Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO

nato.int

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 521 posts

Re: Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO

#201

Post by lolinder »

itsoktocry wrote: post #158
The_Colonel wrote: post #4

Finland got de-Finlandized at last. Which is what the expansion of NATO was always about. NATO isn't a threat to Russia itself - if Russia seriously feared NATO aggression, it wouldn't voluntarily demilitarize its NATO borders during the past 13 months. NATO expansion just neutralizes Russian ability to force its will upon its neighbors through threat of aggression (or in case like Ukraine through the use of aggressi…

[flagged]

Both wars were coalitions that happened to involve many NATO countries. Finland participated in both wars even before joining NATO, so it's not clear that the risk of them joining offensive wars is higher now.

Re: Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO

#202

Post by khochesh_kushat »

rainworld wrote: post #160
khochesh_kushat wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More just that he wouldn't be so stupid. People just listed all the reasons it was a dumb, short-sighted idea. Which, turns out they were right, except about how stupid Russian leadership was. They seem to have honestly believed it would be a three day war, that Ukrainians were going to welcome them as liberators, and that they actually had all the equipment that they did on paper.

The “three day war” and the other stuff have always been American talking points that have been regurgitated uncritcally a million times. Yeah, people in the West have been sold the idea that Ukraine is winning (talking about the real Ukrainian losses (not the fantasy numbers you sometimes hear) is strictly forbidded tho), I noticed. Let’s wait till it’s over I say...

I guess you don't watch Russian TV? I'm lucky (or maybe unlucky) enough to speak Russian so I have access. They say much more bombastic things than just these points all the time. They have their own reality distortion field over there and it leads them to make terrible decisions.

I'm quite certain that Russia is not secretly winning the war, but it's just that nobody can tell because of how great it's going.

Re: Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO

#203

Post by mopsi »

xkcd1963 wrote: post #101
The_Colonel wrote: post #4

Finland got de-Finlandized at last. Which is what the expansion of NATO was always about. NATO isn't a threat to Russia itself - if Russia seriously feared NATO aggression, it wouldn't voluntarily demilitarize its NATO borders during the past 13 months. NATO expansion just neutralizes Russian ability to force its will upon its neighbors through threat of aggression (or in case like Ukraine through the use of aggressi…

[flagged]

There is no need for hypotheticals. Russia already has military bases in the middle of Europe and hosts nuclear missiles there. Map: https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2016/1...

Re: Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO

#204

Post by pavlov »

andreygrehov wrote: post #161
goalieca wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wouldn't it be smarter to actually listen to what Russia is trying to say? Russia says a lot of things, often contradictory, but what really speaks is their actions. Invading Ukraine wasn’t about denazification, or nato threat, or anything except naked imperialism.

[flagged]

“Denazification and demilitarization” is a hell of a euphemism for a nationalist military invasion of a neighboring country.

When Hitler invaded Poland, at least he didn’t claim he was actually fighting fascists and stopping Polish militarization. Today’s propaganda operates on levels of post-truth that Goebbels couldn’t have imagined.

Re: Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO

#205

Post by Izkata »

nathanlied wrote: post #88
motohagiography wrote: post #6

[flagged]

The problem there is that you (and Putin) are viewing NATO's expansion as a curtailing of "Russia's sovereignty". Doing this probably means you take the view that the Spheres of Influence concept was correct: big blocs (Russia, China, US, EU) have an area of political/military/ideological influence that extends past their physical borders, and any other country exerting influence over the countries within those bound…

> and Putin

Yes, that's the entire point of comments like this: You can't discount his viewpoint when trying to figure out Russia's next actions.

Re: Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO

#206

Post by tokai »

ghiculescu wrote: post #198
tokai wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Many are legitimate comments No they are not. Almost all[0] are the classic Russo-apologist talking points. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almost_all

I disagree. Here’s some examples. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35439104 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35439349

... they are both not downvoted. I have comments under both of them, and there is a lively discussion.

Re: Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO

#207

Post by foverzar »

mantas wrote: post #89
foverzar wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is Russia. Russia could be a normal country like its neighbors and make money from trading goods > No one is encroaching on Russia's borders. This is really horrifying how the perspectives on the current directly oppose each other, completely Orwellian. It's not like it's some ancient history, all of this is following the lessons learned from interactions in the 2000s - when the US had been violating th…

Why do we have to put up with Russia's expansions due to „grievances“ that some other expansions were denied or questioned? It's funny how Russia always pretend to be a victim when it's the aggressor. God forbid someone endangers „rightfully conquested“ territories :D

> Why put up with Russia expansion

Why put up with NATO expansion? Russia's expansion is also totally defensive! wink-wink

> It's funny how Russia always pretend to be a victim

It's ironic how Russia is always assumed to be a passive unresponsive corpse with no concerns or perspective and memory of its own.

I wonder if it's even hypothetically possible for people to try to fairly grasp that perspective, otherwise Europe (and yeah, that includes Russia) would be an "interesting" place to be in the upcoming years.

Re: Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO

#208

Post by lolinder »

veeti wrote: post #156
lolinder wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're literally (edit: just had their) elections on Sunday. If the polling is wrong and some significant portion of Finns oppose NATO membership, I'm sure they made themselves known. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/1/finland-having-clear... > A poll by the broadcasting company YLE in May showed that 76 percent of Finns were in favour of joining NATO.

The election was this Sunday. The winning party NCP has been pro NATO for 20+ years, unlike the previously ruling SDP.

Oops, thanks, I missed the date on that piece.

Re: Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO

#209

Post by timeon »

ghiculescu wrote: post #198
tokai wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Many are legitimate comments No they are not. Almost all[0] are the classic Russo-apologist talking points. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almost_all

I disagree. Here’s some examples. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35439104 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35439349

The first one is especially offensive towards East-European countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westsplaining

Re: Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO

#210

Post by vladTheInhaler »

ghiculescu wrote: post #139
nathanlied wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem there is that you (and Putin) are viewing NATO's expansion as a curtailing of "Russia's sovereignty". Doing this probably means you take the view that the Spheres of Influence concept was correct: big blocs (Russia, China, US, EU) have an area of political/military/ideological influence that extends past their physical borders, and any other country exerting influence over the countries within those bound…

I agree spheres of influence is a worrying idea. But couldn’t you argue the same thing is happening to Ukraine under a US sphere of influence? Isn’t that bad too?

If by "the same thing" you mean that Ukraine has requested the assistance of its allies to avoid being being coerced by Russia, then yes the same thing is happening. Why exactly would that be bad?
Post reply on HN