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Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

presidentti.fi

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Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#111

Post by fsloth »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #93
klausjensen wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK has also made written guarantees to protect Finland (and Sweden) during the application process. In practical reality, if Russia were to attack Finland or Sweden now, the answer from NATO would be pretty much the same as if they were already members.

> In practical reality, if Russia were to attack Finland or Sweden now, the answer from NATO would be pretty much the same as if they were already members. Really? Why is this true of Finland but not Ukraine?

Because Ukraine was not in the explicit membership pipeline.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#112

Post by ssl232 »

rightbyte wrote: post #81
ssl232 wrote: post #52

Usual caveats that I'm not a diplomat, don't have all the facts, etc etc., but this doesn't seem like a rational move for Finland or NATO. The UK just yesterday agreed to protect Finland in the event of an attack, and the UK's involvement would likely bring in many other NATO powers anyway, so arguably they're getting protection they'd otherwise have to pay for for free. And actually, officially joining NATO will hav…

Finland should have applied for NATO 10 years ago or in 10 years, not now with the tense situation. They are essentially stating that Russian gov. is aggressive enough to be a threat to them in the future but not agressive enough right now to create a "border dispute" to prevent NATO membership. My take is that they should just have stayed out of the Russia US power game completely.

> My take is that they should just have stayed out of the Russia US power game completely.

I think so too. The West would tolerate invasion by Russia of Finland even less than it is doing for Ukraine, with or without NATO membership (notably, Ukraine is not part of NATO either). All this seems to be doing is escalating the situation with a man who is perhaps more interested in holding onto power and his own life than killing a few hundred thousand in a conflict. I really think we've dropped the ball diplomatically on this one. There are surely better ways of ridding Russia of Putin than this, if that's the end game for the West.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#113

Post by jhugo »

spaniard89277 wrote: post #63
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 can see it (am spaniard), and there's definitely propaganda. But ultimately it was Russia who invaded Ucraine and the reasons provided are very vague, at best. The Speech Putin did had some etnonationalism BS and claims of defending the land agains the threat of NATO. In most bordering NATO countries what you have is SAMs (anti-air missiles), and honestly pretty much any NATO country could claim that they feel thre…

Right, exactly. It's blatantly obvious that Ukraine is spinning the propaganda machine (and more effectively than Russia when it comes to the international audience, from what I can see), and the US doesn't seem to have any qualms with helping out. Being aware of that that doesn't change the underlying situation though. You can both know that the US is participating in propaganda efforts and also be against Russia's invasion.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#114

Post by burmanm »

rightbyte wrote: post #40
durnygbur wrote: post #31

Look at the map, the NATO doesn't have much land borders with Russia. With Finland joining... the length of land border will multiply. This will surely pose a challenge.

There is much talk about Russia not wanting Finland in NATO but why would NATO want Finland in NATO with yet another expensive border to patrol. "Buffer states" work both ways.

Why would it cause NATO more expenses? Finland takes care of patrolling the border, just like before. There's no intention to get foreign troops to guard our borders (or even foreign troops at all in Finland beyond exercises).

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#115

Post by rightbyte »

thraxil wrote: post #100
rightbyte wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finland should have applied for NATO 10 years ago or in 10 years, not now with the tense situation. They are essentially stating that Russian gov. is aggressive enough to be a threat to them in the future but not agressive enough right now to create a "border dispute" to prevent NATO membership. My take is that they should just have stayed out of the Russia US power game completely.

> Finland should have applied for NATO 10 years ago or in 10 years, not now with the tense situation. 10 years ago, it was reasonable to believe that Russia would never invade a neighboring country, so joining NATO wasn't seen as necessary or preferable to maintaining neutrality. 10 years in the future, based on what we're seeing now, Russia may have already invaded/attacked Finland and it would be too late to join N…

I am arguing that the risk of 'sparks' outweights the benefits of joining NATO right now.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#116

Post by kukkeliskuu »

2000UltraDeluxe wrote: post #78
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.

Oh, there was little doubt a Finnish application was on the way. From what I can tell from Swedish media, it's more or less decided there aswell. Both Finland and Sweden signed a defence agreement with the UK yesterday. Norwegian newspapers has claimed Denmark, Iceland and Norway are also going to offer Finland and Sweden military aid in case of Russian shenanigans during the application process. That leaves both Fin…

Actually it is not a contract, because it is not contractually binding. It is more a promise to help. And Churchill promised to help Finland in WW2 and did not keep his promise.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#117

Post by mrep »

aa-jv wrote: post #84
alkonaut wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia has argued that having NATO on its borders is a threat. Talk about missiles within range of Moscow and so on. Obviously these comments make no sense. But Russian domestic politics is always using a narrative of being a victim and having risk of being invaded. The Second World War doesn’t exist in Russian storytelling. The great patriotic war on the other hand, conveniently started in the 40s. The Finnish borde…

>Obviously these comments make no sense. Its not so obvious if you've been paying attention to NATO expansion, as compared to NATO promises. NATO bases have been being used to launch crimes against humanity and war crimes (with seeming impunity) for decades - the Russians have good reasons to want NATO to stand down. The West has a long and sordid history of committing war crimes, and then ignoring their war criminal…

So even if NATO completely surrounded Russia, do you think any of said war crimes would actually be committed against Russia directly because if so I want whatever you're smoking. They have 6000 nukes and US + EU combined have 25 times the GDP of Russia. We have everything to lose and practically nothing to gain from attacking Russias worthless economy.

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#119

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

spaniard89277 wrote: post #63
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 can see it (am spaniard), and there's definitely propaganda. But ultimately it was Russia who invaded Ucraine and the reasons provided are very vague, at best. The Speech Putin did had some etnonationalism BS and claims of defending the land agains the threat of NATO. In most bordering NATO countries what you have is SAMs (anti-air missiles), and honestly pretty much any NATO country could claim that they feel thre…

thank you.

i am not sympathizing with anyone for that matter. i am pointing out what i observe....

you know when america invaded iraq for "WMDs" and they turned out to be nothing and literally nothing happened? "strong anger" does not equate to waging a war against america like its being done against russia.

let me ask you, you and me are neither americans nor russians. did the world care when america invaded afghanistan, iraq, libya, syria and razed those nations to the ground? but god forbid russia does the same to ukraine. then its a matter of world peace. last i knew in afghanistan there were many countries whose soldiers fought along americans so all those countries were equally complicit in the crime against citizens of those nations.

why?

Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

#120

Post by rendall »

kreeben wrote: post #25
nymalt wrote: post #21

Didn't Russia (last month) threaten Finland/Sweden with 'consequences' should they decide joining NATO? Wondering what would those be. Putting both countries in a new list of 'very unfriendly countries'?

Worse! The enemy list. But what are they going to do, is what I want to know. Baltic sea will soon be pretty much closed for them and they sure could start WW3 over that but would they? They don't seem to have that in them.

> Baltic sea will soon be pretty much closed for them

Why would the Baltic Sea be closed to Russia? How would this be enforced?

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