it fact it highlights how wrong they are even more.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#894

Post by reducesuffering »

rodgerd wrote: post #314
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.

He has poured considerable amounts of time and money and other forms of backing into regime change in a number of NATO members; he extensively backed Le Pen and Zemmour, Trump (and enjoys public support from a number of US senators), has close ties to Gerhard Schröder, and of course has extensive networks in the British Conservative Party - sufficient for the current Prime Minister to appoint a Russian as a member of…

Yep. Anyone doubting that Putin actively funds and influences right wing politicians in the West needs only to look at Putin's state spokesman, Dmitri Peskov's daughter, Elizaveta, is an assistant to far-right French politician Aymeric Chauprade, a French Member of the European Parliament.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#895

Post by fsloth »

avgcorrection wrote: post #836
fsloth wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm trying to explain how I see the situation from Finland and I don't see anything in Chomsky that would help to understand this situation.

I'm happy we are joining NATO. I'm mostly sure I was not brainwashed into it by media. I just knew intuitively the second Russian tanks crossed Ukrainian border NATO would be the best option in Finland. I can't prove it but I'm guessing lots of finns felt the same. And it was this collective feeling that spread out through the population spontaneously.

There are very few books beyond physics and mathematics with universal truths. And even those need savvy application to real world problems. Problem with chomskyism is that it sees everything through the lense of chomskyism which filters out everything else. It's like a high pass filter attuned to the detection of US human rights violations.

Finnish consent was not manufactured. It was caused by the explicit invasion of Ukraine.

As a people that has always bordered Russia and has been invaded by Russia for centuries we are quite sensitive to things affecting our relationship with it.

You feel it in your bones the weather has changed.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#896

Post by jacquesm »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #877
jacquesm wrote: post #857

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putins ideas of what threatens Russia are not rooted in reality.

I absolutely agree. It's just that, if Putin has these unrealistic ideas of what threatens Russia (like an independent Ukraine), and Putin has stated that Russia can use nukes if it is threatened, and Putin is the one who gets to make the call about whether Russia is threatened enough to use nukes... then I really don't like that one man, disconnected from reality, can start a nuclear war.

Yes, but he's so decoupled from reality that if he wants to do that any pretext will serve so I don't think this will make a difference at all. Putin will do what he thinks he has to do regardless of the rest of the world. It's well beyond logic by now. Russia will suffer for decades after Putin is gone on account of what is happening today no matter how much worse he makes it.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#897

Post by fsloth »

calf wrote: post #829
fsloth wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chomsky starts from the position that the general population is ignorant of history and politics and can be programmed by the elites to what ever worldview. He does not start from the position that an individual voter would have skin in the game, or understand the consequences of political and economic actions. Ukrainians feel in their guts their country is being invaded by an genocidal adversary. They are not driven…

Then will all respect I must disagree. I said that I am ethnically a Hong Konger. When China broke its UK treaty (effectively, a temporary neutralization treaty that granted autonomy to HK for a period of years), I also felt in my gut how horrible that was: it was cultural genocide, in my eyes. But at no point did I need to dismiss Chomsky's theories or find it invalid in scope. I have no problem pointing out how US…

I am happy you have found analysis to contextualize the world around yourself in troubled times.

I am in no position to estimate how well Chomskyist analysis is applicable to HK. It's just not very good tool in understanding the war in Ukraine or Finland joining NATO.

There might be some cultural context missing which would make this very hard to communicate.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#898

Post by trashtester »

toyg wrote: post #812
trashtester wrote: post #787

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe I'm biased as someone living much further north, but it seems to me that Sweden and Finland have more strategic geographic importance than Hungary, at least as long as Ukraine doesn't fall completely (ie as long as Russia doesn't get a common border with Hungary).

Without a shared border with Russia, Hungary's usefulness in a conflict would be relatively limited for Russia. On the other hand, for it would be highly dangerous for Hungary to willingly align with Russia, as that would make it likely that a future conflict would be fought on their territory.

As long as Sweden and Finland remain neutral, they are at risk. Putin has shown that he is willing to use military force to grab land. Should he grab Finland and Sweden, he would effectively control the Baltic sea and also have bases that can reach Western Europe much more easily than he can at the moment.

On the other hand, with Finland in the alliance, Nato has a highly defensible (for Nato) shared front with Russia, in the case of a conflict.

Also, keep in mind that Finland + Sweden together has a greater population than Hungary as well as maybe 5x the GDP, and that while Hungary is moving towards totalitarianism, Sweden and Finland both have long democratic traditions, low corruption, etc.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#899

Post by ptx »

piokoch wrote: post #601
thematrixturtle wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This more or less seals Finland applying for NATO membership. However, adding new members requires unanimous consent from all existing members, so it's not guaranteed to be smooth sailing. Russia is also obviously deeply unhappy about this and will do its best to disrupt the process via direct and indirect pressure.

The ship has sailed for Russia already. USA will not tolerate obstruction by Germany, France or Hungary. Recent meeting about Ukraine support was hold in Ramstein and this place was chosen intentionally - to show who is the master of the show and who should sit and listen. By attacking Ukraine Russia wanted to "push" NATO away from its borders, but it all went backwards - now they will have a new, 1300 km long border…

> Sweden by itself has more than 400 modern combat aircrafts of various types

According to Wikipedia [1], the Swedish airforce has only 207 aircraft in total, only 71 of which are combat aircraft (JAS 39 Gripen).

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

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#900

Post by Ciantic »

maratc wrote: post #833
Ciantic wrote: post #705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

You have fair points and respect your opinion on this. In my opinion Russia is running out of men willing to fight in Ukraine already. Will to fight is huge one, Soviet union was 50 times bigger than Finland during Winter War, yet they struggled. One reason to apply right now according to some is precisely because Russia is stuck in Ukraine.

However myself I don't believe in any real military threat from Russia for Finland during NATO application process or after. War in Ukraine seems to be about some sort of obsession in Russia about Ukraine, not about NATO.

Even right now, Kremlin seems to be changing it's mind about should Ukraine be allowed to even EU. They now seem to be equaling EU with NATO "I think that our position on the European Union now is more similar to NATO because we don’t see a big difference" (Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russian UN representative)

Finland is part of UK led Joint Expeditionary Force, also new alliance with UK (with bizarre Boris stunt yesterday), and is backed by EU mutual defense clause. It's weak solidarity clause, and was never meant to be military alliance, nevertheless it allows flexible interpretation, and Germany has promised even troops to help if needed.

I'm not worried at all, and don't see this as gamble.

> After all, getting in an alliance with Germany in the past proved as a costly mistake.

Btw, I didn't quiet understand this. In Finland the Continuation War (where Finland allied with Germany) is seen as alliance of necessity, and saved Finnish independence.

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