Finland will seek NATO membership immediately

The process was quite fast mainly because most Finns are very pragmatic, clearheaded people and intuitively understood how the rules of the game had changed. You can't game a 76% support for any cause in a few months in a liberal democracy.

The root of the matter is that without NATO membership conscription would have become morally untenable. And hence the backbone of Finnish defence would have collapsed leading to need to kowtow to Moscow for all eternity.

Before invasion of Ukraine the economic costs on top of Finnish defence forces were considered to be sufficient deterrent to Russian agression, on top of the material and personnel costs such an invasion would cause.

Ukraine demonstrated that with political impetus, Russia does not care about either economic costs, nor about materiel or personnel costs in it's mad imperialist fantasies.

IMO The cost of NOT joining NATO would have been de facto loss of sovereignty.

Furthermore, due to the closeness of the Russian border, without NATO membership Finland would likely have been perceived as a not very good target for capital investments, killing the economy. While Finland has advanced technology, it is very capital poor - hence needs healthy injections of capital from the global market.

> who stand to gain billions in profit from every single NATO base built

Broken window fallacy [0]. That money spent on bases is a cost we'd rather not spend because it could be spent on other things or just saved with reduced taxes giving us citizens more of our money back.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

> We can't just go on ignoring that Putin exists and has demonstrated he is willing to follow through with his threats, especially when it comes to NATO expansion. I'm no fan of him nor his regime, but thinking he'll back down if we just escalate the situation a little more is fantasy.

I'm Swedish and support joining NATO. We are not ignoring anything, we are hoping for peace by preparing for war. Protecting ourselves is not an escalation, even if Putin sees it that way. I think he is much less likely to escalate against us if we are in NATO.

I'm saying this also has someeone who will have to fight if it comes to that. Sweden has conscripted military service and if Puting brings us war I will have to fight it.

> The former USSR states in Eastern Europe have until now (or until the early 2000s NATO expansion at least) served as a half-decent buffer zone between the West and Russia, and it's served as a relatively stable diplomatic saddle point in keeping the peace.

The "buffer zone" countries are free, sovereign and independent states. Millions of people there vote in democratic elections to decide on their countries leadership. They are free to apply for NATO membership to protect them from Russian aggression and they are free to apply for membership in the EU. Denying them these rights, in the hope that Russia will just leave them alone if they aren't "threatening", is both morally wrong and naive. If the Baltic states had not been granted NATO membership when they were we could very well be looking at Russian tanks in Tallinn, Riga or Vilnius now. They were right to join when they did.

In 2014 Ukraine chose its path of aligning with democracy and the west and reject Russian coercion. When Ukranians rejected Russian dominance Putin made a choice, and he chose violence.

I think I understand your viewpoint though. It would be better if no-one had or needed military strength, mutually assured destruction through nuclear weapons and alliances. It would be better if an omnipotent force could just plan stuff out so we didn't need war. But the key fact is that people are willing to kill and die for their right to self determination and Russia is willing to send its young men to kill and die for historical claims to territory and conquest.

I saw this in another comment of yours:

> I noted in my comment that there was actually peace in Eastern Europe before NATO expansion.

I think that peace had more to do with Russia not yet being capable enough to invade anyone. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union Russia has been scrambling to rebuild it's military, and they are unfortunately making progress. Luckily they seem to have made less progress than they hoped.

That's true, but NATO isn't the be-all and end-all of European mutual defence, for example there's also the Northern Group of countries, which even includes Sweden and Finland. NATO is the ultimate fallback defence pact, but being in NATO in no way prevent countries, in or out of it, from forming their own independent defence arrangements. Just this week Britain's prime minister very publicly guaranteed Britain's commitment to defend both Sweden and Finland.

I have to wonder to what extent the development of these alliances might have been influenced by the concern you raise though, you raise a good point.

> Especially the younger generation sees both Russia and US with somewhat strong dislike.

I mean, it's possible to think that your local cops are kind of jerks and bullies, while still infinitely preferring them to the Mafia.