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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…
> Finland got de-Finlandized at last. What does this even mean?
As a Swede this makes me happy, partially because Finland shares a lot of their border with Russia and can now feel safe knowing they have the might of 30 nations behind them, but also because we're now surrounded by NATO countries. So no need for us to join, right? Right?! Let's remain neutral and a free haven for political dissidents and potential refugees of the future, right?!!
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This comment has been downvoted into oblivion. Why? It asks an honest question and provides some realpolitik judgement on how Russia could react. What is the issue?
Or this is bad because it might cause Russia to attack the Baltic states.
Or so now it's only fair if Russia attacks the Baltic states.
All of which are nonsense.
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> Wouldn't it be smarter to actually listen to what Russia is trying to say? No. Nobody should care what Russia has to say about another country voluntarily wanting to (and joining) NATO > the irony is that the expansion of NATO gives the US ability to force its will upon NATO members and its neighbors All NATO members joined voluntarily. None of your business. > the ambitions are not different from the ambitions of…
> No. Nobody should care what Russia has to say about another country voluntarily wanting to (and joining) NATO I'm sorry, but Russia's concern is not out of thin air - you can only join NATO if your membership is not a threat to your border countries. This is one of the rules of NATO itself.
This is, of course, complete nonsense. It is as much a fact as the oft-cited claim that NATO promised not to expand (another lie that is true only to rubes).
NATO has a requirement that you settle any ongoing border disputes before ascension: If you have a simmering feud with a neighbor country about who owns a pile of rocks, it's such an obvious flashpoint that you need to resolve it first. It has zero requirement that you don't threaten the tyrannical empire building pursuits of the neighboring madman.
Russians defending Russian aggression is something that I find just impossible to believe. Putin has sent tens of thousands of Russians into a meat grinder for a futile, ego-driven war that has zero outcome that isn't negative for Russia for decades to come. And he's going to keep grinding those bodies into corpses and you'll keep talking about deNazification or whatever nonsense you're fed.
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at which point now their new borders would be even more directly exposed to NATO borders. How does this make any sense?
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…
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No, they blew that chance when they attacked Ukraine, and when they massacred civilians in Bucha (and Mariupol, and in other places).
Now nobody cares what the Russian propaganda is trying to say anymore, what difference does it make? Their actions speak for themselves.
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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
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I think that even one single human loss is disaster and hate to go along this road but please inform yourself more on "evidence" of those claims and heavy exaggeration of victim numbers.