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 aggression).
I mean, yeah, but the reason is probably just "we need more shit to shoot at civilians in UA" rather than "we don't fear NATO invasion"
Spheres of influence are gained through economic muscle and cultural power now, not force of arms.
Small countries will and sovereignty also matters.
As a Lithuanian... If we weren't in NATO, we'd either have a very very serious problems now. Or be a vassal state like Belarus.
Poland and other CEE countries lobbied aggressively to join NATO in the 90s, and by far their biggest asset was their diaspora communities in the US. The GOP had taken the House in '94 and were pushing for NATO expansion leading up to the '96 election. In order to head off this threat, Clinton promised NATO expansion eventually, to which Dole ended up promising a definite date for CEE's entry. Said Clinton at the time:
'I face a difficult campaign, but I have a reasonable chance. The Republicans are pushing NATO expansion. Wisconsin, Illinois and Ohio are key; they represented a big part of my majority last time—states where I won by a narrow margin. The Republicans think they can take away those states by playing on the idea of NATO expansion.'
https://www.russiamatters.org/blog/how-much-did-us-elections...
Amusingly, that status quo is enforced via the USA’s supposed overwhelming force of arms. Which in turn suggests your analysis is deeply deficient in its consideration of higher order effects.
It was a mistake for NATO to do it without Russia. It's not a matter of "influence", but a matter of military risks and perceived threats.
If there was a political will towards pushing Russia to NATO any similar to what has been going on with Georgia or Ukraine, we'd be living in a different world.
But now (really far more than a decade already) Russia is alienated from NATO, perceives it as a threat and a bad actor. And people will be making all kinds of moralistic arguments, but point is that all of this is a consequence of geopolitical natural laws. Fact is, politicians and leaders were clearly aware of those laws and all the cause-effects and general outcomes, but nevertheless had stirred the world towards it.
What does this even mean?
Putin may have been hoping to Finlandize NATO. Instead, he NATO-ized Finland.
Hah, yeah, that's not a big deal at all, neutralizing Russian ability to force its will upon its neighbors, through threats of aggression. Like, who's scared of Russia these days? They're just empty threats. I'd like totally bet my life on it, just empty threats.
EDIT: /s
Russia doesn't have to win in order to be scary to their neighbors—they just have to persuade their neighbors that they're irrational and have no sense of self preservation.
In my view, to say that Russia’s actions are just empty threats is an undervaluation of the price the Ukrainian people and military are paying now. Whole cities have been wiped out of existence, and both the military and civilian population have faced extensive casualties as Russia has resorted to “brute force” attacks, showering bombs wherever in Ukrainian land.
We in Finland have been building bomb shelters for the population that can withstand even nuclear attacks, and we have universal male conscription and voluntary female drafting. About 80% of Finnish male citizens complete the service, which makes Finland have military resources unlike any other European country. This tradition is more than a hundred years old. If someone wonders why, just search for the term “The Great Wrath.”
The first ally of Finnland after the winter war was Nazi Germany.
So it is actually the second try to find allies for Finnland against Russia.
Not that I don't trust the FDF, pound-for-pound one of the better military organizations out there. (and a happy member of it myself.)
Countries with similar civilized values should not be naïve and be ready to stand up to barbarians including being aggressive when needed, and yes, EXPAND!
And certainly the West should not be ashamed for standing for its values and what is right, otherwise there is a wide range of ambitious nations who think that their way is unique and the only way to deal with others is power, while despising fundamental human values.
While power may beat everything in some cases, but for some reason citizens of those barbarian countries want to move to the West rather than enjoy their countries' glory in a concentration camp.
I'm saying this as Ukrainian.
You know, that already happened before. When Germany tried to.
The story: https://www.outlookindia.com/international/former-kurdish-re...
The dictator Erdogan wanting to pressure Sweden and NATO for instance.
Let's remain neutral and a free haven for political dissidents and potential refugees of the future, right?!!
Thankfully that opinion represent a minority here in Sweden nowadays. Good riddance.
The opinion on NATO vs "neutrality" after the Ukraine invasion was, to borrow a phrase from another comment in this thread, a mask off event.
Also: If NATO can't ratify Sweden we need to look at other ways to develop a nuclear deterrence strategy.
The rest of NATO gives you basically another China's worth of military (they're #2 by spending), so it's not nothing, to put it mildly.
The geography controlled by and the economic power of the bloc is also important, for logistical reasons. Having not just open trade and maybe some donations in wartime but outright military support for your supply lines is huge, plus intel sharing and such.
For some people, yes... In fact US involvement is largely a controversial topic because joining NATO, to some people and politicians, is tantamount to putting US military bases in your country.
The reality is, when people talk about the benefits of NATO they will strongly lean on the fact that it's many countries in a pact together. Decidedly not hiding behind the coat-tails of the US- in fact the US involvement, at least in political circles, is generally seen as a net-negative.
It's already bad for us in Poland to not have nukes and capability to nuke Moscov at will. We were developing nukes in 80s but guy got assasinated (either RU or US).
NATO is a military alliance of 30 nations.
The US armed forces are 75% of NATO's military power.
Me personally I totally acknowledge the largest military in the world.
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?
Joining NATO is widely regarded as the safe and rational choice. Russia already saw Finland as part of "the west" and Russia's attack on Ukraine meant that our international relations with them were pretty much destroyed. Staying out of NATO made no sense from that point onward. Why try to stay "neutral" with no formal defense pact, when Russia viewed us as hostile anyway?
So yeah, I would say that the vast majority of Finns feel safer now, and becoming a NATO member has been seen as a positive thing overall.
Most of the seven were also not re-elected in Sunday's election.
> Why try to stay "neutral" with no formal defense pact, when Russia viewed us as hostile anyway?
Good point, thanks for that perspective. Was there hypothetically any way Russia could signal if it was not the case though?
I'm pretty fucking relieved the nightmare is over.
Just hoping we can prevent WW3, or at the very least win it together.
- From Russia With Love (Rosa Klebb secretly works for SPECTRE but is a KGB operative so let's count it)
- Octopussy (vilain's a defector)
- The Living Daylights (defector also)
It's in Goldeneye that is created the idea that James Bond constantly fought the Soviets. I don't fault you for thinking that it's an easy thing to illustrate your point, but I like my James Bond and I like him because he's always fighting weirdo rich assholes, not the Soviets.
Ouch. Genuinely hate to be the bearer of bad news, but everything I know about politics (especially from Russian perspective) tells me that this is only the beginning and uncorking of a potential conflict.
I assume, you do not expect that NATO membership would put Finland into a direct hot confrontation with Russia, thus turning into a kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy?
> WW3, or at the very least win it together.
Eh, there will be no winner in WWIII - only how much everyone loses before they decide to strike some kind of eventual deal. And IMO the WWIII had already started by the modern military standards of multi-domain operations.
Some of these seem very reasonable—things like "shouldn't we try to push for peace?" "Should we really be arming the people of another country?"—and others might seem reasonable if you don't know a lot about the recent history and politics of the region—like "the main reason Russia invaded was because they were scared of Ukraine joining NATO".
I would not seek to impute specific intent to any particular commenters here; while it's entirely possible that a forum like this has some genuine Russian propagandists on it, I would say it's just as possible that they either don't know or don't care about HackerNews. Either way, it's clear that a lot of this propaganda has made it into the general conversation, and some people believe it and spread it for various reasons of their own.
Eh, I live in the region and feel like this is a (somewhat) fair point, though somewhat misquoted and misrepresented (not in the least that there is no really ever a single specific reason for war, but rather a cascade of them). Not implying that war isn't a disaster or whatever.
Anyhoo...
> there have been a significant number of commenters here who have, for whatever reasons, advanced opinions that align very closely with Russian propaganda.
"Russian propaganda" is merely aligned to the perspective of a huge-enough chunk of the it & engineering world, just as well as "Western propaganda" is.
I think a lot of people are just very bad at articulating their points so that they don't sound like shallow slogans or whatever, but I don't suppose it's fair to label them as propagandists. Most are just sharing their perspectives, however they may be. Pity that forums like that aren't really suitable for people sharing different and opposing views, which should be pretty natural state of things in times like these.
Can I please disagree?
When you meet a mad paranoid dog like Putin, the best thing is to bait them and let them eat themselves just like Putin has done.
A pyramid of lies and corruption 100 years in making finally falls apart
I believe and hope that Putin's regime will collapse. After that the West will be very busy "lifting fingers" figuring out what to do with the huge country in disarray and full of nukes.
No they are not. Almost all[0] are the classic Russo-apologist talking points.
