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Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

presidentti.fi

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Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#961

Post by pastacacioepepe »

ceejayoz wrote: post #777
pastacacioepepe wrote: post #768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That seems like silly semantics It adds a lot of nuance actually. They can't say to the public that NATO proactively wants a country to join, as that would sound as an expansionistic move, so what more probably happens is that NATO first reaches out to countries that are considered strategically useful offering them a deal. Then the public is sold the narrative of the free country wanting to join NATO, that generou…

> There is no other way to sell to your electorate joining NATO. Sure there is. "Look at what happened to Ukraine".

Which is exactly what I described in my comment

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#962

Post by ochoseis »

supergirl wrote: post #919
ochoseis wrote: post #839

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…

you “accidentally” left out some events: Finland fought alongside Nazi Germany against USSR, for example in the infamous siege of Leningrad

Please do not [inaccurately] insinuate my intent.

Pretty sure that’s obviously implied by: “The West essentially abandoned Finland to avoid confronting the USSR”

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#963

Post by denton-scratch »

agapon wrote: post #871
denton-scratch wrote: post #755

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being a "defensive pact" does not exclude preventing genocide next to it's borders. Actually, it does. Kosovo and Iraq are clear evidence that NATO is not a defensive pact. Neither attack was preceded by a judicial ruling that genocide was occurring (and genocide is very difficult to prove). I'm afraid those attacks seriously undermined NATO's moral authority as a "defensive pact".

AFAIK, the Iraq invasion had nothing to do with NATO. It was done by the US with some NATO (and non-NATO) countries joining it. For example, France was strongly opposed.

Nod. Substitute Kosovo/Serbia for Iraq.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#964

Post by denton-scratch »

pvaldes wrote: post #866
denton-scratch wrote: post #749

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 playin…

Harrumph.

I didn't know that Russia had offered troops to support Catalunya; it doesn't surprise me. Part of his approach has been to interfere anywhere he can, whatever the ideological situation is, to stir up chaos. I think his goal is to create dissent between western peoples and nations, and undermine their unity.

It's not working very well just now. It's having the opposite effect.

I've long thought that his "create as much chaos as possible" approach was childish - like, I don't like school, so I think I'll set fire to it. Or, you don't show me enough respect, so I'll throw stones through your windows.

He wants to be treated as a serious world leader; but he behaves like an 8-year-old having a tantrum. Any parent knows that you don't negotiate with an enraged 8-year-old. It's a waste of time, if not counter-productive.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#965

Post by denton-scratch »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #886
denton-scratch wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> give Putin an offramp Thing is, Putin has boxed himself in; he's said publicly that Ukraine is not a thing, that so-called Ukrainians are in fact Russians, and that he aspires to a Peter-the-Great-style Russian empire stretching from Vladivostok to the Baltic. The only "off-ramp" I can see being halfway-acceptable to Putin would be for Ukraine to surrender their claims to Donbas and Crimea, in exchange for Russian…

He's racking up war crimes at alarming speed. How many mass murders can we forgive him?

It's interesting to look into what kind of person Peter The Great (Putin's hero) was.

He built the Summer Palace in St. Petersburg in emulation of the European palaces he visited on his tour of Europe. But unlike European palaces, in the Summer Palace he installed a torture chamber, in which he personally tortured then murdered his own wife. He seems to have enjoyed torture and murder.

This is the model that Putin so admires.

I don't know that it's yet possible to ascribe any war-crimes to Putin personally. The crimes that I've heard tell of are of the kind that might be carried out by low-morale troops in any army.

Of course, the Russian army in Ukraine necesssarily have low morale; they've been ordered to attack and kill people that their own leader has said are their "brothers".

Low morale in the Russian armed forces is a persistent problem; in WWII Russian assaults, Russian machine guns were positioned in the rear, to kill any Russians that thought to fall back. It's not surprising that in the fall of Berlin, there was widespread looting and rape by Russian soldiers.

All soldiers behave like this, to a greater or lesser extent. But this Russian army has been engaged in city-flattening, rape and murder to a shocking extent.

Personally, I'm not inclined to forgive. But that's not my call; I'm not Ukrainian.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#966

Post by pasabagi »

eru wrote: post #932
MomoXenosaga wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was the American war of independence in 1776 a proxy war between England and France? Probably. But it doesn't change the fact that the colonies wanted to be free.

Some people in the colonies wanted to change who's governing them. > Sixty percent of the colonists either were neutral or opposed to the Revolution. From https://www.econlib.org/archives/2016/12/bruce_bueno_de.html > Bueno de Mesquita claims, quite plausibly, that a huge part of George Washington’s motive for fighting the Revolutionary War was to protect his substantial, and critically placed, landholdings in the Oh…

Is this surprising? The standard marxist account of nationalist revolution is that they are an attempt by local elites (the national bourgeois) to outmaneuver foreign elites. You see the same thing all over the place (even, perhaps, Ukraine).

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#967

Post by trasz »

goldorak wrote: post #959
trasz wrote: post #951

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a fundamental difference: US is dangerous to armies, Russia is dangerous to civilians.

Cooome on! the US is also extremely dangerous to civilian population, look at vietnam, afganistan, irak... this is almost obscene.

In Afghanistan an Iraq civilians were collateral damage, they weren't targeted on purpose. Whereas Russia is conducting planned genocide, as evidenced in Bucha and Mariupol.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#968

Post by trashtester »

DocTomoe wrote: post #931
trashtester wrote: post #880

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the greater reason for hesitating to accept Ukraine up until now would be their still-unstable democracy and high level of corruption. When the war is over, it may be that the new-found unity caused by the external threat will be enough for them to reinforce their institutions significantly. This could reach a point that could ensure lasting democracy while enabling them to properly fight/eliminate most corru…

NATO has no problems with unstable democracies and high levels of corruption. It was founded by the US... More likely, Ukraine after the war will be a massively destroyed country, with widespread poverty and a constant need for western powers to pour money into - and that breeds corruption. The only way forward - should they survive as a nationstate - would be some kind of grotesquely enlarged Marshall Plan - they wo…

The level of destruction happening in Ukraine now is, while still terrible, an order of magnitude less severe than what happened in large parts of Europe during WW2. Many countries had around 10% of the population killed, and for those involved in the fighting, a large fraction where men in their most productive age.

Still, most countries had rebuilt their economy to pre-war levels before 1955, and in many cases around 1950.

Given the very small size of Ukraine's economy, reaching their pre-war level will not take very much. Should they, as I predict, come out of the war as a united nation, able to get rid of most of the corruption, they may be able to massively outperform their pre-war gdp fairly quickly.

If they return to pre-war levels of corruption, no amount of economic aid will bring their economy to western levels.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#969

Post by saeranv »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #46
golergka wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what plan, exactly? That's a question on everyone's mind about this whole invasion. I guess I should have said “idiotic justification as portrayed by Russian propaganda” instead of “plan”.

i am not an american, nor russian. i come from a third world country far from this drama. to me, "russian propaganda" is the same as "american propaganda" which demonizes the other and calls their version as the "ultimate truth". don't americans/west see their media/actions as what it is, propaganda aganinst russia? blocking RT across america/EU is seen as protecting free speech but god forbid if russia reciprocates…

I'm always frustrated to see the pervasivness of this type of political interpretation, which constructs a false equivalence between two parties and therefore places the blame on both.

I think this kind of view is the default interpretation for a majority of people, since it is a tempting conclusion to draw for people who aren't well versed in the actual details they're evaluating: to the ignorant, it does look like both sides are just slinging mud at eachother, and it's inherent cynicism seems "realistic".

I think to solve this, we need to educate people on the idea of "false equivalance" (that just because two parties are engaged in conflict, does not mean they are equally to blame) and to force them to state the details of what exactly both parties are doing in order to hopefully push them to recognize there is a meaningful difference between actions.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#970

Post by sharken »

andruby wrote: post #85
M2Ys4U wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>However, adding new members requires unanimous consent from all existing members, so it's not guaranteed to be smooth sailing. I highly doubt that any of NATO's members will veto an application from Finland (or Sweden).

How about Hungary and it's seemingly pro-Russian leader, Orban? They could vote against.

Recent events suggest that Turkey will be the major obstacle to Finlands NATO membership.

But with zero reasonable arguments for blocking the membership, Turkeys position doesn't seem to be sustainable.

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