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Sweden Is a NATO Member

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Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#651

Post by rainworld »

Vilian wrote: post #645
rainworld wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>aggressively and quickly re-arm On top of that, there's inflation and the value-added tax, which mean that, once all the extra costs have been covered, only about €50 to €70 billion will be left over to spend on actual hardware. "The longer you have this money sit around somewhere, the longer factors like inflation and interest payments have to eat away at this pile," Loss said. [0] There has been some criticism fro…

two years in of what? only russia is in war economy, you say like every one is spending as much effort on this as russia, drink less propaganda

Two years of proxy war. Two years of stressing the necessity of defeating Russia in Ukraine—or at least denying it victory. Two years of coming to the realization that you can’t just turn money into weapons, it takes an industry. Money that they can’t really spare anyway. Two years of realizing that sanctions work both ways, and only one side came prepared. Two years of trusting the experts.

One and a half years of believing sanctions + weapons + training + the greatest ever kontrastnupol were going to do the trick. They really thought it was going to work.

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#652

Post by luuurker »

nikolay wrote: post #625
luuurker wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal posts keep moving. Let's get back to what you wrote above. Are you able to find that agreement about NATO expansion or not? Can you explain why countries want to join NATO so bad?

The US Embassador at the time confirmed this was agreed upon!

So there's no proper agreement, just a verbal one, something those that came after could easily ignore, assuming they were even aware about it. And we have to take their word for it because there's no proof. Very smart!

I can point you to the Budapest Memorandum and explain how Russia broke it and why countries like the UK and US have to support Ukraine because 1) the points are very easy to understand and 2) they all signed it.

In any case, one very important question remains. Why do countries want to join NATO? You blame everyone but Russia, but what do you expect to happen when everyone around them has "russians" in need of "protection", their media explains how these small countries could be easily invaded or nuked, Putin starts babbling about what happened 500 years ago and Peter the Great, and so on?

Russia is a pain in the ass for everyone that is unfortunate to have a border with them. From Finland and Ukraine to Kazakhstan and China, they have problems with everyone. Their own behaviour is their main enemy.

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#653

Post by Vilian »

dralley wrote: post #200
sspiff wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent comment is referring to the US pressuring all European NATO members to abandon plans to acquire Saab or Dassault jets in favour of its own F35.

Ah, so mythology. Most of the European nations with F-35 currently either joined the program from the beginning decades ago, or want to participate in nuclear deterrent and have no other option (unless France decides to share their nukes, but that hasn't happened yet, and you can bet they'll want you to buy Rafale for the privilege if they do), or want stealth capabilities which nobody else can offer right now, or wa…

i think you are giving to much credit to su-57 needing f-35 to be beaten consistently, other than that i also agree with you

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#654

Post by tim333 »

RajT88 wrote: post #580
tim333 wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mearshiemer got quite a favourable hearing on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30559136

Good lord. I was not aware of this guy before, but his position seems to be akin to suggesting a woman deserved to be raped because of how she was dressed. Even people pretty forgiving of his essays acknowledge he's habitually at odds with basic facts and history. Not a wingnut, per se, but on the same spectrum of people divorced from reality. It's too bad as well, because US foreign policy is deserving of more scrut…

I have mixed feelings on him. On the one hand it is a bit - woman should expect to be raped because of how she was dressed. On the other hand he's predicted Putin/Russia's action quite accurately.

I think he errs a bit in suggesting such behaviour is normal for all great powers. The Americans and Chinese while imperfect aren't that bad. And the EU if you can call it a great power does nothing like that - the rape pillage invade stuff. Though of course a couple of centuries ago Europe was invading all over the place. It goes to show these things can change. Probably with Russia we need to make things enough of a pain the the neck for them that they'll see the wisdom of changing eventually also.

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#655

Post by ben_w »

miroljub wrote: post #650
The_Colonel wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely not on Moscow, but on some city similar in size to Stockholm. It's of course unclear what would happen, but I don't think Russian strategy can rely on US not responding.

What city? Striking any city on Russian soil will provoke a full on retaliation of the USA. Equivalent retaliation would be targeting a city of some of the Russian allies, but it's not possible since Russia doesn't have allies ;)

So long as the Russian decision makers believe they will be hit with nukes if they use nukes themselves, it doesn't matter precisely which target — the point of MAD is a deterrent that prevents the nukes getting used in the first place.

If the decision makers think "we can use as many nukes as we want because we have a huge stockpile and can level anyone who even tries to respond in kind", we're already on borrowed time.

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#656

Post by AbstractH24 »

hagbard_c wrote: post #640
MasterYoda wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It is said to be the worst conflict in all of human history." No it is not, that is incorrect. I really dont know where you get that from. And I dont agree that there have been a VERY violent history. Yes there have been wars, and all war are voilent, but not anything special for that era. Between 1200-1800 there was 15 wars. From 1-10 years and the majority of them lasted just 1 or 2 years. And fun facts: Of the 15…

> Sug på den danskjävlar ;) I feel a new war brewing and just started stacking cannon balls at Bohus fästning [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohus_Fortress

I feel a new war brewing just by reading this back and forth

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#657

Post by lostmsu »

bumby wrote: post #511
lostmsu wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a very well veiled one too. If not for your comment I would not have realized it. I suspect people downvoting it didn't get it either.

I think it would be much better if people focused downvoting on comments that go against HN guidelines rather than questions or comments they disagree with.

No, if a comment is against guidelines you are supposed to flag it.

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#658

Post by red-iron-pine »

partiallypro wrote: post #599
Sammi wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia will need to break up into smaller pieces before it is palatable for nato to absorb. Too geographically big right now. USA cannot tolerate anyone else in nato being big in any way that rivals them.

Geographical size means nothing and isn't a challenge to the US, Russia's economy isn't that important to the global economy. The Russian economy is smaller than Canada's and Canada is not only a NATO member but also geographically large.

Smaller than Italy's. PPP works in their favor, to some degree, but outside of natural resources and low-end manufacturing they're mostly holding on to the shadow of the USSR. It's not really a place for innovation, and not a great place to do business unless you're willing to hemorrhage cash via bribes and bureaucracy.

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#659

Post by riku_iki »

Vilian wrote: post #647
riku_iki wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NATO has thousands of planes. You mean US has. And someone like Trump may decide to not engage in conflict as part of NATO.

no, other counteies also bought planes, and produce them too

but not in thousands

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#660

Post by SamBam »

xdennis wrote: post #478
sph wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would the US really risk its name and face ignoring their biggest and most powerful military alliance? Honour and keeping your word are very important in geopolitics, especially among countries that have been allied for almost a century, and you won't remain the top dog very long if you avoid your duties at the first difficulty. So yes, if Russia attacks Latvia, you better believe the US is gonna send everything they…

I'm pro NATO, but I don't think the support of the US is guaranteed. The US has always been an unreliable partner: it depends on who's in power. If the republican war hawks or moderate Democrats are in power they would support Latvia, but libertarians and far leftists would say "it's not our problem".

Is Trump a libertarian or a far leftist? Because he's currently the cause of these discussions -- he's the one that people have the most doubts would agree to defending Latvia.
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