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Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO

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Re: Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO

#311

Post by alkonaut »

andreygrehov wrote: post #231
alkonaut wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find it weird and a direct provocation, Listen Andrey. Russia has invaded its neighboring countries repeatedly during recent history. I think that's more than enough to explain why anyone near Russia would like to be in a defensive pact. I also don't think anyone should be concerned whether Russia finds that "weird" or "a provocation". At all. > the ambitions are not different from the ambitions of Russia The amb…

Which countries had Russia invaded prior to the conflict that began early 2007?

Modern wars with Russian invasions are the Chechen wars, the Russo-Georgian war and the Ukrainian war. Of those all are in the 2000's. Not sure why 2007 was the important cutoff here. I'm sure Russia would have invaded two countries per year if it had the capability to actually match the massive imperialist ambitions.

Before that, it was the original WW2 formation of the Soviet union with invasions of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithunia, Czechoslovakia and so on and so forth (which was obviously the whole reason for the existence of NATO).

The WW2 and postwar period wasn enough to sway e.g. Sweden to join NATO. Nor were the Afghan, Chechen or Georgian wars. It took the Ukrainan war to really see the veil come off.

But in this entire period I don't think there is much in terms of annexations by NATO countries, or countries currently in NATO but before the formation of NATO?

Not sure what your comment above really tries to say? Is it "I don't understand how countries in Russias vincinity can be afraid of annexation by their imperialist neighbor, they only invade a country every 5-10 years that's not so bad"? Are you hearing yourself?

Re: Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO

#312

Post by jcranmer »

blululu wrote: post #13
motohagiography wrote: post #6

[flagged]

Invading the Baltics is generally a bad idea since it risks starting WWIII. I think you are overlooking the sovereignty of those former territories. Russia’s sovereignty is only mitigated in so far is it includes the right to stage military interventions in its neighbors.

Given that the Baltics are part of NATO, and NATO maintains a multinational advance force in the Baltics (to give the non-Baltic NATO countries some skin in the game), invading the Baltics wouldn't risk starting WWIII, it would be WWIII.

(Depending on the surrounding circumstances, it might not be the "start" of WWIII. If Russia invaded Estonia tomorrow, WWIII would probably be seen as starting with the Russo-Ukrainian invasion of 2022.)

Re: Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO

#313

Post by Convolutional »

spookie wrote: post #285
Convolutional wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Russia didn't take over Finland because it couldn't . It wasn't for a lack of will. They committed 450k to 750k of their man and lost 300k of them. If that isn't defeat, I don't know what is.

[flagged]

Re: Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO

#315

Post by coffeebeqn »

908B64B197 wrote: post #200
gambiting wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything that Russia is doing now it has done to countries like Poland in the past. That's why when we see news about Russia shipping Ukrainian kids to Russia to be "integrated" it makes our blood literally boil - it was the fate of many Polish families as well, my own relatives have stories of their loved ones having to walk back from Syberia after being sent there for "integration".

To me, one of the greatest feat of the EU and NATO is the integration of countries like Poland and Romania to the west. These two countries were economically and socially stunted by decades of communist mismanagement, failed socialism and outright theft and genocide from Russia. It's been truly incredible to see them grow and prosper.

And hopefully soon Ukraine

Re: Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO

#316

Post by jcranmer »

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…

I can't take credit for this quote (I think I got it from a War on the Rocks podcast, but I'm not sure), but it's definitely apt here:

Putin may have been hoping to Finlandize NATO. Instead, he NATO-ized Finland.

Re: Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO

#317

Post by manuelabeledo »

scottLobster wrote: post #114
29athrowaway wrote: post #31

[flagged]

China and Russia have terminal age demographics and HATE each other, Brazil helps define "middle income trap" for nations, South Africa is small, Saudi Arabia and Iran HATE each other, Argentina is the posterchild for rampant inflation, and India can't compensate for all of this. Never mind that none of these nations, particularly the export-driven ones, can long survive economically without access to Western markets…

> ...and India can't compensate for all of this

India has enormous challenges of its own, one of them being that their export industry is weak outside pharmaceutical products. They also are not in the best of terms with China, especially on border disputes, and their GDP per capita is the lowest by far among BRICS.

I'm honestly surprised when anyone suggests that India may be put in the same group as China. Other than population and WMD, the gap is unlikely to be closed in the next three decades.

Re: Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO

#318

Post by foverzar »

go13 wrote: post #99
BurningFrog wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true. Though it's good to remember the Soviet Union did even worse things to Russia.

russia and soviet union are not too far apart actually. Let's not make victim of poor russians, while so many of them fight now and fought in the past to kill independent nations.

> while so many of them fight now and fought in the past to kill independent nations

Let's not pretend it's surrounding is really any better, especially if we start looking at the past.

Someone might think that Russia is opposing a genocidal culture, that had bourne fascism and nazism, enforced apartheid over the world and now breeds it elsewhere to achieve its geopolitical goals.

Re: Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO

#319

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

BurningFrog wrote: post #194
myth_drannon wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And before the Revolution, Tsarist regime did even more horrowing things to its people. Sadly Russia never had a ruling entity that was good. Well there was hope in the 80's with Gorbachev and Krushev with his Thaw period, but these were short lived and the system went back to its stable state of terrorizing its citizens.

The Soviet Union killed between 20-60 million of its own people. Did Tsarist Russia really do anything that competes with that?

And yet, Putin says those who don't miss it have no heart.

Re: Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO

#320

Post by [deleted] »

foverzar wrote: post #229

So, this is mostly a US-centric forum, but I wonder what is the take on this from the perspective of a Finnish person. Is there any controversy or concerns of becoming a foothold for future conflicts? This whole thing has been dragging on for sometime now, had the opinions shifted over time?

[deleted]
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