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).
Yeah, but it shows the priorities - conquer more non-NATO land or protect their borders against an apparently existential threat intent on destroying Russia? This is a mask off moment.
I don't buy the idea that it was a mistake for NATO to allow former Soviet bloc countries to join, because it would supposedly encroach on Russia's sphere of influence or increase tensions with Russia.
Spheres of influence are gained through economic muscle and cultural power now, not force of arms.
Reading about what the Soviet Union did in countries like Estonia and Ukraine is pretty harrowing stuff. Wanting to join NATO for protection after is completely understandable and denying them because it would upset their former (and present) abuser is a shameful thought.
Everything that Russia is doing now it has done to countries like Poland in the past. That's why when we see news about Russia shipping Ukrainian kids to Russia to be "integrated" it makes our blood literally boil - it was the fate of many Polish families as well, my own relatives have stories of their loved ones having to walk back from Syberia after being sent there for "integration".
To me, one of the greatest feat of the EU and NATO is the integration of countries like Poland and Romania to the west. These two countries were economically and socially stunted by decades of communist mismanagement, failed socialism and outright theft and genocide from Russia.
It's been truly incredible to see them grow and prosper.
Yes, this was exactly the reason why I, as a Finnish person, changed my view on joining NATO by 180 degrees the day Russia launched its war against Ukraine. Before that, I wanted Finland to be independent from both the West and Russia. I had more friends in and felt closer to Russia than the USA.
But I have been grateful that Finland has been independent. As a child, I visited the Soviet Baltic countries since church choirs were allowed entry. I remember it clearly because I saw for the first time the fear of speaking about certain topics.
Defending the country’s independence took a whole generation, as all men who could be drafted were sent to war and women participated as volunteers. My other grandmother worked behind enemy lines as an underage girl, delivering messages. The other grandmother volunteered to work in prison camps.
When Finland was last attacked by Russia (formerly known as the Soviet Republic), Finland did not receive much help apart from thoughts and prayers and socks knitted by housewives in the UK and US. In the first round, Finland defended its independence but lost a significant portion of its most prosperous areas, including its second-largest and most international city, Viipuri/Vyborg. What happened in the second round of the war was not glorious for Finland, who allied with Nazi Germany since they were the only ones that offered an alliance against Soviet Union aggression.
I have not thought of myself as a nationalist, but I am concerned about the safety of my family and this thing we call Finland. And I don't want us to face again the situation as Ukraine is facing now.
The problem is that as far as I understand Russia claims to be the successor state of the USSR, meaning they want to claim all its glories (and crimes)
Which if true, means that Russian civilian victimization by the Soviet Union is something to hold Russia accountable for rather than a point of mutual past victimization for past Soviet Union states to commiserate together with Russia on.
That's never mind the fact that Russia is committing some of those same crimes now along with waging an expansionist war. The past suffering of an abuser doesn't matter while he's actively abusing someone else.
Just please flag this if you see this comment as being too political, as in this forum we are mostly spared of these wrangles.
But anyway, I would encourage reading "The Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and Where Is It Going? Преданная революция: Что такое СССР и куда он идет?" by the exiled Soviet Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky to get perspective whether the peaople (Narodnost народность)were really represented in the Soviet nomenklatura (номенклату́ра). At least almost every Finnish speaking representative from Karelia were "neutralized", leaving the previously most prosperious part of Finland in the state as it is now. Finland would not take it back even it was paid for it.
I can’t reply to comment under this that claimed that people in Moscow were from all across USSR so I’m replying here.
The Soviet Union was still ruled by Russians [0]… “ From 1919 until 1991, 89 members of the Politburo were Russians (which makes up 68 percent). In distant second were Ukrainians, who had 11 members in the Politburo, making up 8 percent. In third place are both ethnic Jews and Georgians, who had 4 members respectively.”
It was less than the population since by population , 80% are Russian [1], but still shows that the USSR was ruled by Russians.
I have trouble parsing that. However, the important thing would be to accept the facts, try to process them, and move forward. Of course that's not so easy. (It's not like the US did it. Or that Germany did it super well.)
And before the Revolution, Tsarist regime did even more horrowing things to its people. Sadly Russia never had a ruling entity that was good. Well there was hope in the 80's with Gorbachev and Krushev with his Thaw period, but these were short lived and the system went back to its stable state of terrorizing its citizens.
russia and soviet union are not too far apart actually. Let's not make victim of poor russians, while so many of them fight now and fought in the past to kill independent nations.
> while so many of them fight now and fought in the past to kill independent nations
Let's not pretend it's surrounding is really any better, especially if we start looking at the past.
Someone might think that Russia is opposing a genocidal culture, that had bourne fascism and nazism, enforced apartheid over the world and now breeds it elsewhere to achieve its geopolitical goals.
Russia perceives small countries bordering them having sovereignty as an encroachment on its territory. Don't they realize that they are supposed to be Russian puppet states?
The question of whether or not it was a mistake misses that NATO expansion was likely inevitable because of the democratic process.
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.'
No-one who has visited the Baltics (specifically Lithuania, my experience in the others is less extensive and less recent) could argue with a straight face that they were better off remaining under a Russian sphere of influence than as part of the European Union and the western world at large.
> Spheres of influence are gained through economic muscle and cultural power now, not force of arms.
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.
See also: Georgia, Armenia vs. Azerbaijan, Belorussian & Kazakh internal protests and revolts, or Ukraine c. 2014.
Russian arms have been used on or by all of those countries. In the case of Armenia, support meant they kicked he shit out of the Azeris before... and not the case now, where Russian can't or won't help them, but the Turks are backing the Azeris.
Force of arms has made a big difference for all of the states around Russia. And not necessarily in a good way.
> I don't buy the idea that it was a mistake for NATO to allow former Soviet bloc countries to join, because it would supposedly encroach on Russia's sphere of influence or increase tensions with Russia
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.
NATO was formed basically as a club for democratic states to defend themselves from aggressive dictatorships, in practice mostly Russia. Unless Russia adopts democracy and human rights it's a bit impractical for it to work with or join NATO.
> NATO was formed basically as a club for democratic states to defend themselves from aggressive dictatorships
This is a historically inaccurate slogan.
> Unless Russia adopts democracy and human rights it's a bit impractical for it to work with or join NATO.
Are we still talking about 1990s-2000s? Russia was no less democratic and adoptive of human rights than other ex-Soviet states pushed to NATO. Do you actually consider 2004 Georgia to be more in line with western view of human rights and democracy then 2004 Russia, really?
> NATO was formed basically as a club for democratic states to defend themselves from aggressive dictatorships
One of NATO’s founding members was Portugal - under the Salazar dictatorship. Both Greece and Turkey went through periods of military dictatorship while NATO members-did NATO have any problem with that? The idea that NATO was formed to be a “club for democratic states” ignores its own history
Totally strange given that love to democracies have nothing to do with anything.
Srsly, how do the "United democracies" expect to be taken seriously when their whole attitude to literally everything is "bad guys don't like us for being good boys"?
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.
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.
Just because Russia is not an existential threat to the vast majority of NATO countries except perhaps the Baltics, doesn't mean there's not a recognition of the amount of damage they could inflict in the process of a "failed" invasion.
Yes, we in Finland are not scared. But it is only rational to ally with forces that can protect our sovereignty. I would not bet my life on it, as I live in a country which has the longest border with Russia after Ukraine.
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.”
Sorry for failing to understand the sarcasm and taking your comment personally. During the Cold War plenty of the "Western" countries were truly afraid of the Communist powers, and we in the between were afraid of being bombed to dust in a nuclear war between the USA and the USSR.
Also,I felt your comment was not nice towards all the minorities and "divergents" in the Russia and elsewhere. Just Google Grozny, Aleppo, or Anna Politkovskaya if you want to know why your comment could have been interpreted as something else than just a joke.
As General Adolf Ehrnrooth aptly put it ”Ei enää koskaan yksin”, ”We should never again defend ourselves alone” as the lesson of the Winter War. Glad that we finally acted on that lesson and got allied. Another nail in the coffin of finlandization, albeit with a heavy price the Ukrainians continue to pay every day.
This is as much a defense policy decision as it is an economic one. Hard for us to get foreign investment living next to a dictatorial warstate unless there's some risk mitigation in place.
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.)
This is not just great news for a Finland, but also for my own Norway, and the rest of Scandinavia. Even before this was finalized there was already work on closer cooperation and integration between our air forces. Give it some time and we will see all of us getting more out of defense spending, by not having to duplicate everything and combine buying contracts. When Sweden finally joins later is going to get even better. Attacking any state in Scandinavia just got a lot harder, and was imo. the whole point of this.
As a Polish guy, this is the best international policy news I got in a while. Finland is a great ally and definitely will up the security in the region.
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 have a friend from Donetsk too who grew up there, don't worry. He was making molotov's cocktail when there was a threat that russia would capture Kyiv.
> He was making molotov's cocktail when there was a threat that russia would capture Kyiv.
Oh please don't pose.
People don't make fancy distinguished name awful reeking dangerous incendiary so far from the frontline. Their whole memorability comes from their immediate production efficiency, when you don't care about anything else and need a weapon like RIGHT now. People who don't joke around are occupied with a completely different set of things.
Meanwhile, Sweden's NATO application is blocked by Turkey because former Peshmerga fighter Amineh Kakabaveh happened to become very powerful in the chaotic Swedish parliament a few years ago.
And appear like a strong and mighty leader in the May elections. Distract from tanking the economy and encouraging corruption. I could be arrested for saying such things, if I was in Turkey.
Which the US would have been willing to give... if they didn't cozy up to the Russians for S-300 and S-400s.
They also wanted F-35s, not just F-16s. That's not one to sell unless you're 100% confident they won't copy it for their own domestic production, or sell it to, say, the Russians. And modern Turkey is looking a little shaky in that regard (no, not an earthquake joke).
So you are telling Turkey bought s-400 out of nowhere? US never become true ally of Turkey. And your F-35s reasoning is not right as well. From the beginning Turkey is a part of alliance. But now they afraid Turkey to sell f-35 to Russia?
There are other factors for sure, but without Sweden's recent pro kurdish policy swing, my guess is that both Sweden and Finland would have joined today.
As a Swede this makes me happy, partially because Finland shares a lot of their border with Russia and can now feel safe knowing they have the might of 30 nations behind them, but also because we're now surrounded by NATO countries. So no need for us to join, right? Right?!
Let's remain neutral and a free haven for political dissidents and potential refugees of the future, right?!!
As a Swede I disgree on the strongest. What do you want to be neutral about? That time is past us. We belong in the company of European democracies that stand together against authoritarian aggressions.
The US is obviously the global Big Dog, but NATO's got three other top-ten-by-expenditure militaries in it, plus two more of the very-small count of global nuclear powers (Britain, France), and three of maybe a half-dozen countries with notable navies that aren't the US (Britain, France, Italy). Expanding to look at the top-20 by expenditure, you pick up another five entries that are NATO members.
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.
Like all things such as this, it's controversial and there is no such thing as a unified vision.
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.
> 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.
Too bad their funding didn't match that rhetoric until after Russia was already invading Ukraine. It'll be years yet before Germany's military will be up to snuff, and outside of France, the UK, and Poland, most of the NATO armies would struggle if they encountered any resistance on-par with what the Russians are putting out.
Nor are their logistics and production capable of keeping up w/ the high-intensity peer/near-peer fight that we're seeing in UKR.
2% of GDP is the recommended amount, Ukraine managed to hold them back before financial aid came to bear with around 3%.
UK spends 2.2% (an all time low!), France just under 2%. These are much larger economies so expenditure is definitely greater than Ukraines in absolute terms.
Are you suggesting that they should pay more? Why? Seems like the current amount is effective.
If US backs from NATO expect nukes in every country.
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).
The US may be the bulk of the military might backing NATO, but it’s the collectiveness of the alliance is a pretty important piece IMO. If the US were to some way be compromised, say, through a debilitating first strike (unlikely), or Trump-esque domestic factors making them unreliable, you still have a huge, powerful coalition.
It would be very hard to pull off tho. Seeing as our neighbors would supply intel and equipment, while they have to cross the baltic sea in plain view. I mean they can barely take southern Ukraine.
Yeah but then it's game over. I used to worry about nukes, especially with all the suicidal people in the world, but then I realized that it's not worth worrying about because there's no way out. Anyone launches a nuke and it's game over, MAD.
So, this is mostly a US-centric forum, but I wonder what is the take on this from the perspective of a Finnish person.
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?
The decision to join NATO has had overwhelming support among the general population throughout the process. Over 80% of the population were in favor of joining when we applied for membership last year and the opinions have stayed around the same. According to a poll conducted in early february this year, 82% were in favor, 10% undecided and 8% against. Parliament votes were 184-7 last month when they approved the membership.
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.
I was born when the Soviet Union fell. All my childhood I watched media like James Bond and played games like Command & Conquer about Russian invasion, saw my extended family suffer the generational trauma of war, and being male, am forced by threat of imprisonment to personally accept social responsibility for sacrificing my life defending our country from Russian invasion,
I'm pretty fucking relieved the nightmare is over.
Just hoping we can prevent WW3, or at the very least win it together.
I think you forgot the only Bond movies who dealt with direct Soviet threats were :
- 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.
> I'm pretty fucking relieved the nightmare is over.
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.
> 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?
Neutrality is no protection against aggression. Vienna was famously one of the first targets for Soviet nuclear strike.
> Vienna was famously one of the first targets for Soviet nuclear strike.
According to your link in the other thread, that is assuming it was "ruthlessly" occupied by NATO.
In any case, the "end the game for everyone button" example seems like a poor choice. How did Austria actually fare during the Cold War? I honestly don't know too much about Austrian-Soviet relationships except for a few trade deals.
>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?
Moldova, invaded (1990) and occupied. Georgia, invaded (2008) and occupied. Ukraine, invaded (2014, 2022) and occupied.
Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland: Not invaded, not occupied.
Finns always agree with government decisions. If government policy is to stay out of NATO, finns will think that's the sound and rational way. If the government policy is to get into NATO, they will ask the media to support the idea and finns will change their opinion and think it's a splendid idea. Finns think as they are told to, like their neighbours in Russia.
It is not background but U.S. centric perspective, that results in tunnel world view and bubble info diet, and man in question is analyst for Stratfor from 2000. Zeihan spent 12 years at Stratfor, eventually rising to vice-president.
For anyone hailing from russia to be taken seriously, can you please answer these basic questions first: 1) Is Ukraine a sovereign country that belongs to the free people of Ukraine?, 2) Who does Crimea belong to?, 3) is russian army committing war crimes in Ukraine, and 4) are you personally supporting the russians war of genocide on Ukraine?
It is worrying that in a supposedly informed forum the simple, and factual, matter of there being distinct perspectives on the geopolitical order post USSR's collapse requires any further elaboration. Wow. Are you actually denying that others, quite a few billion of them not Russians btw (they go by "Global South" these days), view US behavior post Soviet collapse as aggressive and motivated by a desire for lasting hegemony? That clearly is not a view that would be addressed by the content in question, so GP's point stands.
Since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, there have been a significant number of commenters here who have, for whatever reasons, advanced opinions that align very closely with Russian propaganda.
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.
> 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".
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.
Indeed, it's a thin line and I as the OP am surprised it generated so much (also productive) discussion. I saw this post was hidden from the front page at some point and I guess it's for the better. It's a "so-so".
Score a win for the US, NATO, and the west. Putin is a weak fraud who has been exposed…can’t wait for his regime to collapse, all without the west lifting a finger.
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.
I might be talking to deaf ears here, but have you considered reading something written by Putin, Biden, Trump or Obama? Or the rulers of other large nations? They are all highly intelligent people even if they are responsible for horrible things. Thinking that Putin is a "mad paranoid dog", speaks to me that you have become the victim of propagandized media made for very simple minded people, and I doubt anybody frequenting this forum belong to that class. You won't be rewarded by your government or anybody else for blindly hating the enemy, so why not try to understand deeper what is happening in the world?
I've read enough from Trump to come to the conclusion that he is not highly intelligent. At least not in the way intelligence is usually thought of. He is a very talented leader though.
>"can’t wait for his regime to collapse, all without the west lifting a finger"
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.
The comments are pretty hard to read here given that any comment not cheering this on is immediately downvoted to death. Many are legitimate comments - I see why some might disagree with them but it’s not even possible to learn from them if they are silenced.
I'd normally agree with you, but we're in a situation right now where Russia is waging a brutal war of aggression that has already killed more people than the US did in Afghanistan over 20 years (which, to be clear, is a war we never should have started). That same Russia has a well-developed propaganda arm that has been very active since long before the war in trying to draw favorable comparisons between their behavior and the US's. In this context, I'll take the potentially-unearned downvotes over letting Russian propaganda have its say.
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).