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> Russia does not want to engage in conflict with a NATO country. If Finland joins NATO then Finland will be at piece for the next century, guaranteed. Russia

> Russia does not want to engage in conflict with a NATO country. If Finland joins NATO then Finland will be at piece for the next century, guaranteed. Russia has not engaged in conflict with a NATO country, so far. If the stakes are raised high enough, I don't think this will continue to hold. > Russia has very little reason to invade Finland now, and if Finland joins NATO, it cannot. I would go so far as to say that if Finland applies to join NATO, they'd have to. That is, if it is truly part of their doctrine that NATO/US is an existential threat to the Russian state.

fsloth 4y ago
Russia is bullshitting - they are not afraid NATO would invade them. The balance of fear due to nuclear weapons if nothing else guarantees this. Russia is opposed to the fact it can't bully it's weaker neighbours on a whim if they are in NATO. That is the cause for their irritation.
- klawcode 4y ago
  I trust Finland and Sweden's analysis. That more than anything else solidified my trust in the NATO position on Ukraine. If Finland and Sweden remained neutral throughout the entire cold war and yet now are openly considering NATO membership, it means something.
  - fsloth 4y ago
    Well, Finland was basically Sweden's shield, and Finland was yielding to Kremlin, so there was very little risk of conflict. Now Russia has more or less proclaimed it's "back to the empire" agenda which implies subjugation of all of the former states of the russian empire. Which includes Finland. The weird thing is, even though Russians lie constantly, when they declare foreign policy targets, they are surprisingly honest and consistent about that. This implies 1) Finland needs to join NATO asap. 2) After that sweden would be the only weak target left. Gotland is an obvious, concrete military goal that would be feasible target for a RU invasion from Kaliningrad.
    - klawcode 4y ago
      I'm pretty sure Finland and Sweden are basically inseparable in terms of foreign policy... where one goes the other will go, and they'll discuss with each other in depth prior to any decision. They may still forgo NATO, its absolutely their choice, and every NATO member respects that, being the primary difference between NATO and Russia. They can leave at any time too. What disturbs me is that there is a lot of appeasement rhetoric floating around in the comment sections. If people want to let Russia get away with wrecking Ukraine because Russia has nukes, then we may as well drop the bombs now - once you legitimize that strategy you are going to have massive nuclear proliferation, and even if appeasement worked (it simply doesn't), every other aggressor is going to view nukes as an easy win.
    - gerikson 4y ago
      Sweden is not a "weak" target just because it's not part of NATO. Invading, defending, and holding Gotland is not an easy task, especially as the Ukraine invasion has exposed the glaring deficiencies of the Russian armed forces. And Sweden's defense, attenuated as it might be from decades of budget cuts, is focused on defending Gotland.
  - crateless 4y ago
    As long as they go into it fully informed, that is the best one could hope for.
- crateless 4y ago
  Well, they have been bullshitting for loooong time if that is the case. I recall watching a video of Gorbachev talking to the US Congress and warning about NATO/US expansion. This was in 1997. There is no credible threat of a NATO invasion but there is the First-Strike issue now that hypersonic missiles are being developed. Putin has been moaning about this for a while now. A security-conscious/pragmatic state models "what is possible" vs "what is probable". If it seems likely that future Finland could host hypersonic missiles pointed at St.Petersburg, well it becomes incumbent on Moscow to attempt to prevent that. It seems unwise to dismiss their concerns if said dismissal would lead to Ukraine 2.0. Lots of people seem to think that the Russian unwillingness to flatten Kiev means they could not do it. How many people have to die for Finns to feel like they stood up to a bully?
  - doikor 4y ago
    And yet somehow it is fine for Russia to develop its own hypersonic missiles (well at least try to) and deploy them to kalingrad where they are just as close most Central European capitals as such weapons in Finland would be to Petersburg. Also Estonia is already part of nato and the distance from its borders to Petersburg is pretty much the same so the first strike nuclear risk does not really change at all if Finland joins nato. For some weird reason Russia is the only country in Europe that must have buffer states protecting its lands and be allowed to use force the enforce this. It would be helpful if everyone stopped this lying and just said it how it is. Russia wants weak buffer states around its borders that it can abuse however it wants. There really is no actual military reason for any of this as nato is a defense alliance by definition and thus it will not attack first and the current situation in Ukraine has proven this to be true.
    - fsloth 4y ago
      "It would be helpful if everyone stopped this lying and just said it how it is. Russia wants weak buffer states around its borders that it can abuse however it wants." This 100%
  - fsloth 4y ago
    I believe the most prescient military analysis we can make is that Ukraine got invaded because it was not in NATO. Until Russia invades any NATO country I have a hard time to dismiss this analysis. If NATO fails to defend any of it's members then it is nullified. Hence I have a quite high trust to the security instilled by the alliance to any of it's members. You are pretty good at repeating Russian talking points, by the way ;)

fsloth 4y ago

Russia is bullshitting - they are not afraid NATO would invade them. The balance of fear due to nuclear weapons if nothing else guarantees this. Russia is opposed to the fact it can't bully it's weaker neighbours on a whim if they are in NATO. That is the cause for their irritation.

klawcode 4y ago
I trust Finland and Sweden's analysis. That more than anything else solidified my trust in the NATO position on Ukraine. If Finland and Sweden remained neutral throughout the entire cold war and yet now are openly considering NATO membership, it means something.
- fsloth 4y ago
  Well, Finland was basically Sweden's shield, and Finland was yielding to Kremlin, so there was very little risk of conflict. Now Russia has more or less proclaimed it's "back to the empire" agenda which implies subjugation of all of the former states of the russian empire. Which includes Finland. The weird thing is, even though Russians lie constantly, when they declare foreign policy targets, they are surprisingly honest and consistent about that. This implies 1) Finland needs to join NATO asap. 2) After that sweden would be the only weak target left. Gotland is an obvious, concrete military goal that would be feasible target for a RU invasion from Kaliningrad.
  - klawcode 4y ago
    I'm pretty sure Finland and Sweden are basically inseparable in terms of foreign policy... where one goes the other will go, and they'll discuss with each other in depth prior to any decision. They may still forgo NATO, its absolutely their choice, and every NATO member respects that, being the primary difference between NATO and Russia. They can leave at any time too. What disturbs me is that there is a lot of appeasement rhetoric floating around in the comment sections. If people want to let Russia get away with wrecking Ukraine because Russia has nukes, then we may as well drop the bombs now - once you legitimize that strategy you are going to have massive nuclear proliferation, and even if appeasement worked (it simply doesn't), every other aggressor is going to view nukes as an easy win.
  - gerikson 4y ago
    Sweden is not a "weak" target just because it's not part of NATO. Invading, defending, and holding Gotland is not an easy task, especially as the Ukraine invasion has exposed the glaring deficiencies of the Russian armed forces. And Sweden's defense, attenuated as it might be from decades of budget cuts, is focused on defending Gotland.
- crateless 4y ago
  As long as they go into it fully informed, that is the best one could hope for.
crateless 4y ago
Well, they have been bullshitting for loooong time if that is the case. I recall watching a video of Gorbachev talking to the US Congress and warning about NATO/US expansion. This was in 1997. There is no credible threat of a NATO invasion but there is the First-Strike issue now that hypersonic missiles are being developed. Putin has been moaning about this for a while now. A security-conscious/pragmatic state models "what is possible" vs "what is probable". If it seems likely that future Finland could host hypersonic missiles pointed at St.Petersburg, well it becomes incumbent on Moscow to attempt to prevent that. It seems unwise to dismiss their concerns if said dismissal would lead to Ukraine 2.0. Lots of people seem to think that the Russian unwillingness to flatten Kiev means they could not do it. How many people have to die for Finns to feel like they stood up to a bully?
- doikor 4y ago
  And yet somehow it is fine for Russia to develop its own hypersonic missiles (well at least try to) and deploy them to kalingrad where they are just as close most Central European capitals as such weapons in Finland would be to Petersburg. Also Estonia is already part of nato and the distance from its borders to Petersburg is pretty much the same so the first strike nuclear risk does not really change at all if Finland joins nato. For some weird reason Russia is the only country in Europe that must have buffer states protecting its lands and be allowed to use force the enforce this. It would be helpful if everyone stopped this lying and just said it how it is. Russia wants weak buffer states around its borders that it can abuse however it wants. There really is no actual military reason for any of this as nato is a defense alliance by definition and thus it will not attack first and the current situation in Ukraine has proven this to be true.
  - fsloth 4y ago
    "It would be helpful if everyone stopped this lying and just said it how it is. Russia wants weak buffer states around its borders that it can abuse however it wants." This 100%
- fsloth 4y ago
  I believe the most prescient military analysis we can make is that Ukraine got invaded because it was not in NATO. Until Russia invades any NATO country I have a hard time to dismiss this analysis. If NATO fails to defend any of it's members then it is nullified. Hence I have a quite high trust to the security instilled by the alliance to any of it's members. You are pretty good at repeating Russian talking points, by the way ;)