[walkhour]

This is an excellent deal for Finland, whose sovereignty is protected.

Is it the same for the US? Do I want an attack against Finland to be considered an attack against the US? An attack against the US can unleash the end of humanity. I find very risky to leave this at the whims of some out of touch Russian dictator.

[yks]

So the small countries exist and if they cannot rely on big countries for protection against nuclear states, then the only way forward for them is to have their own nuclear weapons. Do you like that world better? Does it lower or heighten the risk of unleashing the “end of humanity”?

[otikik]

That ... is the world where we live in, more or less.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_we...

> Under NATO nuclear weapons sharing, the United States has provided nuclear weapons for Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey to deploy and store

[yks]

Difference is those weapons are not Belgian to deploy against e.g. Austria whenever anti-Austrian fascist party is in power in Belgium. Example sounds absurd today, but you can use Hungary for example, another country bitter of its lands lost a century ago. That’s basically what the world with nuclear weapons everywhere looks like. Game of chicken against the opponents perceived weak over opportunistic use of century-old grievances.

[sva_]

Do these countries actually have the launch codes though?

[Animatronio]

Nope, they only store them. Just like Ukr did for Russia back in the 80's and 90's.

[walkhour]

I don't accept that dichotomy despite I see value in the argument. Since the invention of nuclear bombs, how many countries without nuclear weapons have lost their sovereignty of those surrounding Russia?

Btw if it's either NATO or nuclear bombs, why didn't Finland get nuclear bombs in the last 60 years?

[medstrom]

You make a good point. But Finland would develop nukes now if not for the option to join NATO. People are saying that the nonaligned countries didn't use to worry because Russia used to respect the international order, the one where you don't touch borders for no reason, and that illusion has now shattered.

[ptero]

> Btw if it's either NATO or nuclear bombs, why didn't Finland get nuclear bombs in the last 60 years?

Finland is a small country and nukes are very expensive (and hard) to deal with all the way: development, manufacture, deployment, service. The pressure to have your own nukes is low when you consider an attack unlikely, which was the case for Finland for the last 60 years.

Countries that did not feel so safe moved much faster (considering different fates of Mr. Gaddafi and Mr. Kim). But recent Russian actions motivated a lot of its neighbors who were not worried before to spend whatever is needed to make an attack on them prohibitively expensive.

[yks]

The collective West had way more resolve to respond to the further Russian expansion westward during the Cold War, you can say they were fools risking the end of humanity and maybe so, but it worked better for the stability in Europe than current deference to Russian interest and Americans openly pondering why they need NATO, because woke something something. It is weak, perceived as weak, and acted upon.

As for Finland during the Cold War, not sure if it had a pathway to NATO, same as modern Ukraine, or if the USSR would give it time to develop a bomb. They treaded carefully and forfeited a great deal of their independence.

[stametseater]

If Finland doesn't need NATO, then why is Finland now joining NATO after 60 years?

Finland's policy was one of soft appeasement. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has revealed this to be a bad idea, so Finland continuing as it was is no longer a responsible option.

[freehorse]

Because everything gets more polarised as we are moving towards WW3. Nothing to be celebratory about.

[stametseater]

Finland having powerful allies as we move closer to WW3 is well worth celebrating. The only people not celebrating are vatniks and vatnik sympathizers. Polarized indeed.

[freehorse]

Yeah however does not want a 3rd world war, billions of lives lost and a destroyed planet, is Putin's agent, sounds legit. Whoever is a warmonger celebrating for going towards that direction is fan of democracy and liberalism, somehow.

[gorbachev]

See: Iran

[pjc50]

NATO is the organization set up by the US to look after its interests in Europe. It was Truman's goal that with a sufficiently powerful defensive alliance there would be no such attack in the first place.

https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/history_p...

> Do I want an attack against Finland to be considered an attack against the US?

Lots of people in 1939 said that they didn't want to go to war over Czechslovakia. But of course, once a dictator has successfully annexed one territory without a fight, what does he do next? Annex another one.

The US is arming the fighting in Ukraine so it does not have to fight Russia in Poland.

[haspok]

Don't be so condescending - Finland is one of the few countries that successfully resisted a Russian invasion. It is very much capable of protecting itself, much more so than Ukraine (which is also doing it, albeit with significant support from the west).

The NATO (and the US actually) benefits a lot by Finland joining, and will benefit from Sweden joining too - only a matter of time.

[HideousKojima]

>Finland is one of the few countries that successfully resisted a Russian invasion.

While the Finns absolutely kicked the Soviets' asses in the Winter War, they actually did lose the war a ceded territory to the USSR.

[rendall]

Dunno man. Booting the invaders and keeping sovereignty after your tiny nation of 3 million is invaded by an army of over 500K soldiers seems like a win to me, especially when literally every other neighbor fell. But whatever. Finland's ready for Russia.

[seydor]

Article 5 says it will be considered an attack against "them all", not against the US. In reality this is very convenient for US. What ukraine is suffering now is what would happen if russia invaded finland: the US would provide endless material support and the threat of nukes, but the vast majority of damage and losses would be Finnish. NATO acts as a shield for the US in Europe, keeping the wars away from the Americas. That's how it has been designed to be from the beginning

[coffeebeqn]

It would be a sheer impossibility for a country of 5 million to defeat the Soviet Union which could mobilize tens of millions of soldiers. It simply became too expensive for them and it was terrible timing for the soviets to launch an attack. Bad weather and their officer corps had been culled to shit

[arethuza]

Interestingly enough - the US is the only country to have invoked article 5 which is the principle that an attack on one member is considered an attack on all - in response to the 9/11 attacks.

[ptero]

To nitpick: it was not the US that invoked article 5 after 9/11. It was driven by its European allies, which wanted a show of support at that time, to be expressed any way they could.

The actual impact of that article 5 was pretty non-existent. 9/11 was not a declaration of war by a state; it was an action of a well-organized group. There are no specific actions that this article 5 could imply beyond the PR.

[arethuza]

Hardly a nitpick - I had that completely wrong!

[ptero]

I do not think you are wrong. It was a joint declaration, but from what I vaguely remember, the idea came from Europe and everyone understood it to be a great PR value with no technical pull. My 2c.

[coffeebeqn]

If you’re mad at some of the Allies, be mad at the European “big powers” that have let their hard power rot and are unable to defend their interests in Europe (see Ukraine would be extinct without the US). Finland has an army more capable of defending their territory than any other EU country other than Poland after their latest expansion. They just prefer not to have to do that - hence NATO which raises the threshold to invade immensely

[Zigurd]

Yes. This is good for the US. Russia has already chosen to be an anti-US adversary. A unified response to Russia is more efficient and more effective.

[ajross]

> Do I want an attack against Finland to be considered an attack against the US?

NATO is about deterrence, not really defense per se. NATO membership makes wars with Russia less likely, and provably so. So your answer is yes: the only way the modern global economy works is if all the players are guaranteed they won't get crushed and pillaged by rogue neighbors. A continuous land war in Europe is absolutely not safer for the USA than a decades-long cold war.

The "whims of some out of touch Russian dictator" are going to be dangerous no matter what we do. We can't control Putin and we aren't able to effect regime change in a nuclear state. The only decision left to us is how best to control it.

[freehorse]

When NATO was bombing Afganistan, was it also deterrence?

NATO is neither defense nor deterrence, it is about asserting US dominance over the rest of the world.

[ajross]

NATO's action vis a vis Russia is clearly deterrent, and the core purpose of the alliance is quite clearly deterrance. That the same command structures have been used to coordinate non-Russia-related actions (Yugoslavia too) isn't relevant to the point you're responding to.

You can deploy all the anti-imperialist hyperbole you want, but the "reason" for having a mutual defense treaty among quite-clearly-non-dominated nations like Germany or the UK is pretty obviously defense.

[lm28469]

What about Albania ? or Slovakia ? or Spain ?

Where do you draw the line

[smegger001]

Yeah your right Mr Chamberlain, its only Czechoslovakia, oh and Poland, and oh shit its France too now, and are those plane overhead?

letting power mad dictators take over their weaker neighboors territory uncontested tends to not turn out well be it Napoleon, Hitler Stalin, or Putin.