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Sweden Is a NATO Member

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Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#441

It would be nice if EU seek independency from US eventually.

The EU is independent of the US. There's a difference between alliance and dependency (and EU isn't coextensive with European NATO, but they are pretty close.)

Do you explain whatever happened to Assange in Europe within the framework of “alliance”?

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#442
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not saying that's accurate It's fairly accurate

Less accurate for a NATO that contains Sweden & Finland, though. There's no doubt those 2 have and will pull their weight. Speaking as a Canadian, whose country doesn't.

There's a difference between member states pulling their weight and the org itself pulling itself together to behave as a coherent entity. If Turkey (or any member) decides to veto or drags its feet prevent any action at all from occurring, it doesn't matter. In the mean time, the aggressor is taking advantage and ransacking its way through Europe. The whole time, the individual members are waiting for the Yanks to get off their arses to unilaterally come to action. Then they can later point at how the Yanks are always doing things unilaterally and turn them into the whipping boy.

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is indeed the joke. Hopefully you don't get downvoted for asking a question.

It was a very well veiled one too. If not for your comment I would not have realized it. I suspect people downvoting it didn't get it either.

Some folks forget that not everyone is "terminally online" and won't get every reference and idiom.

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#445

[flagged]

I had the same question and I don’t think I can squint enough to make this post make sense. I really enjoy coming here for the tech/hacker concentration, though I do miss the general audience topics you’d find on old Reddit. While I don’t use Reddit any more, I’m concerned that allowing general audience topics like this is a path toward diluting the best thing about HN.

How is this less relevant to HN than, say, tidal locking, or bird brains, or sourdough bread, or jetliners, or god forbid the Gaza conflict?

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprised I had to scroll down to see this. Collective defense means expanded nuclear umbrella from the nuke powers in NATO. TFCMA/WP/Russian doctrine has always allowed a free hand for local commanders to use tactical weapons - a very tempting option to deal with Sweden[1] in the event of a Baltic/Kaliningrad land grab. Admission to NATO is a barrier to that, since the West doesn't exactly believe in small bites whe…

You mean the USA will launch nuclear missiles on Moscow in case Russia launches a missile on Stockholm? NATO or not, I have my doubts here. Does anyone believe any sane US president would risk a destruction of the USA to revenge / protect Sweden?

Likely not on Moscow, but on some city similar in size to Stockholm.

It's of course unclear what would happen, but I don't think Russian strategy can rely on US not responding.

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#450

Does being in NATO obligate you to respond militarily if another member is attacked (as is commonly believed)? I failed to find this clause in the text last time I looked. Edit: for everyone telling me to read article 5: I already have, hence this question. It says each member "will assist [...] by taking [...] such action as it deems necessary". That very much doesn't appear to obligate a military response, or any r…

It doesn't obligate members to respond militarily, it obligates NATO members to consider an attack against a member as an attack against them. Retaliation and any other action needs to be discussed by NATO members and can also be vetoed. A lot of people seem to think that if article 5 is brandished, war will result, it absolutely depends on what the council will agree upon.

While Article 5 is important, its not in a "technical legal mandate" way, and there is a lot more to the alliance than Article 5, there's integrated military command, training, defense strategy, forward deployments to threatened countries, etc.

And there is Article 4 collective regional security, which has ultimately resulted in more NATO combat operations than Article 5, which has been invoked exactly once, even though the former has even less explicit obligation than Article 5.

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