Didn't Russia (last month) threaten Finland/Sweden with 'consequences' should they decide joining NATO? Wondering what would those be. Putting both countries in a new list of 'very unfriendly countries'?
Russia has been threatening Finland/Sweden with consequences for years. As the Finnish PM mentioned in his speech with Boris Johnson a few days ago, Russia has shown with Ukraine that complying with Russia's threats is not a guarantee that the future will be consequence-free.
> Russia has shown with Ukraine that complying with Russia's threats is not a guarantee that the future will be consequence-free.
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.
If somebody tells you: "I'm going to beat you up if you ask for help", you should probably ask for help. It's not an effective kind of threat, because he's probably going to beat you up at some point anyway.
Actually no! You should probably notask for help because it has a non zero probability that you will not be beat up, whereas if you do it has an almost certain probability that you will since you have just been warned.
Well in the run up to the Russian invasion Ukraine wasn’t provoking Russia, and Russia officials continually denied it had plans to invade until oh wait they’d had plans for a super long time. I’m not sure about Ukraine complying with Russia orders, but they weren’t really antagonizing them other than by existing and not being completely subservient like Belarus. So yeah after top Russian officials spent so much time lying about the plans and showing they had no sincere intention to negotiate, it’s no wonder Finland and Sweden have decided not to trust Russia.
Your version of what happened seems extremely incomplete to me. Ukraine was basically fighting a war against Russia for 8 years already [1]... and that war started when the Russia-friendly government was removed by revolution (the demoted president fled to Russia after that) after which a very anti-Russian government was immediately instated with the whole objective of joining NATO and the EU, to Russia's dismay...
Not that just because of that Russia had the right to do what it was doing... but let's not forget everything that actually lead to the hostilities like you're simply doing.
This is your opinion... if you believe everyone should agree with you on that, then yes, seeking membership on a military alliance whose aim is to keep your country at bay is not a provocation. But can you maybe consider that Putin and most Russians do not share your opinion? Would an American consider that Canada joining a Chinese-led military alliance to defend its members against USA's increased aggression (in Canadian's and Chinese opinions) count as a provocation to America? Well, to Americans it most certainly would... even if the Chinese disagreed completely with them... this is my point. It's easy to believe our opinion is the only one that counts and fuck anyone who doesn't share it.
Worse! The enemy list. But what are they going to do, is what I want to know. Baltic sea will soon be pretty much closed for them and they sure could start WW3 over that but would they? They don't seem to have that in them.
> "Estonia and Finland control access to Russia's only ports in the Baltic Sea"
Not a true statement, your map notwithstanding.
Denmark has an ironclad, centuries old agreement with the international community called the Copenhagen Convention never to restrict shipping or charge toll. Did you not know this?
"Just look at the map" and related responses are non-sequiturs. Without a declaration of war, what is the legal mechanism by which Russian ships would be restricted from the Baltic Sea?
Many military analysts predict that Russia will come out of the conflict as a much weaker country especially with the recent flood of heavy weapons that are being sent to Ukraine.
In comparison NATO expenses are at least 70% of Russia's GDP and we can see from the past that NATO has already coordinated military operations (in Operation Allied Force, NATO deployed 1031+ aircraft and 30 warships & submarines, and in 2011 it performed an operation that lasted 222 days with virtually no impact on the coalition members).
With that said, one can expect that there will be no possible 'consequences' if Finland/Sweden join NATO.
> Putting both countries in a new list of 'very unfriendly countries'?
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.
You mean the war of the winter 1939-1940 and the 1941-1944 war.
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.
During the Finnish Civil war, which ultimately ended in Finish independence, the White Finnish forces ended the Russian presence in Finland and Soviet (yes, Soviet) soldiers who fought on the side of the Finnish Red Guard left the country.
If you insist on nit-picking years, I only supplied the years of the start of the conflicts. You can go as far to include every border conflict, but that's completely besides the point. The forces that supported the Red Guard during the 1917-1918 war were all part of the Soviet forces in any case.
> the Russian Soviet Republic was founded in 1917 and only gained power due to the civil war.
They lost Finland and any influence on the country, which gained independence during that time, seeing that as "only gaining power" is a weird and twisted view on history.
Tsarist Russia/The Russian Soviet lost Finland, and Lenin acknowledged Finland's independence in 1917 before the Finnish civil war (in the hopes that the revolution would spread internationally and bring Finland and others back into the fold). So I take issue with the claim that it was the war that caused Lenin to lose Finland.
The Bolsheviks and their Red army (not the Soviets, the Soviet Union itself was not founded until 1922) supported the Reds, but the boots on the ground were Finnish both for the Reds and the Whites, with German boots being decisively added in the landing at Hanko.
The war was not a war for independence, but a war born out of the circumstances of the breakdown of Tsarist Russia, a famine, a lack of police force, and a general dissatisfaction among the working class, largely fueled by ideas from the Russian revolution of course.
>If you insist on nit-picking years, I only supplied the years of the start of the conflicts.
1941 was not the start of the conflict, it was the second in a series of two wars. The entire interbellum time was used by both sides to prepare for further conflict. It is not a nitpick to say that Finland was involved in the winter war (1939-1940) and the continuation war (1941-1944), these are the two main wars that Finland was involved in during the second world war (the third most important one being the Lapland war against Germany).
1918 was an incredibly short civil war that caused no direct losses to the Bolsheviks, except that a Red government would have been sympathetic to the USSR and possibly joined it.
On a more general note, using terms like "twisted view of history" is not a sign of a good-faith discussion, be civil.