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Sweden Is a NATO Member

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Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#521

Post by WJW »

yencabulator wrote: post #479
ProjectArcturis wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment really illustrates the hollowness of the "NATO expanded too aggressively" claim. NATO didn't force any of these ex-Soviet countries to join. They ran to join NATO as soon as they could. They'd experienced living with the Russian boot on their neck, and they were eager to join a collective security organization to prevent it from ever happening again.

I have a different perspective. If NATO hadn't expanded to Turkey , Sweden and Finland would have had a much easier time not being blackmailed. NATO expanding to essentially-dictatorship countries was too eager. And yes, I understand Turkey's geographical position giving it power over sea routes, and why that was desirable to NATO. But choosing to include a fickle ruler in a unanimous-decisions-only organization is j…

In 1951, when Turkey joined NATO, the country was not actually all that dictator-like.

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#522

Post by bradlys »

dataflow wrote: post #504
pas wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes.. ? Russia already and continuously threatening other countries, the US included

Can you convince the US population of that so that they'd be willing to risk their lives in a nuclear war?

The US population doesn't need to be convinced. Only the stakeholders of the MIC need convincing that their NW will go up.

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#523

Post by [deleted] »

tharmas wrote: post #320
lawn wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize that Russia invading a peaceful country that was turning more towards democracy and away from dictatorships like Russia is what pushed Sweden and Finland into NATO, in fear of Russia invading and terror bombing them? Not protecting yourself, and letting Russia do whatever they want, is what countries did to Nazi Germany for years. Have we learned nothing from history?

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[deleted]

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#524

Post by euroderf »

ethbr1 wrote: post #331
SllX wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as an American I want this for the EU as well. I liked the prior world order, but I think the dream of keeping it alive died when our current dumbass-in-chief pulled out of Afghanistan in the stupidest way possible. The previous dumbass-in-chief who may well be the next dumbass-in-chief if the current one loses also abandoned our Kurdish allies and is promising to do worse than that. Also, I like Europe. I d…

To be fair, abandoning our Kurdish allies (and before them, our Hmong allies) is an ongoing American theme. I had a good Kurdish friend who came over on a US carrier after we abandoned them after the Gulf War...

Isn't Kurdistan still currently the largest stateless state (so to speak) ?

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#525

Post by rsynnott »

hinkley wrote: post #461
rsynnott wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the weather averages for Duluth (chosen at random), no, that actually looks probably colder than the heavily populated bits of Sweden, certainly in the winter.

The wine region is the little corner of Michigan just north of Indiana. They also do apples and cheese. I’m not sure how far north the region extends, but I’ve been there a few times. So that’s quite a bit farther south than the Swedish peninsula.

So, _London_ is further north than anywhere in the contiguous United States. But obviously much warmer than a lot of it, particularly in winter (London rarely gets far below 0 Celsius). Latitude very much isn’t everything.

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#526

Post by euroderf »

guappa wrote: post #148
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does NATO benefit?

Sweden and denmark control access to the baltic sea.

I've always wondered what is the reality of passage of Russian nuke subs thru the Skagerrak.

Tidal flows. Hull detection. Passage protocols.

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#527

Post by euroderf »

ardaoweo wrote: post #378
asveikau wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO it's still not certain NATO will hold together if Putin decides to attack the Baltic states or Poland. Many NATO countries will have sizeable factions of their electorate saying to not get involved. The fact that Ukraine hasn't been easy for him makes it less likely that Putin will attempt that, but it's clearly been on his mind.

Yep, Putin will absolutely try to grab new land whenever he thinks he can get away with it, no matter how many young Russian men die in the process. To him it's just a game to fulfill his fantasies of being a great conquering czar, and for that reason credibility of NATO's article 5 is vital. Even the good relations between EU and Russia pre-2014 were just theater on Russia's part. Here in Finland during those years…

> shady Russian businessmen kept buying properties that made no financial sense, but were located close to critical infrastructure or military locations.

AFAICT this topic has been mostly avoided by the Finnish media. I guess everyone just kinda trusts that the government is on top of the situation.

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#528

Post by euroderf »

ethbr1 wrote: post #422
guappa wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it costed us 100x more than if we just put the money into science directly! YAY!

:) Politics decides funding allocation in a democracy. And it's a lot easier to justify military spending than it is research. Same reason NASA is the way it is, but we still have a space program.

see: Report from Iron Mountain on the Possibility & Desirability of Peace.

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#529

Post by euroderf »

baxtr wrote: post #418
u320 wrote: post #293

One thing that isn't mentioned a lot in connection to this: Sweden and Denmark has a VERY violent history. Hundreds of years of wars. It is said to be the worst conflict in all of human history. Now we are allied and committed to defend each other. That's a huge thing for peace.

I have many Serbian friends going for holidays in Croatia. Unthinkable 30 years ago. So maybe, in 50 years from now, Russia will join NATO, too?

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Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#530

Post by dralley »

AlGrothendieck wrote: post #492
dralley wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Remember, the year before invasion all what Russian diplomacy wanted - it is to give guaranties that Ukraine won't join NATO? "The year before the invasion" - 2013, right? That's the year you're referring to? The year in which he got a 30 year lease on Sevastopol, thereby keeping Ukraine out of NATO for decades? Because Yanukovich was still in power, and doing everything to appease him? Why is it that the medal Shoi…

[flagged]

Do you or do you not agree that "the invasion" started in 2014, not in 2022.

This is relevant. You said "before the invasion, all Putin wanted was diplomatic agreements to not join NATO". But that's obviously not true, was it? Because before 2022, he had already annexed Crimea. Before 2022, he had already been delivering massive supplies of weapons and "separatist volunteers" to Donetsk and Luhansk. Before 2022, he had already published "On the Historical Unity of Russia and Ukraine". Before 2022, there was already zero chance of Ukraine being accepted into NATO.

Those are not mere diplomatic tools, that is active aggression and denying their right to exist as a nation at an ideological level. How do you negotiate with "you are Russians, your identity is fake, your language is fake, your land is Russian, prepare to be absorbed".

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