Finland will seek NATO membership immediately
presidentti.fi
presidentti.fi
But now it's official. This is not the NATO membership application, but a statement from the political leadership in Finland that they support and suggest parliament proceeds with the application process with maximum urgency.
The President and Prime Minister of Finland have published their position on NATO membership. This more or less seals Finland joining NATO.
In Finnish system, the Prime Minister has most political power but president is the head of foreign policy. Their common statement was the required signal for the parliament to proceed with the process.
Translation: During the spring, there has been an important discussion about Finland's possible NATO membership. Time has been needed for domestic position formation both in Parliament and in society as a whole. Time has been needed for close international contacts with both NATO and its member countries, as well as with Sweden. We have wanted to give the debate the space it needs.
Now that the time for decision-making is approaching, we also state our own common positions for the information of parliamentary groups and parties. NATO membership would strengthen Finland's security. As a member of NATO, Finland would strengthen the entire defense alliance. Finland must apply for NATO membership as a matter of urgency. We hope that the national steps still needed to reach this solution will be taken swiftly in the coming days.
Sauli Niinistö The president of the Republic
Sanna Marin Prime minister
I highly doubt that any of NATO's members will veto an application from Finland (or Sweden).
Russia has a UN veto and uses it, because they can weather the consequences.
Could Hungary piss off all of its allies, trade partners, basically everyone but Russia? Doubtful. Hungary is playing a skillful, if somewhat devious, game of balancing between Russia and the West. But an outright FU to a (clearly) US-sponsored NATO expansion? I can't see them weathering this.
Signalling a veto is often rather a negotiation step.
Edit: Here is some thoughts one it: https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/28337/on-what-g...
But with zero reasonable arguments for blocking the membership, Turkeys position doesn't seem to be sustainable.
The big questions are over Hungary and Turkey; Hungary because Orbán is somewhat pro-Russian and has opposed some EU and NATO moves already wrt Ukraine, and Erdogan for somewhat similar reasons, and because he has publicly stated that he is not in favor of Sweden and Finland joining.
OTOH, I think the general expectation is that those are surmountable issues.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/croat-p...
I mean, from TFA:
> Croatian President Zoran Milanović on Tuesday said he would block the admission of Sweden and Finland at the NATO summit in Madrid if he is the one representing Croatia
If he is representing Croatia, and the country's decisions are made by Parliament (the President "has a say" in foreign policy), then isn't his job there only to re-present what Parliament has decided?
Thankfully, Croatia doesn't have any real influence in NATO so nobody will be obliged to listen to that stupidity.
Source: I live in Croatia.
I can't imagine anybody vetoing Finland's membership. In fact, the more the merrier^Hstronger.
Umm ... wasn't that what people thought of the alliances and treaties[0] just before the First World War?
[0] https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-you-need-to-know-about-p...
It only takes one of those to pay off at the right time.
Either they stop this now or it's all over anyway. This is reckless - we need to start a path of de-escalation - give Putin an offramp. Get to back to calm waters.
Then let diplomats do their little dances until there is a hopefully more reasonable people in power on both sides.
Nobody wants war.
Hungary is also a NATO member and yet its president (Mr. Orban) has been quite chummy with Putin.
Both Finland and Sweden signed a defence agreement with the UK yesterday. Norwegian newspapers has claimed Denmark, Iceland and Norway are also going to offer Finland and Sweden military aid in case of Russian shenanigans during the application process. That leaves both Finland and Sweden fairly safe, and the only noteworthy risks would be cyber warfare and Russian psy-ops used to turn public opinion against a NATO membership.
As for the application process itself, Stoltenberg pretty much promised a swift handling in the NATO end of things, but as you mention, it has to be unanimous and there is always a chance someone with power might be in Putin's pocket, or oppose the idea for other reasons.
By attacking Ukraine Russia wanted to "push" NATO away from its borders, but it all went backwards - now they will have a new, 1300 km long border with NATO member countries.
Russian fleet in Petersburg can be decommissioned now, as there is no merit to maintain it while Gulf of Finland can be easily blocked and is under traditional artillery control from Estonia and Finland side (it is just 80-100 km wide).
In fact in case of military conflict Petersburg is lost, can be attacked from the West and the North by land and covered by long range rocket artillery like Himmars (it is just 200 km away from Finnish and Estonian borders).
Same story with Murmansk harbor, it will be very difficult for Russia to defend it against attack from Norway and Finland given the very long and fragile supply line - a single E105 route, 1000 km long or train connection that goes along that route. Imagine famous Kiev 60 km convoy multiplied by 10 and attacked not by post-soviet era weapon that Ukraine had but by state of the art equipment.
Russia will have to put a lot of forces over there to be able to protect new attack line that they have opened by themselves. Build hell a lot of new infrastructure, provide logistic support, etc. The costs will be exorbitant.
When countries like Poland, Romania or Baltic countries became NATO members it was clear that they will need to be protected by western armies (although Poland is quickly catching up with its military potential, other countries is developing too). Right now situation is different: two very strong, well equipped, well trained armies are joining the Pact.
Another 300 modern tanks, Sweden by itself has more than 400 modern combat aircrafts of various types, Finland has just contracted 60 F-35 (with loyal wingman option that doubles the potential in future), plus artillery and other best of class equipment.
Indeed, Putin, Gerasimov and Shoygu are master strategists.
Ah...if I recall, the Germans - with a very large, experienced, and well-equipped army, at the time - assumed that St. Petersburg could be taken fairly easily back in 1941. That turned out not to be the case.
According to Wikipedia [1], the Swedish airforce has only 207 aircraft in total, only 71 of which are combat aircraft (JAS 39 Gripen).
They just want Russia to sink and don't really care about the fate of Europe.
In practical reality, if Russia were to attack Finland or Sweden now, the answer from NATO would be pretty much the same as if they were already members.
That is a problem like eu that need to be handled, especially now that turkey is in the way. I think one has to rethink. The key is what are these military alliance is for. For democracy then we can have an alternative one.
A new alliance covering South Korea, japan, Taiwan, Australia, eu, Sweden, Finland, Canada …. Soviet Union is gone.
Turkey is a liability as it is not a democracy. And it is a problem.
So what? They only have themselves, or rather Putin, to blame. He's forfeited the right for them to have any meaningful input into the decision.
Announcing your firm intention to join before negotiating those parts seems like a good way to be paying over the odds forever...
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2022/02/27/german...
Likely must of the activity Finland can do will be around Baltics. Like sharing air space control with Estonia.
Sure, that means if some country were to pay nothing for theirs -- i.e. don't have any -- then the others would have to do all the defending of that country, and so "pay indirectly"... If that country were attacked. That's why NATO agreed that members should spend at least two percent of their GDP on defense, and it is many of them not having got up to that level yet that the USA (especially under Trump) has been complaining about.
But still, that's all within each country's own budget. There are no monetary transfers to and from countries such as "membership fees" or "subsidies" within NATO. (At least not any significant ones that I know of. Maybe some smaller stuff like, Idunno, base rentals or port fees?)
Remember, NATO is not just a defensive pact, but also command structure set up to enable the member forces to be utilized as a single cohesive force, rather than just a bunch of allied but disjointed forces. That means communication systems, and setting up unified commands to which portion of member forces can be assigned, making sure equipment and communications systems are intercompatible, etc.
This central funding money is pretty negligible compared to the 2% spending on defense commitment of members. Like the whole central funding would be around 6% of Germany's military budget, but would be fraction of a percent of the US budget. However the central funding is shared amongst all the members. Germany's actual share ends up around 1% of its military budget, UK's actually share is about 0.6% of the UK's budget, and the US share might as well be a rounding error, being my my quick calculations less than a tenth of a percent of the overall budget.
It's certainly not nothing, but is is not like we are talking about super significant portions of countries military budgets.
Thanks in a dark sense Russia basically sealed the Ukrainian identity and possibly the nato. With Ukrainian blood and theirs.
How can a chess playing nation think so badly. Just bomb others to surrender … Mongolian blood?
The Finnish border isn’t that much closer to any important parts of Russia than the Baltic states already were. The strategic difference is perhaps mostly in how difficult it might be for Russia to attempt what they did to Ukraine on a Baltic state. The scenario is a swift invasion and an annexation being fait accompli and a threat of Nuclear use if any NATO countries come to their defense under Article 5. That would have been a sticky situation for NATO in the past (at least we thought so until we saw their military performance lately) but will be less so with Finland in the alliance.
Why doesn't it make sense? I'm not for Russia nor for NATO, but what is the purpose of the alliance if not against Russia as a remnant of the cold war?
Wasn't the same kind of reasoning used by the USA for Cuba resulting in its ~blockade~ "quarantine" and almost war/invasion?
It seems to me there's a certain rhetoric meant to cast Putin as a crazy warmongering dictator who foolishly wishes to revive the Soviet Union. In part this may be true, but it seems to me that these arguments are meant to distract our gaze away from the US (and NATO in extension) as the global superpower it is, how historically it has moved against the USSR and Russia and its part in the world stage.
*Obviously Putin/Russia is to blame for invading Ukraine.
edit: Adding a few words because I think I have not been clear. I'm not arguing for Russia or against NATO. I'm arguing that from Putin's perspective it makes sense; an alliance historically against the USSR, now expanding near Russia's borders can be seen as a potential threat.
The rhetoric is "I was watering my garden and some crazy guy attacked me", but that is removing the context. And that context exists even if you believe that NATO=good & Russia=bad.
Its not so obvious if you've been paying attention to NATO expansion, as compared to NATO promises.
NATO bases have been being used to launch crimes against humanity and war crimes (with seeming impunity) for decades - the Russians have good reasons to want NATO to stand down.
The West has a long and sordid history of committing war crimes, and then ignoring their war criminals - indeed, leaving them in charge with cart blanche to commit yet more wars.
This fact seems easily ignored by those rooting for NATO's triumph, but for those of us who have been paying attention to the Wests' war crimes - for decades - the argument that 'there is nothing to worry about because NATO are innocent' falls very, very flat.
That's a question on everyone's mind about this whole invasion. I guess I should have said “idiotic justification as portrayed by Russian propaganda” instead of “plan”.
don't americans/west see their media/actions as what it is, propaganda aganinst russia? blocking RT across america/EU is seen as protecting free speech but god forbid if russia reciprocates with banning american companies? then its an action against free speech, again?
The oneupmanship rarely works out well between major powers.
It adds a lot of nuance actually. They can't say to the public that NATO proactively wants a country to join, as that would sound as an expansionistic move, so what more probably happens is that NATO first reaches out to countries that are considered strategically useful offering them a deal. Then the public is sold the narrative of the free country wanting to join NATO, that generously welcomes them under their protective wing against the evil villains. There is no other way to sell to your electorate joining NATO.
Sure there is. "Look at what happened to Ukraine".
This is a very generous description of what happened.
There has been air of forced consensus in the "discussion" between media, politicians and people on social media. People have been branded as "putinist" or "playing into Putin's hand" for merely suggesting that the decision shouldn't be rushed, and that there needs to be thorough analysis before making a decision.
Media hasn't covered Nato's history as an aggressive force, or the war profiteering. The "risks of Nato membership" have been reduced to a framing of "what will Russia do during the application process", which implies that Finland is going to join Nato anyway.
There have been a few critical voices interviewed in the media, mainly Anna Kontula. The response to this has been between "I see your points, but I don't agree with your conclusions" to "you are playing into Putin's hands" to nitpicking and taking her statements out of context in order to get a "gotcha" on her. Not any real engagement or discussion on the arguments.
Whether you agree with Finland joining Nato or not, I think there are good arguments to be made on either side. But to say that there has been any real discussion is a stretch at best. This process was rushed.
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.
This to me as a Finn is the most important part. The moment your neighbor country says "you can't join alliance X" and you actually take their opinion seriously and don't due to their pressure means you just lost your sovereignty as a nation.
And Finland has experience of that from the years after WW2 under YYA[1]. While we were lucky to not be fully take into the soviet union shit just sucked. Press was heavily censored "voluntarily", got a god king president for decades (this is why the President has 0 power in internal politics now), etc. After the fall of soviet union we got rid of the bullshit of licking Russias ass and are never going back.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finno-Soviet_Treaty_of_1948
I suggest reading on Manufacturing Consent.
People living in liberal democracies are swayed all the time. It has happened over and over again. Probably the most notable example being USA after 9/11. Bush approval rating spiked from 60% to 92%. When scary things happen, media coverage and politicians can together make drastic changes to public opinion.
There are wars and crises going on in the world all the time, and media's coverage of them or the lack thereof do change peoples minds on whether they matter or what should be done about them.
But Chomsky does not really understand the world outside US.
I am a Finn and I can guarantee Chomsky does not help you in understanding what happened here. We share 1500km border of Russia. We feel the geopolitic shifts in our backbones.
Almost every finnish male regardless of wealth or class would be up in arms as a combatant in the military if Russia was to invade. You can't have more skin in the game than that.
That's an weird assertion. People genuinly liked his first reaction.
Saying that this process was rushed ignores the 75 years leading up to that decision. Finland has been very careful even during the Cold War to keep the US and the Soviets happy and present themselves as a truly neutral nation between those two powers. Finland already spent all this time “arguing the other side” by not joining and keeping everyone at arms-distance. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and hostile rhetoric toward Finland and other countries are markedly different from the last 75 years in the post-WW2 era. So no, it’s not really rushed. Finland had the debate you are talking about already and has had this debate for 75 years. You just didn’t know that they already had the debate.
People who are against joining NATO won't change their opinion until Russia actually invades and by then it is too late. These people also like to make Finland's neutrality to be some noble stance as if it wasn't imposed on Finland by Russia after the Second World War.
> This is a very generous description of what happened.
> There has been air of forced consensus in the "discussion" between media, politicians and people on social media.
I think it's pretty much exactly the other way around: For the last three decades, since the fall of Communism and the end of "Finlandization", there has been air of forced consensus in the "discussion" between media, politicians and people on social media around the holy cow of "Neutrality", perhaps (at least to begin with) out of lingering deference to the memory of Kekkonen. In reality, Finland has always been a "Western" country; the invasion of Ukraine was just the impetus to finally realise it / admit it to themselves / openly admit it.
> People have been branded as "putinist" or "playing into Putin's hand" for merely suggesting that the decision shouldn't be rushed, and that there needs to be thorough analysis before making a decision.
Everybody has been thinking about it for thirty years (in Sweden, for seventy); you wanna take another thirty years, or what? If they aren't done thinking now, they never will be.
[Edit: Added forgotten quote markers. And fixed typpo.]
Oh, it pretty much did. Sure, there was a Carelia Oblast or something up in the Northwest of the Russian Socialist Soviet Republic -- but never a Finnish Socialist Soviet Republic.
- Finland was formerly part of the Russian Empire
- Finland held out, but conceded a significant chunk of land to the USSR (Karelian Isthmus, now part of Russia…sounds kind of like eastern Ukraine)
- The Soviet forces were generally inept
- The West essentially abandoned Finland to avoid confronting the USSR
- Ever since WWII, Finland has been careful to remain neutral
The “World War Two” channel on YouTube has a series of entertaining videos detailing the history starting around here: https://youtu.be/HZunUjmHTeA
Pretty sure that’s obviously implied by: “The West essentially abandoned Finland to avoid confronting the USSR”
Today, May 12: Finnish president Niinistö presents his view on the NATO issue.
Friday, May 13: A new Swedish security policy analysis is presented in parliament. All 8 parties represented there have collaborated on this.
Saturday, May 14: Heads of the Finnish Social Democratic Party meet and decide on the NATO issue. Swedish and Finnish FMs join a NATO meeting in Berlin.
Sunday, May 15: Heads of the Swedish Social Democratic Party meet and decide on the NATO issue.
Tuesday/Wednesday, May 17/18: Finnish President Niinistö visits Stockholm.
Imagine a country where one major party doesn't sell itself by obstructing everything.
One of Trump's impeachments was over extorting stuff from Zelensky - "I would like you to do us a favor, though", all 57 House "no" votes to the latest aid bill are Republican, and Rand Paul just held it up in the Senate today.
There's some partisan component to it.
Monday May 16: The Swedish government meets, formally decides and then submits the application the same day.
(Source: Expressen, today)
Exactly this. By attacking Ukraine, Russia proved to the world that there is no point complying with Russian geopolitical demands. If Ukraine somehow became a NATO member years ago (not saying that that would have happened, but talking hypothetically) Ukraine would never have been attacked. So, the only rational thing for Finland and Sweden to do is to ignore Russia and join NATO.
When did Ukraine actually comply with any threat from Russia since at least the Maidan Revolution??
I am pretty sure Sanna Marin is a woman.
Why would the Baltic Sea be closed to Russia? How would this be enforced?
All Russia can do is bark, continue the "we aren't doing" cyber/disinformation attack or start lobbing nukes.
#1 and #2 are business as usual, #3 is the end of civilisation.
My best guess would be exactly that. The last thing Putin wants is a repeat of the Finno-Russian wars of 1917 and 1941, which resulted in catastrophic losses on the Soviet side.
1917-1922 was the Russian civil war and 1918 the Finnish civil war. IIRC, some of the White Finnish raiding parties ventured into Russia, and the Bolsheviks supported the Finnish Reds, but you can't really speak of Soviet losses, the Russian Soviet Republic was founded in 1917 and only gained power due to the civil war.
Before this was made public there might have very well been some secret discussions, and the President and Prime minister might have very well used this statement to signal "please wait". This is as green light as green gets.
From the English-language translation: "We hope that the national steps still needed to make this decision will be taken rapidly within the next few days."
People think that something is already agreed on when they are not.
More context on the political situation would perhaps been relevant, but also very hard to give concisely in an understandable form since different countries work quite differently.
The political situation is such that this was basically the expected "go ahead" for the parliament to formulate the official NATO application, since you have start a formal process at some point.
The only party in the government that had not made it's position public was the prime ministers own party Social Democrats (SDP). It would be quite impossible for them to hold any other position than Prime Minister has. Plus - public opinion was heavily loaded for NATO (76%) already. This was not due to propaganda, but a very grass roots shift simply caused by the Russian attack to Ukraine. There are still people alive who had to abandon their childhood homes to areas ceded to Russia in WW2, and most people have veterans of that war in their family. Previous situation in Ukraine and Georgia were more "obscure" combined with seditionist movements. The attack on 24th February was an all out war.
I am not sure how well versed finns are of the tactical situation, but most of the units formerly positioned on the Finnish border are now tied in Ukraine or already neutralized there, so from a tactical perspective, given Russians rabid empire building stance it has taken recently, this was an excellent window to act due to impossibility of military response.
Not to mention that Sweden, with it's pretty impressive capabilities for such a small country (the Grippen, for example), has long ago figured out that they really cannot do this on their own. There has been a good amount of technology transfer in their military technology for a few decades.
> Russia, you caused this.
I visited there a while ago and there was a feel of Russian friendliness at the least with significant independence on the streets. But that's just my feelings and I wasn't paying attention back then.
Most finns, especially the young generations, feel most affinity towards west in every sense.
The Finnish language is Finno-Ugric and unrelated to slavic tongues hence there is a huge language gap. Finns don't as a rule undertand russian.
The political and judicial system is based on western principles.
So Russia in general is a very alien entity not only linguistically but culturally as well.
The signal that drove to this was two-fold - first Russia at the end of last year forbade Sweden and Finland joining NATO, clearly signaling it considers these states as "it's property".
Then the war in Ukraine - Bucha and Mariupol - turned the perception of Russia into complete Mordor in a single stroke. It was very easy to replace Bucha and Mariupol with Finnish cities in ones imagination - and we still have people who remember the sound of Russian bombers striking our cities from '40s.
Finns in general do not exacerbate political tensions one way or another and are used to a mostly consensus-seeking political process. So not sure what signals you interpreted as "friendly" and what was just "common politeness".
The relationship with Russia is a bit conflicted - Finland rose from a dirt poor agrarian state to a fledling industrial state when it was a grand dutchy under a personal union with the Russian czar (so "part of Russia" but also "not part of Russia"). Most of the historical goodwill - if any - was destroyed by the russification attempts starting in late 19th century and were more or less eradicated during the second world war as Stalin tried to conquer Finland.
The war in Ukraine has made the Russian state appear twisted, dark, deranged and unpredictable for decades to come.
And yes - I write russia with small letter because I don't see their _state_ representing the country anymore, but it is more like criminal organization now.
It's true that most finns feel affinity towards the west, but same can't be said about the USA. 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.
It's not like American TV shows aren't playing on Finish TV, or cinema hardly plays Hollywood movies.
If there was a true dislike, it should affect media consumption.
Nobody in the west can catch up to the US in media production because the US is the biggest producer of English language media. English language media has the largest market in the west because English is spoken by nearly everyone as a second language, and US media reinforces this English language status, since people pick up the language due to its availability.
tldr: despite watching Friends on Netflix, many people still think the US is a rotten dirty capitalist hellhole.
As for Russia and its empire-serving culture, there's nothing to like and share at all.
I just read the whole [0] reference, and I could not find anything related to your claim. Can you give specific examples ? Or can you explain how the article supports your claim ?
Briefly put, insidious interactions over decades groomed certain individuals in power to promote agendas pleasing to Moscow and to stop from forwarding agendas that would have been displeasing. Who, exactly? Well, that's the thing - we don't know but can only guess - but this effect was quite visible in Finland for decades. I know this sounds a bit nutty without more context so let me try to provide it.
I am using the term "asset" in the widest possible interpretations - people acting to benefit the agenda of Moscow.
Finlandization included the necessity to get stamp of approval on all foreign policy from Moscow. The journalistic system basically recycled what USSR broadcasted on foreign events up to late 1980's.
Politicians had to get approval from the USSR embassy. How this undermines democracy should be obvious - you can have votes, but it does not matter if big brother vetoes you.
Hence you don't need to explicitly enact nefarious schemes given to you by Kremlin - you simply do not put forward agendas you guess would be displeasing to the Moscow masters. And you things you guess would please them. In this atmosphere the subtlest of hints suffice to direct policy.
Over decades, this creates a psychology of implicit submission - similar to what happens in totalitarian countries in press self-censoring and so fort. You start to guess from weak signals what the dominating party wants and impose this control. You promote those that forward your pro Moscow agenda. You chastise those too pro-western. Sometimes you promote your protege to Moscow as a steady hand and so on.
There are visible signals of this and I can enumerate few:
0)
Finland had one person as president, Urho Kekkonen for 26 years
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urho_Kekkonen
His reign was linked to very good relations with Moscow. He probably played both sides, but was in fact many ways enacting policies that were pleasing to Moscow. In the 50's this probably helped to stop explicit invasion.
1)
For example, ex. prime minister Esko Aho was in the board of Sperbank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esko_Aho#Banks
2)
The president of Finland Tarja Halonen supported the ratification of the Ottawa treaty banning all use of landmines in Finland in 2011. This was promoted as a benevolent act by many parties. Given that Russia had invaded Geoergia 2008 this can be in retrospect considered suicidally deluded or treasonous position.
The latter one is perhaps the most egregious example of the actions of parties one would at bare minimum describe as "usefull fools". The only party that would ever benefit from Finland banning landmines is Moscow.
3)
Finland was planning a new nuclear plant starting from 2010. The tendering was won by Rosatom in circumstances that implied high favoritism toward the Russian state actor.
In 2014 after Russia invaded Crimea several municipalities pooled in extra capital to the process.
Luckily this plant project has been stopped and will never be built.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanhikivi_Nuclear_Power_Plant
Things like this could go on and on. But the whole point of clandestine subversion is that it's clandestine and KGB archives are probably sadly not available for academic study for decades if ever.
Very happy to see you guys joining NATO.
Not a lot of material about him written in English though. But he is a member of parliament and has been openly pro Russia recently. He was expelled from his party already earlier and now runs his own party. I don't think people take him seriously.
That's not implying they are pro- current Russian government.
As a person with US-oriented political definitions, I find that phrase almost impossible to parse. I can put "left-wing" and "traditionally voted communist" together, but in what sense are they "conservatives"?
I'm not saying that you're wrong. I'm just saying that I don't understand how the terms are used over there.
Nowadays, only Erkki Tuomioja...
[Edit: Fortunately he's old enough to soon be significant only historically.]
This is true for basically every people every time in history. People care about food, family, a house, medical care. All is well until some government starts pushing them into a warring state of mind.
Examples from the previous generation of European wars, when Italy invented fascism, Germany followed suit ten years later and both countries started to think about land grabs in Europe and Africa. We got WW2 first but only 12 years after the end of it France, Germany, Italy and the Benelux started the process [1] that led to the current EU. All friends again.
My bet: without the current leadership and their propaganda very few Russians would think about invading other countries so be ready to reach out to them when it will be all over. What we don't have to do is to start a process like the one that led Germany from the defeat in WW1 to desires of revenge and WW2, or Russia from the defeat in the Cold War to the current attempt to create its empire again.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Community
I note, grimly, that your positive example (Germany and Italy post-WW2) was precipitated by the total defeat, occupation and renovation of those two states by the victors of the war. That is not possible in the current situation, where the best case outcome is that Russia retreats to pre-2014 borders with Ukraine.
Russian fascism runs for multiple generations. Russia never was democratic. Russian mentality is to have an aggressive leader ("бьёт - значит любит").
Navalny is perceived as an alternative to Putin, but he supported Crimean annexation and Georgian war. There is no evidence the remedies that worked for Nazi Germany will work for Russia.
What are you basing this on?
https://www.levada.ru/en/ratings/
This seems to show strong support for the Russian government and this analysis seems to suggest that few Russians are concerned about Russians crimes and as many as half are very supportive of horrific violence against people they see as nonhuman.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2022.2...
Russians now feel as though they're under attack by the West with an ends of destroying them not only economically and politically but also culturally. That is going to send support soaring with the perceived threat there is orders of magnitude greater than something like Bin Laden. So you're not going to be able to get level-headed responses until [likely many] years after this ends - similar to how if you polled the average American circa 2001 you'd get dramatically different views on the actions we took than you would if you asked them a decade later, even beyond the countless discoveries outside the "fog of war".
This is one reason I also think our ongoing response is not the right path forward for any outcome other than escalation. The more we arbitrarily attack anything "Russian", the more we frame ourselves not as an enemy of the war but as an enemy of the Russian people and even the Russian culture. And far from achieving a de-escalation, this just seems it will inevitably march us that much closer to WW3.
But you're not wrong, lots of people just went full nazi
Most Russians that a typical HN user would encounter — English-speaking, educated, probably with skills in demand inside and outside Russia — don't.
Typical Russians, on the other hand, are quite openly fascist at this point.
(Aesop's fable of The North Wind and the Sun.)
Invasion of Ukraine had not started in December 2021 yet, but it became urgent issue for Finnish President as it was seen that Finnish & Swedish NATO membership was being tied to Putin's war rhetoric at the time. Then came Finnish president's New Years remarks which was seen as a serious even in neighboring Sweden.
It's notable though that in Finland politicians have used wording "Nato-option" for decades, this conditioned the public to know what to expect if things turn sour. In Sweden NATO membership is a bit more difficult, because they didn't have such wording.
In Finland decision to joining NATO was mostly driven by sudden opinion change when war started. This opinion change was so radical that government didn't need to campaign for NATO, leadership could just focus on getting support from NATO members. Finnish and Swedish government have already negotiated with most of the NATO members so the application phase shouldn't be too hard.
Before war only ~20% favor, ~50-60% against
25.2. 53% in favor, 28% against
11.3. 62% in favor, 16% against
6.5. 76% in favor 12% against
See polling data from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland%E2%80%93NATO_relations
Don't get me wrong I do not support the war started by Russia AT ALL
If all the war crimes, targeting of infrastructure, civilians, hospitals, forced deportation, looting, torture, setting up of artificial breakaway states hasn't so far convinced you then I'm afraid nothing ever will.
No matter the outcome, it is a very bad result for Ukraine. Look at all the destruction, loss of life, and loss of money.
Putin behaved irrationally and his people loved him for it.
It was stupid for Russia to invade Ukraine. It did it anyway. It’s stupid for them to keep prosecuting a war they’re losing. He keeps pressing. It would be stupid for Putin to attack remaining non-NATO European countries. He’s threatening Moldova and Finland and Sweden anyway. He would lose a war against Finland. That says nothing about whether he’s try it. The only thing he seems to understand is overwhelming strength, and that’s NATO.
Moldova?
If this whole fiasco does result in WWIII, it'll be because of Finland joining NATO.
No. It will have been because fascist Russia invaded Ukraine.
My greatest concern is what comes next. The current regime is a kleptocracy, which is awful for the people, but easy to predict and control and siphon cheap natural resources from. They stay in power partly by fear of EU/NATO, but it’s questionable support. Once the kleptocracy is gone, EU/NATO can either embrace Russia or maintain the current stance against them. Embracing Russia will diminish EU/NATO power and purpose. Maintaining the current stance will strengthen the alliance against them, while pushing the country toward extreme nationalism in a new regime with nothing to lose and a lot to prove. There will not be a clear decision point to switch course; it will either be gradual de-escalation on both sides, or gradual strengthening.
If Russia isn't invading any NATO country then there's no opposition.
With that said I do understand NATO as a stability-bringing and mostly peace creating org so I am not 100% against joining. As long as we are not brought into any pro-active wars and NATO keeps being the effective "keep Russia from militaily f---ing with you"-prevention it currently is I would be OK with being a member.
Putin to a Finnish journalist in 2016 according to Finnish President Sauli Niinistö in an interview with the German magazine 'Der Spiegel'
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/finnish-president...
I guess, the russians are finnished.
Anyway, Putin says a lot of things. He doesn't see a friend in anyone, never has, never will. An enemy is just a small downgrade from status quo.
> I guess, the russians are finnished.
Da.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aimo_Koivunen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unknown_Soldier_(2017_film...
I'm starting to feel sorry for russia. But it earned it.
And I couldn't care less what Putin and his cronies fantasize.
“We cannot negotiate with people who say what's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable."
John F. Kennedy, 25 July 1961
Putin burned all bridges unfortunately, he can't seat at any table and be believable since he stomped on a bunch of international laws and treaties.
No one wants conflict, no one wants war, but sometimes people can't grasp the consequences of some decisions.
Look at Brexit...
Perhaps more interesting is that it makes the swedish application almost inevitable as well, and it might happen at the same time.
I mean, I'm a Swede and all (I only live in Finland), but this seems a bit unfair.
On the other hand, it's clear that the Russian military is a complete joke. It's being ripped apart by militias.
One has to wonder what developed nation, even a small one, with nation with trained and disciplined armed forces would do to it.
To me the Ukraine situation shows the pointlessness of NATAO more than anything else.
Russia is too weak to be a threat.
1: https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2021/10/p... 2: https://finland.fi/life-society/a-border-that-once-divided-n...
Plus, speaking as a fellow Nordic... The Finns are our brothers and sisters. Of course they are welcome.
Looking at Russias performance against Ukraine Finland and Sweden alone would easily hold them off. Nato won’t need to spend much resources to protect Finland.
Ukraines terrain is as easy as as it gets for Russia. Finland is full of lakes, forests and mountains. Logistics is 100 times harder.
They’ll be self-sufficient assets to the alliance, and being in NATO makes their status unambiguous should Putin or whoever follows get any more bad ideas.
I guess it's for the best. I've not really held a position on NATO but the whole point of the alliance is to not allow for the kind of war that is taking place in Ukraine. I hope this leads to the best possible outcome for all.
No UK and USA have demanded local neoliberal rulers to join or being considered not much friend anymore, and then their government, as for instance Italian Gov. choose to betray their Citizens interest for their own economical ones, choosing to apply, of course without any public debate and vote.
IF their Citizens decide that's time to remember what Democracy means they'll organize a quick massive general strike ordering immediate resignation of their own government to go to vote and after with a new government starting the debate, if not they'll get the consequences and we from the EU as well since so far not so many Citizens start acting to going out of NATO...
Oh, no, I'm not pro-Putin, I'm a Citizen who came from a WWII Partisans family and so I recognize and can't support nor original nazis nor new one, no dictators included so while I can't support Putin being a dictator who also choose religion as a way to stay in power, I can't support as well and more (since they are here, not in another country) anglo-neoliberals and their subjects, local neoliberals traitors of their own people and countries for the sake of someone else.
I understand that neoliberals need a war to remain in power and committing a mass murder crime to make their new dream society, a copy of actual Chines one with minor variations (choosing suite&tie + black color instead of uniform and red color) but us the people need the exact opposite and seeing actual effect of propaganda... Well... I understand that due to the extreme vulnerability of many I can't live myself in a democracy, a thing that behind anger push me toward not really nice sentiments and considerations about old-classic government model with a deeply divided population and the historic outcome of such division.
It almost seems like some sort of reverse psychology thing… Russia saying "We forbid you to join NATO" is one of few things that would get these countries to join NATO. "Don't tell us what to do!"
What is Putin's play?
He's been very clear: before the second Ukraine invasion he criticised Lenin for allowing the SSRs to exist and for accepting the loss of Imperial Russia by e.g. accepting Finnish independence. His ambition is to restore Russia to (at least) its pre World War I borders, which would involve the obliteration of nations such as Ukraine and Finland.
Up until now he has zero push back on the butcheries in Chechnya, little pushback on previous atrocities in Ukraine or Syria or shooting down civilian airliners, and he no doubt expected the same this time around.
Why it has to be Putin's play? A lot of people seem to take for granted that Putin knows what he is doing and has a long play with an eventual win.
History is full of leaders making terrible mistakes that eventually put the last nail in their coffins, I don't understand why some think that the only possible option is that there must be something that we are missing because Putin is so smart and has so much control that this can't simply be a huge fail on his part
Similar to how those who have not vaccinated themselves enjoy the collective immunity that others (who have taken the trouble/time/cost/etc. to get vaccinated) have provided for them.
I assume you mean Königsberg?
It's a fact that Russia feels threatened by having NATO on their border. It's a fact that Ukraine and Finland also share borders with Russia. It's a fact that Putin is not going to allow himself to be removed from power by the West without a fight (at this point it's a case of stay in power or get killed). Can the West not have a bit more nuance in its collective foreign policy, recognising these facts and that we're far from living in a perfect world with flowers and rainbows? 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.
EDIT: sigh, are we really just reddit these days, using downvotes to express disagreement? I'm not going to change my mind based on downvotes. Comment to tell me how I'm wrong.
I think you should go and tell Ukrainian people that their country is a buffer zone meant to act as a burnt ground, and they are not allowed to work towards joining the alliances and economic systems that they want to join in order to better their livelihoods and stop facing the former-USSR-level of poverty. Same stuff with regards to the Finnish and Swedish people and their current will to join NATO in order to defend against an unpredictable old man with a grandiose idea of reviving the old USSR.
Believe me, going there and speaking directly will work better than commenting on HN.
EDIT: yes, I downvoted, and here's my share of a comment.
I didn't say we should dictate policy to Ukraine - they're a sovereign state like the rest of us. That doesn't mean we have to let them join if they want to, just like we don't have to let Russia invade a sovereign state without sanctions. I noted in my comment that there was actually peace in Eastern Europe before NATO expansion. NATO could easily have used that as a reason to disallow the membership application from Ukraine, but I think we were too determined to quell Russia's and Putin's global influence so we let it happen. Was it even necessary? If Russia had attacked Ukraine in the 90s, would the West not have responded in a similar way to how it is doing now? Not sure what NATO has gained here. In my opinion diplomacy is all about recognising the world isn't perfect, and, when there is a need to, holding your nose and letting bad people run their countries as an alternative to something worse. Yes it's a tragedy what's happening in Ukraine right now, and yes Putin is a tyrant who would ideally not be in charge (weird that I now feel the need to have to say that, because it should be self-evident to all rational people).
> EDIT: yes, I downvoted, and here's my share of a comment.
Was my post low effort or malicious?
this was likely done to fix the race condition of starting the application process vs being under the alliance umbrella
Yes, but not in the sense they want you to think. Russia feels threatened that it won't be able to invade freely wherever and whenever it wishes. Since they can't do diplomacy without holding a gun somewhere close by, it makes them weaker.
This pact is designed to protect Sweden and Finland between (deciding to) apply for NATO membership and actually becoming a NATO member.
1. The invader would suffer a massive penalty for their reputation: didn't stop them from invading Ukraine.
2. The invader would be hit with massive economic sanctions: see 1.
3. Even unassisted, we would be able to mount a defense that can cause major losses to the invading force: see 1.
4. Even though there's no formal defense pact, surely the west would come to our aid: Putin says "serious consequences, remember we got nukes", west backs down.
And as a bonus:
5. If, against all odds, they decide they still want to invade and we get no help from the west, there's no point to actually fight back because they'll crush us like a fly in the end, so we should just surrender immediately: looking at Ukraine, this is no longer obvious.
Usual caveats apply, but I believe the main benefit for NATO is to prevent point 5 from happening.
"Pay for..." To whom? Do you think NATO works like the EU, redistributing money from "membership fees" to "subsidy recipients"? All the NATO countries pay for their own militaries out of their own budgets.
> 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.
Whoa, resurrection! Hallelujah! But why you, of all people?!? We'd all hoped you'd stay dead, Mr Chamberlain.
> EDIT: sigh, are we really just reddit these days, using downvotes to express disagreement?
No, this is HN. According to a comment I got from dang some time ago -- or was it just a link to the guidelines, so it's there? -- downvotes are a legitimate expression of disagreement.
> I'm not going to change my mind based on downvotes. Comment to tell me how I'm wrong.
Done. Keep whining, and you can have a downvote on top.
In any case joining NATO would allow them to trigger Article 5. This is a much better deterrent than some vague "would likely bring in many other NATO powers".
They are essentially stating that Russian gov. is aggressive enough to be a threat to them in the future but not agressive enough right now to create a "border dispute" to prevent NATO membership.
My take is that they should just have stayed out of the Russia US power game completely.
10 years ago, it was reasonable to believe that Russia would never invade a neighboring country, so joining NATO wasn't seen as necessary or preferable to maintaining neutrality.
10 years in the future, based on what we're seeing now, Russia may have already invaded/attacked Finland and it would be too late to join NATO.
I think so too. The West would tolerate invasion by Russia of Finland even less than it is doing for Ukraine, with or without NATO membership (notably, Ukraine is not part of NATO either). All this seems to be doing is escalating the situation with a man who is perhaps more interested in holding onto power and his own life than killing a few hundred thousand in a conflict. I really think we've dropped the ball diplomatically on this one. There are surely better ways of ridding Russia of Putin than this, if that's the end game for the West.
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.
¹Hypothetical because there was no realistic chance that Ukraine would have been allowed to join.
While it is unlikely that Putin would care a bit about Sweden, this is a huge gamble on Finland's side. HUGE.
This can go in one of the two directions: either Putin dislikes but somehow swallows it (the way he did with Baltic states in 2004), or he can go about preemptively wrecking Finland (the way he did with Georgia and Ukraine in 2008 and 2014 respectively).
Considering Russia was very negative on a prospect of having NATO some 450 km from Moscow, the prospect of having them 150 km from St. Petersburg might aggravate Putin even more. And St. Petersburg is not just another Russian city — it's Putin's home city.
Starting with Mannerheim, Finland had a wise policy for the last 70 years, where they largely refrained from taking sides on the USSR/West thingy, and the Soviets let them be. Joining NATO is a complete reversal of that policy, and it is an extremely dangerous gamble at an extremely dangerous time.
Finnish military is built against Russia. We rely on huge conscription army of 900 000 which is second biggest army reserve in EU [1]. Current war time effort of 240 000 that can be rapidly assembled in few days.
It's also built to operate without air superiority, and is more suitable to ground war against Russia than any EU nation. With biggest artillery force in western Europe, Finland is an asset to NATO rather than burden.
You may ask why would we need NATO if we have such a military? After what Russia did to Ukraine, the foreigners will never understand how Finland could be seen as independent if it's not backed by west militarily. NATO membership is seen as among other things an economic benefit. When Russia eventually stages exercises near our borders, the investors know we are NATO country.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Security_and_Defence_Po...
This is about what the Soviets lost in the first two months of WW2.
Considering Russian population of 144 million, half of which are women and half of the rest either too old or too young to fight, the Russian army reserve can be (conservatively) estimated at about 30 million men.
With that in mind, in the possible conflict Finland would need to continuously maintain a loss ratio of 30:1 or more.
In the Winter war, the loss ratio was about 5:1, which is a "good" news tactically, but not "good enough" news strategically. It meant that Finland moved to the point of not being able to fight faster than the Soviets did.
Another discrepancy — the one that did not exist in either the Winter war or the Continuation war — is that the Russian nuclear arsenal is somewhere between 3,000 and 10,000 nuclear weapons, while the Finnish nuclear arsenal is none.
Finally, Russia won't fear any sanctions for its conflict with Finland, because the sanctions weapon is already used against them.
> You may ask why would we need NATO if we have such a military?
I may ask why you think that seeking NATO membership is putting Finland in a less dangerous position and not in a more dangerous one. After all, getting in an alliance with Germany in the past proved as a costly mistake.
> After what Russia did to Ukraine
Russia is in a process of wrecking Ukraine because Ukraine wanted to join NATO. They seem to have achieved at least the goal of keeping Ukraine out of NATO, because NATO will not admit Ukraine while it fights the Russians.
I fail to see how doing exactly the same thing that Ukraine did is not a very dangerous gamble.
The smartest people on the planet, since the 60's, have worked on this problem, and that's how we got to the concept of "mutually assured destruction" (triad and all that). That means that this "removal" would likely also mean a symmetrical "removal" of the West.
I have a privilege to live in neither a NATO country nor Russia, nor anywhere near, so for me it still looks like a chess game, but the stakes are unbearably high.
What do you do if you are Finland? You want to make peace, you want to maintain nonaggression and neutrality but another neutral party doing the same meets devastation before your very eyes. Seems better in this situation to get whatever protection you can.
This does not fit my understanding. In my understanding, Ukraine doubles down on NATO membership, and Russia attacks. Am I missing something? Somewhere between 2014 and 2022 Ukraine denounced its NATO aspirations?
In no way I condone the Russian attack, but I also can't see how they're "untrustable".
If the US goes bankrupt (it already is), makes one wonder if the other countries will come to our aid and supply us with money, weapons, personnel when the time comes.
Sigh... Here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31355478
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31355371
on the other hand, they don't have much choice. Finland was not neutral, just not formally in NATO. they were anti-Russia independents. but now things got serious so they run for shelter. basically they waited until the last moment to formally join NATO, but they were always kind of aligned with NATO. same for Sweden. for example, they both sent military aid to Ukraine I believe, so it's clear they are aligned with NATO. might as well sign the paper.
Russia points guns at Ukraine and Finland and says, "Don't call for help or I will shoot you." Russia proceeds to shoot Ukraine anyways.
Perhaps this is an oversimplification, countries aren't people after all, but what is Finland to do in this situation? In my opinion, Russia has deteriorated trust so completely that folks assume that the punishment for a threat will happen _even if_ a line isn't crossed.
Goes to show how people will happily swallow the media narrative without thinking about the big picture.
[EDIT] Appreciate the downvoting, but would appreciate an answer even more.
But in this case the media narrative is very much "this why we need everyone to join NATO/be West-aligned" whereas it's exactly the expansion of NATO that has lead to these conflicts. As much as we'd all like for everyone to do what they want, in reality you need to consider the position of your neighbours especially if they have power. For an alternative example - see how USA reacted to Cuba becoming communist aligned, very much pot calling the kettle black, no? ;)