4 ms·

With an expansive Russia next door it's hard to forego effective defense measures.

jampekka 6mo ago
I'm in Finland and I would have forgone this measure. It is not a critical, or even an important, part of the defence strategy.
- jacquesm 6mo ago
  You couldn't be more wrong about that.
  - aa-jv 6mo ago
    Better a diplomat than a warmonger. Lets hope there are saner heads in Finland as such methods become more and more relevant.
    - jacquesm 6mo ago
      Well, there is a bit of a problem. Ukraine has shown the reality of dealing with Russia and unfortunately landmines are back on the menu. Yes, it would be much better if we didn't need to defend from aggressors. But if you tie your own army one hand behind their backs then they will lose for sure. This about war, not Oxford boxing rules, and if one side commits one human rights violation after the other it would be great if you could keep the high ground but there are practical limits to that. Note the incredible restraint of Ukrainians troops in dealing with Russian civilians and captured Russian military. But that does not translate into 'let's handicap our own forces'. The warmongers are on the other side of the border. Europe is just reacting to this and the states that have rescinded the landmine ban are all directly in the line of fire.
      - aa-jv 6mo ago
        Ukraine also showed the world how to utterly fail at finding diplomatic solutions to ones problems.
        jacquesm 6mo ago
        In the interest of figuring out whether you are trolling or not, can you please describe which problems these are and what diplomatic solutions you believe exist?
        aa-jv 6mo ago
        I'm not trolling - its pretty evident that diplomacy was not effective and that the decision was made to go to war, whatever the cost - because thats what happened. The diplomatic effort to save over a million men from needless massacre on the battlefield was not considered worthwhile by the ruling elites running Ukraine for the past two decades, in face of the immense profits to be made - by an elite few - in war profits. In the interest of figuring out whether you profit from war or not, why don't you tell us the extent of your own investment in the military industrial complex which currently profits from propagating the "ma' Russia" trope ..
        deleted 6mo ago
        [deleted]
        jacquesm 6mo ago
        Ukraine did not decide to go to war. I really don't know where you got the idea that they had any agency in preventing this short of giving Russia all of their territory and fleeing West. Since you're an immigrant into Europe maybe study the lay of the land a bit before having such outspoken opinions. You are effectively a mouthpiece for Russian propaganda which I have now idea where you picked it up (you're from Australia originally iirc and you are currently in Austria so you have access to information just like everybody else).
        aa-jv 6mo ago
    - consumer451 6mo ago
      > Better a diplomat than a warmonger. I am genuinely curious what you mean by this exactly? Do you see Finland as being led by warmongers?
      - aa-jv 6mo ago
        I believe that Europe is currently led by warmongers, and yes, that Finland is currently caught in the throes of war profiteering.
        consumer451 6mo ago
        Wow. Do you believe that Russia is currently led my warmongers?
        aa-jv 6mo ago
        Yes, and I also believe that the Western mindset is stuck in a collective dialectic which disallows honest discussion on the subject, because in fact Europe has a lot to answer for on the topic of war, recently, and there is a lot of profit being made by those very European institutions responsible for collectivizing and propagating war-monger groupthink. Europe does not have altruistic arms dealers - it has war-mongering profiteers who have historical ties to the subject dating back hundreds of years. Russia is not even the worlds #1 source of war-mongering, by a long shot. (The UK and the USA are, having murdered millions of innocent human beings since 2003 in multiple different theatres - countries and cultures deemed inferior by Western, fundamentalist, racist, ruling elites...) I am not Russian, and can thus do nothing effective about Russia. I am a subject of the criminal 5-eyes western alliance which has murdered millions of innocent human beings since 2003, however, and I no longer believe in Western moral authority which gives us the imperative to 'do something about their war criminals' without "first taking care of our own war criminals", because we have far, far more heinously evil individuals still running the show with bloodied hands and with massive war crimes and crimes against humanity to answer for - yet we do nothing while bleating about Putin.
        6mo ago
  - jampekka 6mo ago
    That's a bit difficult argument to exhaustively address. Personnel mines has been a topic of considerable public, political and military discussion about personnel mines in Finland for a long time and has been analyzed in depth. Even now, after a significant political mood change at around 2024, the official line (e.g. in the government proposal[1] that led to the withdrawal) is that personnel mines have mostly an auxiliary role in the defence strategy. [1] https://www.finlex.fi/fi/hallituksen-esitykset/2025/56 https://www.finlex.fi/fi/hallituksen-esitykset/2025/56
    - jacquesm 6mo ago
      Indeed, but without them Ukraine would have been overrun by now. They are 'auxiliary' but very important. Ukraine is pretty clever about them too: most of these expire after a few days or weeks.

I'm in Finland and I would have forgone this measure. It is not a critical, or even an important, part of the defence strategy.

jacquesm 6mo ago
You couldn't be more wrong about that.
- aa-jv 6mo ago
  Better a diplomat than a warmonger. Lets hope there are saner heads in Finland as such methods become more and more relevant.
  - jacquesm 6mo ago
    Well, there is a bit of a problem. Ukraine has shown the reality of dealing with Russia and unfortunately landmines are back on the menu. Yes, it would be much better if we didn't need to defend from aggressors. But if you tie your own army one hand behind their backs then they will lose for sure. This about war, not Oxford boxing rules, and if one side commits one human rights violation after the other it would be great if you could keep the high ground but there are practical limits to that. Note the incredible restraint of Ukrainians troops in dealing with Russian civilians and captured Russian military. But that does not translate into 'let's handicap our own forces'. The warmongers are on the other side of the border. Europe is just reacting to this and the states that have rescinded the landmine ban are all directly in the line of fire.
    - aa-jv 6mo ago
      Ukraine also showed the world how to utterly fail at finding diplomatic solutions to ones problems.
      - jacquesm 6mo ago
        In the interest of figuring out whether you are trolling or not, can you please describe which problems these are and what diplomatic solutions you believe exist?
        aa-jv 6mo ago
        I'm not trolling - its pretty evident that diplomacy was not effective and that the decision was made to go to war, whatever the cost - because thats what happened. The diplomatic effort to save over a million men from needless massacre on the battlefield was not considered worthwhile by the ruling elites running Ukraine for the past two decades, in face of the immense profits to be made - by an elite few - in war profits. In the interest of figuring out whether you profit from war or not, why don't you tell us the extent of your own investment in the military industrial complex which currently profits from propagating the "ma' Russia" trope ..
        deleted 6mo ago
        [deleted]
        jacquesm 6mo ago
        Ukraine did not decide to go to war. I really don't know where you got the idea that they had any agency in preventing this short of giving Russia all of their territory and fleeing West. Since you're an immigrant into Europe maybe study the lay of the land a bit before having such outspoken opinions. You are effectively a mouthpiece for Russian propaganda which I have now idea where you picked it up (you're from Australia originally iirc and you are currently in Austria so you have access to information just like everybody else).
        aa-jv 6mo ago
  - consumer451 6mo ago
    > Better a diplomat than a warmonger. I am genuinely curious what you mean by this exactly? Do you see Finland as being led by warmongers?
    - aa-jv 6mo ago
      I believe that Europe is currently led by warmongers, and yes, that Finland is currently caught in the throes of war profiteering.
      - consumer451 6mo ago
        Wow. Do you believe that Russia is currently led my warmongers?
        aa-jv 6mo ago
        Yes, and I also believe that the Western mindset is stuck in a collective dialectic which disallows honest discussion on the subject, because in fact Europe has a lot to answer for on the topic of war, recently, and there is a lot of profit being made by those very European institutions responsible for collectivizing and propagating war-monger groupthink. Europe does not have altruistic arms dealers - it has war-mongering profiteers who have historical ties to the subject dating back hundreds of years. Russia is not even the worlds #1 source of war-mongering, by a long shot. (The UK and the USA are, having murdered millions of innocent human beings since 2003 in multiple different theatres - countries and cultures deemed inferior by Western, fundamentalist, racist, ruling elites...) I am not Russian, and can thus do nothing effective about Russia. I am a subject of the criminal 5-eyes western alliance which has murdered millions of innocent human beings since 2003, however, and I no longer believe in Western moral authority which gives us the imperative to 'do something about their war criminals' without "first taking care of our own war criminals", because we have far, far more heinously evil individuals still running the show with bloodied hands and with massive war crimes and crimes against humanity to answer for - yet we do nothing while bleating about Putin.
        6mo ago
- jampekka 6mo ago
  That's a bit difficult argument to exhaustively address. Personnel mines has been a topic of considerable public, political and military discussion about personnel mines in Finland for a long time and has been analyzed in depth. Even now, after a significant political mood change at around 2024, the official line (e.g. in the government proposal[1] that led to the withdrawal) is that personnel mines have mostly an auxiliary role in the defence strategy. [1] https://www.finlex.fi/fi/hallituksen-esitykset/2025/56 https://www.finlex.fi/fi/hallituksen-esitykset/2025/56
  - jacquesm 6mo ago
    Indeed, but without them Ukraine would have been overrun by now. They are 'auxiliary' but very important. Ukraine is pretty clever about them too: most of these expire after a few days or weeks.