Finnish political parties believe in a policy of "Nato-option", where major parties have kept saying to population it's option we can choose. Almost on instant anytime we want. With war in Ukraine, it doesn't look a credible policy, because they can't anymore say it's an option Finland can choose in case hot conflict is ongoing.
Currently as things stand, Finland most likely joins in few years. Next parliamentary election is most likely won by center-right who favors it, and president is from same faction.
It's a bit situationally dependent, if threats from Russia is seen as violent, it could change their calculus. However even center-left figures already agrees it's necessity, just not now. It could be seen as provocative.
I have always thought that Finland would be in NATO already if it was not seen meddling in middle east. It has really burned it's view among leftists.
"meddling" in the middle east? The US-UK straight up invaded two countries under the flimsiest pretexts. I don't remember the world condemning the aggressors in any serious way. No sanctions, nothing. Bush and Blair should've gone the way of Milošević - mysterious death while awaiting trial. Wishful thinking, I know.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were repugnant, but comparing the invasion of countries with brutal authoritarian regimes with the invasion of a functional liberal democracy seems disingenuous.
The people who live in those countries don't view it any differently when their relatives get murdered.
99.9% of the population of any country mostly just want to live their lives and politically all they do is talk and maybe fill in a circle on a ballot once in a awhile. There's a useful fiction that they're all collectively responsible which is used for various illegitimate justifications.
Just like soldiers fight for the person next to them, insurgencies are born because your family members got killed by foreign solders who parked tanks in your cities. Once you leave the rationalizations of the political theater behind and get down to the reality of where the individual acts of homicide are happening in the war, it is all the same thing.
Why can't I? Are you implying the Afghani wanted their torn up country invaded by yet another superpower? They haven't seen anything resembling normal life in generations. Or that Iraqis deserved to get their well developed country almost completely destroyed?
You seem to be completely ignoring the lack of legitimacy and popular support that the authoritarian regimes in both Iraq and Afghanistan had, as well as the human rights violations that were commonplace while they were in power.
The war in Afghanistan was obviously a complete and total failure given that the Taliban are now back in charge, but it's hard to argue that after all this time that the Iraqis aren't better off living in an (albeit flawed) democracy than under the rule of Saddam Hussain.
The invasion of Ukraine has invalidated this line of reasoning. NATO is the only definitive way to prevent a Russian invasion now, and every moment of delay puts Finland in greater danger. If Putin is crazy enough to invade a NATO Finland, then he is definitely crazy enough to invade a non-NATO Finland.
This completely ignores giving Russia a reason to invade Finland. Russia has had no strategic need or desire to invade Finland and lived as neighbors for 70 years.
Joining NATO and giving it leverage over the Russian navy would vastly increase the chance of Finland being pulled into a hot conflict with Russia
Like they want Ukraine back, as it belonged to the Russian Empire, they also want back Finland, as it belonged to the Russian Empire.
In the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, written immediately before WWII, Russia stated once more their wish to incorporate Finland. Nothing has ever changed in their intentions since then until now.
They have waited until the time when they believed they are strong enough to regain control over Ukraine.
They will also wait a time when they will believe that they can successfully attack Finland. They will not give up on this idea until a completely different kind of government will replace Putin and those like him, which does not seem likely, unless he would suffer a shameful defeat in Ukraine.
Russia can't hold Ukraine and they know it. This is a punitive invasion and they will be out after crippling the military and getting the NATO neutrality concessions they want.
Russias power is waning, and at the same time Ukraine-NATO integration is approaching the point of irreversibility. From the Russian perspective the window to stop Ukraine is closing. Finland has no such window right now unless they create one
For those unaware, the attempted Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939 was an embarrassing failure for the USSR. They managed to take only a small part of the country while suffering tremendous loss, despite a much larger army.
In a way it also lead to the German invasion of the USSR. Seeing the disaster the Soviet army faced during the Winter War gave the Germans the confidence to invade.
I only now noticed, Leningrad ( St Petersburg ), is only 35 Km (21 Miles) from the Finish border. Yeah, joining NATO is really going to piss them off...
Yeah, you are correct. I have to dust up my old maps. Still on a straight line is 50 miles or less. This being St Petersburg, I think Russia will really make a serious fuss on even imagining NATO that distance from St Petersburg.
> This being St Petersburg, I think Russia will really make a serious fuss on even imagining NATO that distance from St Petersburg.
Isn't Estonia already part of NATO? Granted the Finnish border is a lot longer, but in terms of straight-line distance to St Petersburg it would be nothing new.
A very important point made by a previous Finland prime minister today on Sky News:
> FINLAND IS NOT NEUTRAL. That's a common misconception. Finland just doesn't belong to a military alliance. But it is definitely aligned with EU/NATO.
> We are members of the EU. Use € as our currency. Have a close partnership with Nato. Have a military which is more Nato compatible than most of its member states. Participate in Nato exercises and crisis management. Purchased F-18 and F-35. Part of JEF, etc, etc. NOT NEUTRAL.
"...Irrespective of this, the Atlantic Alliance makes it clear that the organisation’s security guarantees apply to members only. Full access to collective defense planning, decision-making and military structures can only be reached via full membership.
This leads to the main paradox of the NATO partnership, namely that in the worst
case it can be seen in the eyes of external actors to strengthen an ever-closer
association with NATO without, however, supplying the deterrence provided by Article 5..."
EU membership but NATO non-membership gives security to Finland, without hosting US military weapons aimed at Russia. In this way, it gives defensive security without making it a strategic threat to Russia.
It does, and Finnish President has asked many times a clarification what it actually means, see [1]. It's his favorite hobby horse, he keeps asking about it, but not getting any clarification from other member states.
Problem is apparently with it is wording, it makes requirement to help any ways available. But apparently it can be interpreted like "give humanitarian aid" or even "send troops to help", depending on reader. It's not clear it's defensive enough.
Q1: Do existing NATO members consult their citizens (referendum or political party making pledge before national election or similar) before a new member state is admitted?
Q2: If not, why not?
bonus Q: Imagine Taiwan were to apply to join NATO...
"Article 6 states that the treaty covers only member states' territories in Europe and North America, Turkey and islands in the North Atlantic north of the Tropic of Cancer, plus French Algeria. It was the opinion in August 1965 of the US State Department, the US Defense Department and the legal division of NATO that an attack on the U.S. state of Hawaii would not trigger the treaty, but an attack on the other 49 would.[47] The Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla on the North African shore are thus not under NATO protection in spite of Moroccan claims to them. Legal experts have interpreted that other articles could cover the Spanish North African cities but this take has not been tested in practice."
Another difficulty for Sweden and Finland is that all need to agree.
"NATO Enlargement & Open Door"
"...NATO’s “open door policy” is based on Article 10 of the Alliance’s founding document, the North Atlantic Treaty (1949). The Treaty states that NATO membership is open to any “European state in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area”. It states that any decision on enlargement must be made “by unanimous agreement”. .."
Perhaps we could invite them to be a 51st US state instead. Unfortunately, I imagine this would upset the awkward but stable status quo, not unlike the upset from Ukraine joining NATO.
Because all(?) of the NATO members are representative democracies of some form or other. While obviously certain actions can be a domestic political issue (so in that sense citizens are "consulted"), there's no direct citizen vote on things like alliances, treaties, etc. (or many other actions a national government takes).
> there's no direct citizen vote on things like alliances, treaties, etc
One could imagine that if your country's citizens will be called upon to go to war to fight to defend a distant "country X", just because your country and "country X" happen to be in an alliance, that citizens informed consent would be desirable and required before signing such a treaty.
Despite what your politicians might say, joining an military alliance has a cost, it's not a freebie.
This isn't the only relevant question. The most relevant question is: how defensible is potential NATO entrant X?
Georgia was completely indefensible. Ukraine might have been, but preparations were not made for it. Finland can defend itself, so in a sense it is defensible, and in so far as Norway is a NATO member and a neighbor, there might be lines of transportation that might make Finland defensible by the alliance.
I don't actually know. Finland must be more defensible than the Baltic states (which are not at all defensible, but are in NATO). But evidence suggests that Putin doesn't care as much about Finland as about Ukraine, nor as much about the Baltic states as about the Ukraine. So this question may not matter as much as I suppose. Still, in a context where Putin sees NATO expansion as so provocative, it might not be a good idea to rush to expand NATO just yet -- it might be a good idea to first take stock and really see if we actually can defend the new entrants.
> The most relevant question is: how defensible is potential NATO entrant X?
That's... not the point at all. NATO isn't an attempt to maximize the utility of a "fortress" in western Europe, it's an attempt to deter aggression by expressly recognizing an attack on one member as an attack on all.
If war is inevitable then we'll all be fighting on Finland's side anyway and NATO membership doesn't matter. The reason to join is to make it as clear as possible that attacking Finland is off limits, and thus prevent the war.
Because your example is 108 years old and no NATO nation has been attacked militarily[1] in the 73 years since the treaty was signed?
[1] With no doubt a handful of exceptions that people will point out. The Faulklands war comes to mind, where the UK deliberately did not invoke the treaty and chose to defend its territory itself, etc...
> no NATO nation has been attacked militarily in the 73 years since the treaty was signed [..]
Without a definition of "attacked militarily" I'm not sure that claim is useful. Perhaps mostly due to the concept of countries "declaring war" on each other having rather gone out of fashion?
Back in 1943, Roosevelt asked (!) the Congress declare a state of war. These days it seems it's more like "shoot first and ask [strike]questions[/strike] Congress later"
It's Falklands. And anyways, NATO as it stands today will not be attacked. But potential NATO entrants very much might be, prior to and maybe even after entering. No one believes that NATO will actually fight beyond Poland. Hell, I don't believe the Germans would fight for Poland -- Poland would fight for Poland, but that's probably it. Defensibility matters. I think Poland is defensible mainly because this time Poland is prepared and willing to defend itself long enough to embarrass the rest of NATO into helping.
That means Poland is now safe from attack.
All the new entrants being discussed are less defensible than Poland. With Ukraine being left to flap in the wind and lose, the value of discussing NATO entrance is now negative.
"In 1964, due to the Cyprus crisis, Greece withdrew military units from NATO forces in the Southern Mediterranean, over threats of invasion of Cyprus by fellow NATO member Turkey.[8] Later in 1974 due to the invasion of Cyprus by Turkish forces, Greece withdrew from NATO military command. Notwithstanding, the country did not withdraw entirely from the organisation, but became significantly less active.[9]
In 1980, the Greek foreign minister Konstantinos Mitsotakis made remarks about the situation where he could see Greece fully withdrawing from the organisation. However, later diplomatic pressure from the United States led to Greece fully re-integrating with the alliance.[10]"
Deterrence relies on the to-be-deterred believing the deterrence threat. If entrant X is not defensible, it won't be defended, therefore the deterrence value of accepting entrant X is low.
No one -but no one- believes that NATO will fight a war with Russia over Finland, or over Ukraine, or Belarus, or Georgia, or at all. Certainly Putin does not. I assert certainty w/o being a mind reader and not truly knowing what's in going on in his mind, but it's pretty clear to any and all that Germans, French, British, Americans, etc, none of them want a shooting war with Russia even if it could be an easy win because a) it might not be an easy win, b) it might be ruinously costly in blood and treasure even if it were an easy win, c) it might lead to nuclear war where no one wins and everyone loses.
If, however, Finland is easily defended, and can defend itself by itself with little extra help from NATO, then that's a deterrence to invasion of Finland regardless of Finland's membership in NATO. I think the experience with the Winter and Continuation Wars makes it pretty clear that Finland can defend itself, at least for some time, so that alone is deterrence against Russia invading Finland. Inviting Finland into NATO would then seem mostly an empty gesture (since we all know NATO won't actually fight Russia), but also a provocative action (see Ukraine). It's lose-lose.
It's time for sane thinking to prevail at NATO. The status quo ante-Georgia was fine. The current state of play is not. We got here in large part because of overly-optimistic belief in NATO. Instead of deterring Putin, the inverse happened. The reason is simple: NO ONE believes that NATO would actually fight. Even back in the 80s under Reagan, no one believed any countries other than the U.S. and UK would really fight, but at least Western Europe was defensible and worth fighting for, and the U.S. being willing to fight was deterrence enough. Eastern Europe is now defensible and worth fighting for, and I do believe Poland would fight for itself, and so would other Eastern European countries, but I don't think any would fight for Ukraine, not even if Ukraine had been admitted a few months ago.
> "If Finland and Sweden applied for membership, we could decide on it overnight. You could be a member the very next day because you meet all the necessary membership criteria," said Rasmussen, who was Nato Secretary General from 2009 to 2014.
They did wait for him to (probably inadvertently) fly for a few minutes over sovereign Turkish air space. They wouldn't have dared if he had stayed entirely on the Syrian side.
More interesting is that just a couple of years later all is forgotten and Russia is selling Turkey its most advanced S-400 air defense system, thus precipitating a diplomatic crisis with the US.
Support for NATO membership has improved significantly in 2022, or rather, outright opposition towards joining NATO has decreased. At the end of 2019, 20% were for and 56% were against membership. And now, in January, 28% were for and 42% were against. So the majority were either for, or unsure.
Another interesting sign of people warming up to joining NATO is a gallup that suggested 63% either "strongly agree" or "somewhat agree" to "accepting Finland joining NATO if it was recommended by the president and the government".
If Putin really wants to go down in history as the man who wiped out the Russian population (and a large chunk of the rest), so be it. I think he's bullshitting.
Stalin killed large swaths of his own population to keep himself alive and in power. Unless he's running this war from a submarine, Putin cannot have any illusion that he will survive an all-out nuclear war. Or that there will be anything left to be in charge of.
The leaders of world powers have stocked underground bunkers for emergencies like nuclear war. I would bet he could stay underground 5 years comfortably.
1,000,000 is the rough count of their total armed forces. It includes air, naval, and logistic personnel. Actual ground troops is about 280,000 plus maybe 50-100,000 special ops and missile forces. 150,000 of those are said to be stationed around or inside Ukraine. Even if not all 150,000 are committed, they can't be removed in their entirety without leaving supply chains and what not exposed to irregular warfare; the troops on the front lines, whether in advance or occupying the territories gained, will also need reinforcement and relief. I think my numbers are correct!
> They're going to open a second front in Northern Europe with 1/3-1/2 of their army locked up in Ukraine?
According to reports, only a third of the force deployed around Ukraine are actually in Ukraine.[1] So, about 50-60,000. So, there are as many Russian troops currently deployed in Ukraine as US troops currently stationed in Japan, give or take a few thousand.[2]
As the Finnish saying goes, "a ruskie is a ruskie even if you fried him in butter" ("ryssä on ryssä vaikka voissa paistais"), where "ryssä" is a common slur against Russians
> Ukraine didn't get into NATO, got invaded anyways.
>
> "We'll leave you alone if you promise never to join NATO" is the bluff, and it's been proven to be a lie this month.
It didn’t, but it intended to: "In June 2017, the Ukrainian Parliament adopted legislation reinstating membership in NATO as a strategic foreign and security policy objective. In 2019, a corresponding amendment to Ukraine’s Constitution entered into force." [1]
It's hard not to see that as an obvious consequence to the Crimea annexation several years earlier.
Ukraine, as a sovereign nation, has every right to desire entry into NATO.
Russia, on the other hand, is in clear and direct violation of their own agreements, where Ukraine gave up nukes in exchange for permanent security guarantees against exactly what's happening now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
>It's hard not to see that as an obvious consequence to the Crimea annexation several years earlier.
This is a very short range view of history. Ukraine tried to get into NATO in 2008, but was put on the back burner. Anti-NATO government came to power in 2010, and overthrown in 2014 by Pro-NATO Poroshenko, directly leading to the annexation. Since then Ukraine has steadily drawn closer to joining NATO up until the current situation.
Setting aside for a moment the idea that "we should join NATO" in 2017 is unrelated to "Russia took part of our country" in 2014...
Ukraine has every right to do that. They're a sovereign nation, not a Russian province. Russia has no more standing to demand they stay out of NATO than they have the right to dictate the speed limit in Kiyv.
>Ukraine has every right to do that. They're a sovereign nation, not a Russian province.
Sure, I totally agree. They are free to make their own decisions. NATO countries are also free to make their own decisions, and I wish that they would close the NATO door to Ukraine. I have no interest in the US and NATO being the world police.
The following shall not be construed as defending Putin’s point of view, so don’t even.
Suppose my neighbor is a thug. A gang member. And he doesn’t like me. I have every right to date his little sister. We’re all free adults. My intentions are constitutional! What could go wrong? If he threatens me, I’ll just tell the police, because he has no right. What could go wrong?
There’s the way you wish things were, and the way things are. I understand the desire to make things how they ought to be. But in the meantime, there is sometimes a gulf between theory and practice.
Really curious, now that Russia is fighting in a front in Ukraine what would stop the US from growing NATO? Would they fight a war with a second front?
Putin will use this as a pretext to invade the Baltics. This has already started; yesterday a Kremlin spokeswoman threatened military consequences if Sweden or Finland join NATO.
In his big speech last week, Putin said it was "madness" that the Baltic nations were allowed to become independent nations. Their re-conquest is next on his list.
I don't see a problem with Finland joining NATO on a reciprocal basis; as long as Russia can set up a military base on Cuba. Of course the United States will start a world war before they allow that to happen, but then we can't reasonably expect any different from Russia?
I remember this coming up at the end of the USSR when Finland said that they didn’t want it.
Word was also spread around that it was polluted with nuclear crud etc so wasn’t worth taking back. The explanation that all the Finns had left 100 years ago makes more sense (though the nuclear pollution argument is sadly at least plausible - USSR was not particularly careful in that regard)
And also realistically we couldn't afford it. Not with trade with USSR being gone and Finland being in recession. And really, we have enough forest already, nothing too valuable in there anyway.
Got any other shitty ideas that have basically zero upsides but almost infinite downsides? A nation of five million people and zero nukes starting an armed conflict with the biggest nuclear power in the world? And for what, a patch of land that basically no one thinks about?
Russia is big only in land area. It's not that big by any other metric. Definitely not the biggest nuclear superpower. Their tech is outdated and not maintained well. Their command, logistics and planning are chaos. Their usable resources are already nearly depleted.
Seems like they corrupted it away. The market won't innovate as well if it's not technological merit but money under a table that decides which company gets a defense deal, and when a considerable portion of that money is embezzled. And you can't get as much military resources built with these obstacles. Maintenance becomes non-existent, or done only for show. Etc.
Russian military is also brainwashed with their pseudo-scientific geopolitical propaganda, your army simply can't work well if it thinks that bullshit is true, just look at the idiotic "tactics" they're using right now.
Anyone have estimates on how many people Russia could kill in the worst case situation of a full scale launch? Would it be the extinction of humanity due to the nuclear holocaust that follows?
Worst case? I think it would be hard to guarantee actual extinction. Probably some people would survive. But most wouldn’t, and civilization as we know it would most certainly be over.
The question is if the nukes will even be able to get into air, travel to their targets, and correctly perform their function there. I'm increasingly sure it wouldn't work, these people are full of shit.
Also, I think the technological gap is now simply too large. The recon capabilities of today + various types of UAV and new kinds of manned aerial vehicles, coupled with new generations of weapon systems, could very well mean we would pluck the nukes from the sky mid-way.
As far as I know, no country today has a viable anti-ballistic missile defense system that works well enough to stop even a small percentage of the number of nukes that would be triggered by a MAD style endgame. What technology are you talking about?
This seems like an incredibly bold assumption to roll the dice on, you know, given you’re talking about almost all life on Earth.
I’ve also never heard of a defence system that can pluck that many missiles out of the air. The closest I’ve heard of is the Iron Dome - which would not be able to stop what you’re talking about at all. I would think the nation that has that capability would make it known for geopolitical reasons.
While I agree that anti-missile technology is extraordinarily unlikely to be as effective as hoped for upthread, if it did exist at that level of capability, the owner may still wish to keep it a secret. If it becomes known that your enemy possesses the capability to neutralize your primary weapon, you are likely to take counter-counter-measures, which could undo the advantage.
Belarus need to join NATO immediately, but I think it’s pretty urgent for Finland too. Putin is a vicious, unpredictable dictator who has already invaded one large European nation. People think he won’t invade Finland, but they also thought he wouldn’t invade Ukraine.
When you share a huge border with an aggressive psychopath, whose army is massively larger than yours, you need strong military allies.
Edit: nevermind, clearly my understanding of Eastern European politics is weak, shouldn’t have commented
It's pretty clear that such a revolution isn't coming now. There is probably little grass-roots support for such a thing in Belarus, but more importantly, Putin would absolutely quash such a revolution now.
Therefore all talk of Belarus joining NATO is fantasy.
Currently as things stand, Finland most likely joins in few years. Next parliamentary election is most likely won by center-right who favors it, and president is from same faction.
It's a bit situationally dependent, if threats from Russia is seen as violent, it could change their calculus. However even center-left figures already agrees it's necessity, just not now. It could be seen as provocative.
I have always thought that Finland would be in NATO already if it was not seen meddling in middle east. It has really burned it's view among leftists.