This more or less seals Finland applying for NATO membership. However, adding new members requires unanimous consent from all existing members, so it's not guaranteed to be smooth sailing. Russia is also obviously deeply unhappy about this and will do its best to disrupt the process via direct and indirect pressure.
Vetos are somewhat overrated. Agents may have the right to veto, but might not have the power to deal with the consequences.
Russia has a UN veto and uses it, because they can weather the consequences.
Could Hungary piss off all of its allies, trade partners, basically everyone but Russia? Doubtful. Hungary is playing a skillful, if somewhat devious, game of balancing between Russia and the West. But an outright FU to a (clearly) US-sponsored NATO expansion? I can't see them weathering this.
Signalling a veto is often rather a negotiation step.
The hungarian leading party (fidesz) has already declared they will not veto Ukrain's adoption to the EU so I personally really doubt they would veto Finland's entry to the NATO. They are playing a double-game (sorry, this probably doesn't make sense in english, it's a hungarian expression): Orban had a famous quote he said to EU leaders "don't listen to what I say, only to what I do", which in practice means alienating the EU in rhetoric but not so much in practice. Of course this is not so simple as other EU members also care about the rhetoric too but it still summarizes Orban's geopolitics fairly well. This is not unique either, Merkel had similar "two-faced" approach to Russia and even toward Hungary, Orban is just significantly less popular in the west due to his populist anti-democratic tendencies.
And one of the Hindi phrases my mom uses "thali ka baingan" literally translates to "eggplant of the plate" doesn't make any sense in English but I love it xD. Hindi is a pretty beautiful language and people use so many colourful metaphors it's incredible!
Same for me as a Brazilian, jogo duplo means literally double-game and it's a pretty popular expression. Probably in Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries as well.
We don't have that phrase in English but it translates very clearly. Interestingly, your description of Orban's behavior exactly matches a somewhat famous game theoretic analysis of international leaders' behavior called "the two-level game." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-level_game_theory
He's not unique in this regard. Every national leader has to consider the interests and perceptions of their domestic power base when negotiating with international leaders. Very often a mismatch between their rhetoric and actual behavior indicates that they are trying to sell an unpopular but necessary international agreement to the people back home, or that they must accept an international reality that does not match their domestic political framework.
For example, Putin finds himself in a difficult position right now because he has convinced his people that the Russian military is invincible and the Ukrainians are dominated by a small number of Nazis who need to be removed from power. Meaning, his domestically acceptable "win set" only includes scenarios in which Ukraine cedes large swathes of territory and makes at least some notional concessions around governmental reform toward "de-nazification." Anything else admits the political framework he uses to justify his power is premised on falsehoods and risks destabilizing his regime.
These positions are of course not consistent with reality and therefore not within the Ukrainian win set, and so no agreement will be reached until something changes. I suspect that is why Russian journalists/propagandists have recently started recasting the war as a conflict against NATO, because that will make defeat more palatable to the Russian people. Getting beat by NATO doesn't mean the Russian military was horrifically incompetent and their government deeply corrupt, but rather that it was an unfair fight sprung upon them by evil westerners. It feeds their sense of grievance while excusing Putin and his lackeys from any personal responsibility for the widespread military failures.
While you might be right in that there has been a recent shift in emphasis in Russian domestic coverage, in general Ukraine was being branded (and/or perceived) as having mild "NATO/EU/CIA interference" since the mid-2000s when the first serious aspirations to align with the West emerged. This escalated in the 2012-2014 period, with the Maidan movement painted broadly as heavily "NATO/EU/CIA orchestrated". The war in Ukraine has been waged "against the USA and The West" for its entire history.
While the framework of differentiation between intranational and international interests fits, it is certainly not "for the good of the people" in this case. Orban antagonized the EU because it was unlikely that he would be punished for it. This is textbook right wing populism: make an enemy out of some group that is unlikely to hit back and you can appear strong. This is often done against minorities but the EU is perfect for it as it is powerful enough to actually look like a threat but has no means to punish small "violations".
> "don't listen to what I say, only to what I do",
There is a close enough express in English that it translates. "Do what I say, not what I do", is something parents tell kids when the parents want the kids to behave better than the parents do! For example, if a parent smokes, they may tell their kid "don't smoke, do what I say not what I do."
Well, plenty of potential things. In strictly defence terms, they buy weaponry from US and Germany. Hungarian air force operates Swedish Gripen fighters and thus most likely relies on Sweden at least for spare parts (which military jets need lots of) so here's another pressure point. They are big beneficiaries of EU funding (not a NATO thing but this is all intertwined) and already at odds with EU rules, which could push them towards not getting the funding - there are plenty of reasons to implement that already, just lacking political will right now. They can find themselves sidelined for new EU spending, political nominations, and so on.
The question would of course be if EU/NATO want to do that. It's part of the usual political horse-trading game.
For sure, in the extreme scenario if US/EU/main partners really wanted Finland and Sweden to join and Hungary vetoed, it could be made to pay an unaffordable price.
Didn’t the US/EU take the high moral of self determination for every country, when supporting Ukraine’s actions? So, if Hungary “self determines” to veto access to NATO, which is its right according to NATO’s rules, why punish it and suffer consequences? It would be the same as Russia invading Ukraine to punish it for “self determining” its choice to join NATO or the EU. I don’t care about rhetoric and window dressing. I want to argue the raw facts. I feel most people here are hypocrites. Let’s agree that the US and EU are equal bandits as Russia. Let’s all drop the hypocrisy.
I don't think there is much demand for JAS Gripen in Nato countries at this day. 4th gen fighters do not have much lifetime left in them, and F35 is increasingly taking the role of the current-gen fighter for advanced nations.
But Sweden is already member of the Cuture Combat Air System (FCAS) initiative to create a 6th gen air war system of systems, alongside nato members. And this kind of colaboration will be even more natural when/if they join Nato.
Dunno. If it was something else, I'd be tempted to agree. But Sweden deciding to join NATO, everyone but Hungary agreeing, Sweden stopping parts? Not sure. It's a, well, minor act of military... aggression? Extreme unhelpfulness for sure.
Also the real question would be, would Hungary see it as a credible threat. Were they to go ahead with that, they'd find themselves with no airforce and unhappy allies. That sounds like a raise they couldn't afford to raise.
But even if not, in the most extreme case, everyone else could leave NATO and simultaneously join NATO++, which is just NATO without Hungary, but with Finland.
(And because that kind of process is possible in theory, I would suggest that any organisation with a voluntary exit clause might also want to have a clause that allows the unanimous vote by everyone else to expel one member. Maybe..)
This is all speculation about the most extreme consequences. Other commenters wrote more realistic things about trade in weapons being disrupted.
And, of course, you could set up 'NATO++' as an alliance between US, Finland and other willing nations, without shutting down old NATO. Just like Ukraine receives a lot of assistance from NATO countries these days without being in NATO.
Probably much more severe than that, at least if they were not able to provide a good excuse for the Veto, and this is seen as them forming a 5th column more loyal to Putin than Nato.
In such a case, Nato could in principle invoke Article 60 of the Vienna convention, and if all other members agreed, they could expel Hungary from Nato. Similarly, if their conflicts with the EU continue to escalate, they may be expelled from the EU in a similar fashion.
This would be a catastrophe for Hungary.
Not that I believe that it would ever come to this. Just a hint of this from key Nato/EU countries should be enough to make Hungary back down.
More likely, if Hungary wants to buy some favour from the Kremlin, they would drag out the expansion process by a few months.
I don't think anyone wants that big hole on the alliance's border. Hungary might not be as critically positioned as Turkey, but it's still in a pretty awkward place.
But as you say, Orban could drag his feet a bit. Chances are his party enjoyed direct funding from Moscow, like others in their orbit all over Europe.
Maybe I'm biased as someone living much further north, but it seems to me that Sweden and Finland have more strategic geographic importance than Hungary, at least as long as Ukraine doesn't fall completely (ie as long as Russia doesn't get a common border with Hungary).
Without a shared border with Russia, Hungary's usefulness in a conflict would be relatively limited for Russia. On the other hand, for it would be highly dangerous for Hungary to willingly align with Russia, as that would make it likely that a future conflict would be fought on their territory.
As long as Sweden and Finland remain neutral, they are at risk. Putin has shown that he is willing to use military force to grab land. Should he grab Finland and Sweden, he would effectively control the Baltic sea and also have bases that can reach Western Europe much more easily than he can at the moment.
On the other hand, with Finland in the alliance, Nato has a highly defensible (for Nato) shared front with Russia, in the case of a conflict.
Also, keep in mind that Finland + Sweden together has a greater population than Hungary as well as maybe 5x the GDP, and that while Hungary is moving towards totalitarianism, Sweden and Finland both have long democratic traditions, low corruption, etc.
> Sweden and Finland both have long democratic traditions
Very different ones.
Sweden has been independent forever and a democracy since 1921.
Finland was first a part of Sweden, later an autonomous part of Russia. In 1917 it became independent and a democracy. However, a bloody civil war followed. Although it did not last long, consequences in politics and society remained visble for generations. Between 1945 and 1990 there were limitations to the democracy. They would only do what was assumed not to annoy the Soviets too much. Party leaders and prime ministers were chosen according to that principle. Freedom of the press existed only as long it was not too negative about the Soviet Union.
While it changed with the end of the Soviet Union in 1990, they could join EU 1995, applying for NATO marks only the real end of that period that they could not freely determine the direction of their country.
By your definition (ie universal suffrage), the USA has only been democratic since 1965. So that makes Sweden's democracy twice as old as the US democracy.
But that is not what I mean when I say "democratic traditions". Especially for countries that introduce democracy gradually and (mostly) peacefully, I consider the whole transition period to be part of those traditions. A country like Sweden had more than 100 years (1809-1921) of public discussions and political manouvering to build up the institutions, culture and education that provide stability, legitimacy and public support to such a system.
Finland underwent a similar development from the end of the Civil War to 1990, which mean that in 1990 the democratic institutions and traditions had already been built.
Other Warzaw pact countries had varying amounts of democratic traditions at that point. Some (like Hungary) had seen little democracy. Others, such as Czechoslovakia had been mostly democratic in the interwar period, while most had seen some democracy and some authoritarian rule in that period.
I would argue that those traditions from 100 years ago play a part, even today. And in the case of Sweden vs Finland vs Hungary, Sweden and Finland both have very strong traditions for democracy (even if the age of those traditions are different), while for countries like Hungary and Ukraine, those traditions are still shaky.
In the name of democracy the US would attack Hungary economically, and leverage any dependency that other countries have on the US to force them to also attack Hungary economically or to join them as an official enemy.
I could only see a very mild version of this happening.
More realistically, they could just spin up an alternative alliance between US, Finland and any other willing current NATO member (but excluding Hungary). And over time move more and more importance to this new NATO++, and perhaps even eventually drop out of old NATO.
There's no provisions for kicking countries out of NATO. But everyone else leaving the club is equivalent to kicking one country out.
It's not how it benefits Hungary, but what benefits Orban. He's playing the playbook we're all to familiar with lately of antagonizing allies while warming up with Putin. It allows him to solidify his base while attacking the principles of democracy that might threaten his position.
Orban’s party won reëlection. Orban is popular [1]. We can crib about disinformation and this or that, but holding Hungary accountable for his decisions is perfectly acceptable.
They are snooty as hell, and I'll forever associate them with The New Yorker[1]. That said, I love them too! Now, if only we could do the same for awry and other words that trip up voracious readers.
It's more about Hungarian domestic politics. The Orban administration has alienated much of the EU leadership, and is (arguably) in violation of the EU treaties. So they're looking to Russia as a backup option, and as an implicit threat to the EU over having their funding cut off.
Right, and as I stated above, Hungary can threaten to establish closer ties with Russia if the EU cuts off their funding. This is a way to resist EU demands for internal political reforms and play towards the Fidesz party base.
The very short answer is that Hungary benefits both from membership in the Western block and from being Putin's friend inside it. So they presumably don't want to go as far as leave, but rather use that as a credible threat for leverage.
While I appreciate the sentiment, as long as Russia doesn't have a common border with Hungary, he won't be able to send the military. Who's gonna let him through?
And yet Ungary alone is stopping the 6th round of Russia sanctions from the EU. They are not afraid to veto to protect their interests, like any nation should do.
It's not a coincidence that von der leyen wants to change the voting system from hunanimity to majority. They don't like to lose, and the rules are fine only as long as they can do what they want.
So vetoes have more power than you would let us think.
I think it's been convenient to blame Hungary, but the truth is, plenty of countries are unhappy about banning Russian hydrocarbons, with Germany leading the list. They can weather the consequences of their veto, because there isn't much will to make it happen anyway - i.e. there are no consequences.
I can imagine Finland/Sweden being very different. Who benefits/loses from Finland/Sweden joining? These countries are very well-armed, with large, well-trained armies, so they are a welcome addition for most. Baltic states must be delighted. Germany must be realising that hugging Russia for decades hasn't paid off, but it is in a clinch; its army has had decades of peacetime budgets, while they find themselves on the gas/oil hook. Hungary's own immediate neighbours, Romania and Slovakia at least, are quite wary of Russian threat and will welcome at least a diffusion of Russian targets in the area.
Would there be consequences to ruining the plans of US, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Slovakia and Romania, and many other countries? No doubt, and beyond what Hungary is prepared to pay.
But then what do I know? I'm an armchair strategist.
> Would there be consequences to ruining the plans of US, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Slovakia and Romania, and many other countries? No doubt, and beyond what Hungary is prepared to pay.
You can add Norway and probably Denmark to that list. With Finland and Sweden in Nato, all of Scandinavia becomes significantly more defendable. This would enable all Scandinavian countries to combine their defensive efforts, and would it make it extremely hard for Russia to attack any individual country.
And keep in mind that Stoltenberg is Norwegian....
It only takes one party to block and there is shame in blocking, why would another country admit that they would have blocked if not for the vote of that shameless Hungarian?
Simple: there will a lot of focus on persuading that single country to change its position. And once persuaded (or "persuaded") it will be too late (and ridiculous) for the "secret supporters" to voice their opposition.
> I'll remind you that Russia is a democracy and Putin is a democratically elected leader, as much as Biden is. And people in the USA have much less trust for the democratic process than Russians at the moment.
Erm... huh? You cannot, not in a million years, compare the democratic processes of US or EU states with what's going on in Russia. I'm not even sure where to start. How about this then: Russia's premier opposition leader, Alexey Navalny, got poisoned with deadly poison known to be used only by Russian secret services, and almost died. Did Biden or Trump or any other US politician try to kill their opponent?
I suspect given that comment, we won't find common ground, but for others' benefit:
> It paid off incredibly well actually. Why do you think Germany is the first industrial power in Europe? Who's selling them all the cheap gas that keeps the industries going?
Germany decided to wean itself off atom and onto gas/renewables. That was a political decision, which drove energy prices up. France instead doubled-down on nuclear and is doing just fine. Affordable energy is achievable without Russian gas, just not overnight. For sure the going was good for Germany for a while, but now they find they are held by the balls.
I can't, but I can very well imagine any USA president carry the assassination of foreign leaders through the CIA. Actually no need to imagine as it's history, more and less recent.
> And yet, Russia has usually a higher voter turnout for presidential elections. Yet, Putin approval is at a sky high of 82% while Biden is plummeting at 42%, just the half
The most important mark of a democracy is the ability to get rid of unpopular leaders at the end of their term, as the US did in 2020 and may be doing in 2024.
The mark of a dictatorship, on the other hand, is that they subdue any opposition by any and all means available. When the totalitarianism is total, the leader will get 99% of the votes in elections and a similar reported approval rating. Those who do not support the regime and not already eliminated, are too scared to say so.
After all independent media got closed down, put to prison or killed. The vast majority of those 80% watch only TV, a brain washing machine telling the world is full of Nazis and NATO threatening the existence of Russia.
Everybody in Russia knows that for being against Putin you can be beaten up by the police, put to prison and whatnot. So how many dare to answer what they really think when they suddenly get a phone call from an unknown person?
I am sure both exist. The brainwashed ones who believe all the lies and those who don't dare to admit that they don't believe it. How the percentages are proably nobody has too good guesses.
> After all independent media got closed down, put to prison or killed.
Source?
> The vast majority of those 80% watch only TV, a brain washing machine telling the world is full of Nazis and NATO threatening the existence of Russia.
Source?
> Everybody in Russia knows that for being against Putin you can be beaten up by the police, put to prison and whatnot
Source?
> I am sure both exist. The brainwashed ones who believe all the lies and those who don't dare to admit that they don't believe it. How the percentages are proably nobody has too good guesses.
It is one thing protecting interest and an other abusing a possibility almost all the time, blackmailing allies and distorting group efforts.
Btw. the ruling party - practically means Orbán himself - is more like protecting personal interest than the contry's, likely (very likely) financial interests of self while the country's interest is completely elsewhere concerning both financial and the big picture.
NATO has really benefited from having Turkey as a member in this war (which is essentially a proxy war between Russia and NATO)-Turkey exercised its right to close the Bosporus to military ships not based there, which prevents Russia from reinforcing its Black Sea fleet. An ex-NATO Turkey might have taken Russia’s side and left the straits open. Closing them disadvantaged Russia far more than anyone else, since Ukraine really doesn’t have a navy any more, and other major naval powers were never likely to directly intervene on Ukraine’s side.
> Bueno de Mesquita claims, quite plausibly, that a huge part of George Washington’s motive for fighting the Revolutionary War was to protect his substantial, and critically placed, landholdings in the Ohio Valley.
> An excerpt about GW’s wealth:
>> His last position, just before becoming President, was President of the Patowmack Canal Company–the Potomac Canal, as we know it, from the Potomac River. What that canal did was bring, make it possible to bring produce from the Shenandoah Valley–which George owned–up to the port in Alexandria, which had been built by Lawrence, by the Ohio Valley Company, in which George had a direct interest, and shipped goods out. So it was a very profitable undertaking–or so he thought it would be, in the long run, for him. And that’s what motivated him. Most people think of Washington as–besides a great hero, which he certainly was–as kind of a gentleman farmer. Economists have estimated the worth in real dollars adjusted for inflation, not appreciated, of George Washington’s estate, in contemporary terms; and it’s about $20 billion dollars. He is by far the wealthiest President. He is the 59th wealthiest person in American history. Three of the American founding fathers are in the list of the top 100 wealthiest Americans in all of history: Hancock, who was wealthier than Washington–made his money smuggling; and Ben Franklin, who was not quite as wealthy, who made his money because he had a monopoly on the printing press. These are the folks who led the Revolution. These were not the downtrodden. These were not the oppressed. These were people who stood to lose huge amounts of wealth because of the King’s policies. And so they fought a Revolution. Which was, by the way, not very popular. Sixty percent of the colonists either were neutral or opposed to the Revolution.
Is this surprising? The standard marxist account of nationalist revolution is that they are an attempt by local elites (the national bourgeois) to outmaneuver foreign elites. You see the same thing all over the place (even, perhaps, Ukraine).
I guess there's a traditional division between 'really existing socialism', which is often messy, and marxism as a body of work for understanding society.
One observation I would make is that, for a social revolution to occur, you actually need a lot of people from basically every corner of society to want it to happen: even elites. So when they have occurred, it has generally been because the preceding situation was so awful that basically nobody, even the relatively privileged in it, felt it was tolerable. China and Russia both clearly qualify, but also countries like Haiti, or France. People tend to forget the mess preceding the revolution, and focus on the mess during and after.
The October-Revolution in Russia was more like a coup.
Germany had a revolution that ushered in the Weimar Republic. Both countries had essentially just lost a war at that time.
> I guess there's a traditional division between 'really existing socialism', which is often messy, and marxism as a body of work for understanding society.
Marxisms is pretty useless for that. Useless in the technical sense that knowing just mainstream economics is as effective as knowing mainstream economics plus Marxism.
(Not useless in the more absolute sense of knowing nothing vs knowing Marxism. Basically, wherever Marxism deviates from modern mainstream economics, it's useless.)
Well, the october revolution, even if it was a coup, was a coup against mostly other marxists (actually, the mensheviks were more orthodox).
I think there are two dimensions in which marxism, whatever your politics, will never be useless. First, a lot of it is a body of work authored by people in the midst of extremely bitter social struggles, civil wars, and revolutions. So you tend to get a pretty clear idea of how these things work, from the inside. Second, I think Marx is just a phenomenally clever and insightful thinker. I'm not particularly wedded to the economics (actually, neither was Lenin), but his thoughts on how economic and physical forces shape us as political actors are really good.
I'd add that there is continuum of options to provide support to a party of a war: from zero support to joining the war in full force as an ally. At which point the support amounts to a proxy war is up to a debate.
Also, I think that it does matter who started the war. Those who are fighting, those who provide support or neither of them (that is, the other party of the war).
As I have always understood the concept of proxy war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_war there should be another party behind Russia prompting it's actions (since it attacked)
My understanding is that a proxy war requires at least one of the belligerents to be acting through a proxy, not necessarily both. For example, here is a wiki page [0] about the Iran-Israel proxy conflict/war, which is fought between Israeli and Palestinian combatants.
Either way, this is a just a matter of how you choose to define the term.
The important point that I'm trying to make is that, while Ukraine is of course fighting for its own sake (not trying to claim here they are only a puppet or something - as is Palestine in the other example), it's also clear that NATO is massively involved in the conflict, with its own aims for the war which may or may not be entirely aligned with Ukraine's (or Ukrainians') best interests.
Turkey does have some recent history of "balancing" with Russia, but I'm not convinced its decisions on the Straits are an example of that. My understanding is that under the Montreux Convention, Turkey closes it for everybody involved in the war or nobody, I don't believe it allows Turkey to block one side of a conflict's ships but not the other, unless it is a conflict in which Turkey itself is directly involved. (In a direct war between Russia and NATO, Turkey would probably just tear up the Convention anyway–but doing so in peacetime would likely be considered by Russia to be an act of war.)
In practice, however, closing the Straits has a much more negative impact on Russia than NATO, since the major NATO naval powers (US, UK, France) were never likely to send ships near Ukraine anyway, and as non-Black Sea states the Montreux Convention subjects them to special limits to which Black Sea states are not subject. In fact (according to some sources), the Straits are still officially open for the US/UK/French/etc navies, so long as they don't directly join the conflict – although I imagine they'd be rather hesitant to exercise that right at the moment, due to the risk Russia might interpret such an act as hostile.
If it is true they allowed some Russian ships through before closing it–that could have been simply the slowness of government decision making, plus the legal complexities involved, rather than a deliberate "balancing" act.
If anything, I think this conflict has caused Turkey to turn away from the "balancing" and move more firmly into the NATO column. Reminding NATO of their value helps silence the ongoing "can we expel Turkey?" debate, refusing to do so would have given it more steam. Turkey has been selling its TB2 drones to Ukraine, which Ukraine has been using to great effect against Russia – not a very good example of "balancing". Ukraine's successful use of Turkish drones is very helpful to Turkey, because it gives them more information on how they perform in an actual conflict (which they already had to some extent with the Syrian civil war, the KPP, etc, but Russia is a very different kind of adversary from the Syrian government or the Kurds), and also helps attract potential buyers.
I think we reached more or less the same conclusion.
I don't think the Barayktar has such a significant influence, but it could be a smart move from Ukraine to have add some difficulties to the balancing part of Turkeye.
> major NATO naval powers (US, UK, France) were never likely to send ships near Ukraine
Not only they were likely, they actually did that in 2020 and 2021, as a part of joint war games with Ukraine. According to what I read, some 30 ships participated.
If NATO was directly part of the conflict, Turkey as a NATO member would be expected to be 100% on NATO's side, not "balancing" its allies against their enemy. If it was still trying to "balance" in that situation, it would either stop real fast or else end up expelled from NATO. In an actual shooting Russia-vs-NATO war, nobody would care about the legal niceties over whether NATO members can be expelled – the other members would just agree to do it, and the lawyers can debate the legality of it when the war is over.
Romania and Bulgaria only have access to the Black Sea. My understanding is that if a Romanian warship goes to a military exercise in the Mediterranean, then it won't be allowed to return, just like Russian ships can't.
Sources are inconsistent on this topic – some say Turkey has closed the Straits to all warships, others say it has only closed the ships to the official parties to the conflict, which is currently only Russia and Ukraine (arguably Belarus too, but that's irrelevant to this, since as a landlocked state they have no navy), and that other naval ships, including Bulgarian and Romanian, are still allowed through, so long as they don't actively join the war. I'm not entirely sure which set of sources are right, but I suspect the sources claiming a narrower closure are more likely to be correct.
Putting that aside, even the official parties to the war are allowed through the straits to return their ships to their home ports (unless Turkey is directly involved in the war, in which case Turkey can block all enemy vessels, even those returning to their home port). Since the only coastline and naval bases of Bulgaria and Romania are on the Black Sea, that rule covers their entire navies. It only really disadvantages Russia, since Russia is the only Black Sea state (other than Turkey) with naval bases outside of the Black Sea. It means Russia can't send reinforcements to the Black Sea from their Pacific, Baltic or Arctic fleets.
In a scenario in which Romania or Bulgaria actively joined the war, it would be a direct Russia-NATO war, including Turkey. In such a dire scenario, Turkey would likely announce the unilateral suspension of the Montreux Convention for the duration of the war, and allow NATO warships unlimited passage. Russia would consider such a unilateral suspension of the Convention to be an act of war, but in such a scenario Turkey and Russia would already be at war anyway.
> In time of war, Turkey not being belligerent, warships shall enjoy complete freedom of transit
and navigation through the Straits under the same conditions as those laid down in Articles 10 to 18.
> Vessels of war belonging to belligerent Powers shall not, however, pass through the Straits
except in cases arising out of the application of Article 25 of the present Convention [no longer applicable] , and in cases of assistance rendered to a State victim of aggression in virtue of a treaty of mutual assistance binding Turkey, concluded within the framework of the Covenant of the League of Nations, and registered and published in accordance with the provisions of Article 18 of the Covenant.https://timinhonolulu.files.wordpress.com/2022/02/montreaux-...
So basically, if (a) Turkey declares that there's a war and (b) Turkey is not a party to that war, then (c) Turkey is authorized to close the straits to warships of belligerent parties.
There's some exceptions in there about ships returning to their base, but it'd be a pretty big loss of face for the Russians to beg Turkey to agree that a sudden rebasing of ships qualified.
It's complicated. Russia is not part of that convention, as can be seen on the dedicated wiki page [1], but since the occupation of the Snakes Island by the Russians earlier during the war the "exit area" just outside Danube's Delta is, de facto, controlled by the Russian Navy (barring an Ukrainian cruise-missile or two).
I'm Romanian, I live in Romania (Bucharest), so as I'm geographically close to this I've been following this particular Danube issue closer than the others, but the thing is that the situation on the ground is still pretty muddled. For example, just as the war started the Romanian authorities had suspended commercial navigation on the Chilia Danube Delta Branch, the one on which the Romanian-Ukrainian border is situated, for fear of Russian bombs. Presumably the navigation has been allowed to resume, but nothing official has been made public in the Romanian mainstream press, the only related news was something about the Ukrainian authorities being unhappy with us (Romanians) asking for navigation-related customs taxes that were seen as too high, so I assumed that commercial navigation had, in fact, resumed.
There was also our prime-minister meeting with the Bulgarian side (with which we share hundreds of kms of the Danube) and making a statement afterwards about how the Danube should be made easier to navigate (i.e. a strong hint made to the European Union to send us money to do that). If that indeed were to happen (i.e. if the Danube would be made easier to navigate) then the Ukrainians would be able to send a large part of their exports to Central and even Western Europe (via the Danube-Mainz-Rhine canal) via fluvial ships, at a fraction of the cost they now have to pay doing that using rail and road-transport. That's why (among other things) the Russians have set their eyes so strongly on the Budjak region (i.e. the Ukrainian region just North of the Danube's Delta) and that's why they have bombarded this bridge [2] that leads to that region at least three times in the last few weeks.
> which prevents Russia from reinforcing its Black Sea fleet
After the successful attack on Moskva I'm not even sure it's beneficial to NATO or not. Of course it is in the best interests of Ukrainians to keep these ships at bay, but from NATO's point of view this could be an excellent occasion to make some significant blows at Russian fleet.
> which is essentially a proxy war between Russia and NATO
This is kind of like seeing WW2 pre PH as a proxy war between the USA and Germany....
Ukraine is clearly a part in this war, as they have shown by their heroic ability to resist.
Nato is clearly on Ukraine's side.
You are right that NATO benefits greatly from still having Turkey on the team, though. Also, I think Turkey is not super supportive of Putins's attempts to annext territory by force and/or vassalize their neighbours through invasions.
Next time, they could annex Georgia, and I'm pretty sure that would be seen as a grave threat by Turkey.
It would be a serious problem for NATO if a pro-Russian Hungary could basically act as a fifth column and cripple NATO by vetoing everything. There simply has to be a process to kick out insincere members.
The issue with kicking out members is that it starts a precedent. The idea is that NATO got your back if you're in, you won't get kicked out if your membership starts being inconvenient, and that the other members will act when Article 5 is invoked.
This argument goes both ways though, I suppose. NATO has your back and you have to have NATO's back. If Hungary start dicking about then things wont go well for them, I think.
> idea is that NATO got your back if you're in, you won't get kicked out if your membership starts being inconvenient, and that the other members will act when Article 5 is invoked
None of that is violated by kicking someone out before they are attacked.
That's true, but NATO isn't the be-all and end-all of European mutual defence, for example there's also the Northern Group of countries, which even includes Sweden and Finland. NATO is the ultimate fallback defence pact, but being in NATO in no way prevent countries, in or out of it, from forming their own independent defence arrangements. Just this week Britain's prime minister very publicly guaranteed Britain's commitment to defend both Sweden and Finland.
I have to wonder to what extent the development of these alliances might have been influenced by the concern you raise though, you raise a good point.
Article 5 is the shield that drastically decreases the amount of nuclear weapons European nations need to deploy, because USSR / Russian inventories are balanced out by American inventories, if it comes to all-out war.
Consequently, the world as a whole is a lot safer because {flight time Russia-US} >> {flight time Europe-Russia}, which allows for additional fail-safe guarantees on weapons that there wouldn't otherwise be a time budget for.
> Consequently, the world as a whole is a lot safer because {flight time Russia-US} >> {flight time Europe-Russia},
The US stations some of its nukes in Europe, so the flight time is less than you think.
Also, it is widely believed that the US has an “understanding” with certain European countries that in extreme circumstances (aka World War III) the US will hand those nukes over to the host countries, and then the host country governments will decide for themselves what use to make of them. In part, this helps discourage nuclear proliferation-Germany or the Netherlands don’t need to make their own nuclear weapons because they know if they ever really need them, Uncle Sam will help them acquire them real real fast (“here’s the keys to the safe, good luck”)
US nuclear weapons in Europe are in a stored posture, and have substantial procedures required for their release to their host countries' air forces.
As far as I know, the US hasn't stationed M/IRBM or nuclear cruise missiles in Europe since the early-60s Jupiter MRBM [0] and GLCM [1] were withdrawn.
Short of Turkey committing some highly-publicised genocide its NATO membership is secured, the country's geo-strategic position is too important to just let it go to "the enemy's side".
Stranger things have happened in the last five years, but I don't think Orban will be stupid enough to act so openly to Russia's benefit. Plausible deniability seems to be the game so far.
This is an old article (22/2). Ever since, he has several times refused to back the EU on sanctions and instead adopted a very selfish/nationalist stance. He went as far as to declare Zelensky an opponent after winning the election[0].
Hungary is on the wrong side of the conflict at this point in history.
Hungary has backed all sanctions against Russia except oil, which Hungary relies too heavily on. So far, Hungary has accepted 700,000 refugees from Ukraine. There's really no evidence that he supports Russia's invasion, or that he would veto Finland and Sweden's application to NATO. It really seems like some people here don't like him due to unrelated policy reasons and just want to drum up negative sentiment.
At the same time, Hungary did not allow transfer of military aid to Ukraine thorough or over its territory. Not speaking of providing any military aid of its own.
They also said that russian energy ties are harmful. They also said that Russian energy ties are essential. They also said that they want Euro for the Hungarian economy. They also said that switching to Euro is no good for the Hungarian economy. They said that the EU membership is important to Hungary. They also said that Brussels is the enemy. They stated that liberalism is a core value for them. They also stated that they are illiberal. They said that the rule of law is a core value in Hungary. Thay also said that the definition of rule of law is undetermined.
Mr Orban also said that 'do not listen to what I say, watch only what I'm doing'.
"in this sense, the new state that we are building is an illiberal state, a non-liberal state. It does not deny foundational values of liberalism, as freedom, etc.. But it does not make this ideology a central element of state organization, but applies a specific, national, particular approach in its stead."
"Let us confidently declare that Christian democracy is not liberal. Liberal democracy is liberal, while Christian democracy is, by definition, not liberal: it is, if you like, illiberal." (Orban then stands that up on three pillars: prioritizing Christian culture, being anti-immigration, and the Christian family model.)
Question: when Orban says “liberal” or “illiberal”, what does he actually mean by those terms?
Worth keeping in mind that Americans and Europeans (especially Continentals/non-Anglophones) may have rather different definitions of “liberal”: “American conservatism, with its Lockean roots, is—from a Continental point of view—not really conservatism, but rather, old-school liberalism.” [0]
Similarly: what’s the difference between a “neoconservative” and a “neoliberal”? The terms have a lot of overlap, many people could be equally described by both: but if a neoconservative can also be a neoliberal, then what’s the difference between “conservative” and “liberal”?
And then I remember that I come from a country whose main “conservative” party is called the “Liberal Party of Australia” (or just “the Liberals” for short). Many of its members and leaders will defend the apparent contradiction by saying “We are conservatives, but we are also classical liberals”-a line I’ve also heard from right-of-centre Americans.
See also “conservative liberalism” [1] - which of course is obviously a very different thing from “liberal conservatism” [2]
Anyway, the point is that he is unrealiable, unpredictable, misleading. Apart from the above obvious ones there are countless further examples when he pretended, lied, mislead, did not do what he told will do. It would take very long time to compile a fairly comprehensive list from throughout the years, these are just rapid and random selections. He is basically communicate and act similar to Putin.
It's too easy to sleep happily in oblivion. Yet the russia's war against Ukraine effectively started 8 years ago in 2014 with annexation of Crimea and invasion of Donbas region. No NATO mentions were anywhere at the time, it was the Budapest memorandum that supposedly was 'reassuring' safeties for Ukraine and was also signed by russia...
Land and resources grab is what drives russia's objectives. Has been like that since the empire times - this state is stuck in the obsolete colonialization mindset but now even without ideology to offer (no one can sanely consider the 'russification' aka 'russian world' as ideology).
The whole Western world has not been sleeping happily since the start of Cold war - the russia's nukes have not been detargeted, and now are being openly used for strike intimidation once again.
It only points out that russia simply is unable to integrate into the modern world, neither politically nor economically. The only choice (barring its own implosion) is containment, thus NATO is relevant again, as so far there are no viable options especially for the neigboring states, just as for Finland and Sweden.
But allowing or wishing that only the smart ones like you would vote would nullify the benefit of a democracy and create a place where only one idea is represented and it would be absolutist no? In democracy also the interests of the idiots like me need to be represented because I also live in the society no? We have tried aristocracy and it didn’t work?
Joining NATO is literally in the Ukrainian constitution. It is not optional, attempting to join is a requirement of the government of Ukraine and not working toward that end would be unconstitutional.
> Tell them that if their president didn't say he wanted to join NATO
Ukraine already applied to NATO. NATO's adherence to it's own acceptance rules are purely political. NATO did not accept Ukraine's application because there were lands in dispute - with Russia - which disqualifies you from membership until it's resolved. NATO obv does not want to accept new members that immediately put the whole organization in a conflict. Other countries, with similar land disputes have been accepted, but that's largely because none of the contesting countries were Russia.
It doesnt take decades to for NATO to accept a country. The org has been dragging it's feet because it didn't want to trigger the likely Ukraine conflict and be involved in it directly.
I don't disagree with any of this but none of it disagrees with my position, either. It's still a goal they're obligated, legally, to work towards as a government.
At the moment that means expelling Russian invaders first, because NATO will not accept countries in the middle of a territorial dispute with Russia, for obvious reasons.
Geez, I'm on Ukraine's side, but "It's in this document so we have no option but to do it" is not a valid argument. For what reason is it in the constitution, when did it get in, then you can make a substantive argument.
What next, should I write "the bank has to give me $1M" on a piece of paper and show it to the bank teller?
The document states that the government is to work towards joining NATO. The document in question happens to be law in Ukraine. If they don't work that direction they're breaking the law. If Ukrainian's don't like that they can amend their constitution, but it is unfair to post what I replied to without recognizing the fact that this is a legal duty of government officials of Ukraine.
> What next, should I write "the bank has to give me $1M" on a piece of paper and show it to the bank teller?
That might be a reasonable analogy if the constitution declared that they must be a NATO member—-asserting that it can obligate an outside entity into taking a particular action. But, it does not do that.
Do you know why everyone hates Nazis? I mean the real Nazis, not the wannabe Nazis that exist in pretty much every European nation right now including Russia. It's because they dehumanized their opponents. You're doing the same thing with your statement. You're not alone, and what you do is common, and people's reaction to it seems to be full of double standards, but that's what you're doing.
Humans are humans. Right now I really worry about the people in Ukraine. I really worry about the people in Russia. I really worry about the people in every other area of conflict. This is called empathy. A lack of it is pretty much the only reason these conflicts gain traction. Try to be empathetic to the other humans you share the planet with.
The war which is coming
Is not the first one. There were
Other wars before it.
When the last one came to an end
There were conquerors and conquered.
Among the conquered the common people
Starved. Among the conquerors
The common people starved too.
Brecht
I worry about people and US does not otherwise they wouldn’t be feeding it with free weapons, it’s a matter of power and influence, don’t tell me you care about The people when US killed kids in Iraq and jailed journalists reporting it, fuck US
> I highly doubt that any of NATO's members will veto an application from Finland (or Sweden).
The big questions are over Hungary and Turkey; Hungary because Orbán is somewhat pro-Russian and has opposed some EU and NATO moves already wrt Ukraine, and Erdogan for somewhat similar reasons, and because he has publicly stated that he is not in favor of Sweden and Finland joining.
OTOH, I think the general expectation is that those are surmountable issues.
And almost immediately thereafter the Prime Minister of Croatia said "That's not in the hands of the President, Parliament decides that, and we ain't gonna veto". And presumably he has a majority in Parliament, or he wouldn't have that job. (Sorry, no source -- TV news the same or next day, IIRC.)
I mean, from TFA:
> Croatian President Zoran Milanović on Tuesday said he would block the admission of Sweden and Finland at the NATO summit in Madrid if he is the one representing Croatia
If he is representing Croatia, and the country's decisions are made by Parliament (the President "has a say" in foreign policy), then isn't his job there only to re-present what Parliament has decided?
The Croatian president is stupid (as is the Prime Minister, fwiw), with little actual power, and spewing things left and right to make himself more relevant.
Thankfully, Croatia doesn't have any real influence in NATO so nobody will be obliged to listen to that stupidity.
You know what bugs me about Croatia. Everyone complains about how terrible it is, politicians are stupid and corrupt, nepotism everywhere, etc etc and please leave somewhere better as soon as you can, but then when you do the tune changes and now it is the nicest place on Earth with natural beauty and beaches and good life and come back as soon as you can. It's a real conundrum.
Croatia really has natural beauty. It has gorgeous beaches. Those beaches are usually overcrowded and in many places turned into concrete slabs. It has good life, unless you can't find a decent job. It has free healthcare, in which you wait a year for an urgent medical examination. It has low taxes (10% capital gains tax! 0% LTCG!) but extensive red tape and extremely inefficient bureaucracy and judicial system.
Corruption is a way of life (ask your grandma if it's decent to visit a doctor without a gift). Politics is a joke to such an extreme Boris Johnson looks like a Stoic philosopher. He partied during COVID restrictions, right? Well, our Minister of Health partied during COVID restrictions he invoked, and nothing, whatsoever, happened.
We're like that country in Tropico (the game), only in real life. Even on a map, if you squint, we look like a banana country.
Still, we've free speech, we're fairly well integrated into the EU (barring some unforseen problem, like, dunno, a war on a doorstep, maybe we'll even adopt the Euro next year), we're pretty safe. Child-care is inexpensive, schools are okay for the most part, public universities are free, and if you work in a well-paid industry (like tech, which is booming), it can be a good life.
> It has low taxes (10% capital gains tax! 0% LTCG!)
Besides capital gains and corporate income, Croatia has some of the heaviest income taxes in the world (up to 45%), and i think the highest VAT tax in EU (25%)
What's also strange is that drone flew over a couple of other NATO countries before entering Croatian air space and somehow it wasn't shot down, intercepted, etc. The circumstances around that drone are rather vague and seem to be kept so on purpose.
Given that Russia directly, intentionally, and provably shot down a plane full of Dutch nationals, lied about it, and escaped major sanction let alone active war, I think it's fairly safe to say that an almost surely accidental airspace incursion almost surely caused by a technical error, of unclear national origin, that could have been from a presumptive ally, probably wouldn't have caused WW3 even if it landed in Berlin instead of Zagreb.
> Yeah. If that happened in Berlin, we'd have WW3 by now.
Had that happened in any other nation surrounding Ukraine that would have been the case, too; it's odd why they let that slip. Are we really to believe that if Serbia decided to attack again on some absurd notion of Russian loyalty or whatever they wouldn't defend Croatia despite being a NATO member?
In complete agreement with above; same source. Ever since he became a president, he's been spewing crap everywhere, and daily spats with/at prime minister (who's a special kind of "tool" , of course) or whoever would be the flavour of the day, are essentially "his normal" now.
This is coming up a lot lately but folks don't seem to realize (as noted by others) that the Croat president has no power here, it is up to the legislature. I do not understand how so fundamental a point is lost regarding this.
Boy I have good news for you! If you are worried of the finance of Finland joining NATO - This will be a strategic partnership, not aid.
It's a "good deal" for both sides.
Finland will be an asset for NATO, not a cost. We already have a credible NATO compatible military. We just don't have nukes, and in wartime materiel replenishment would be a problem.
As an American living in Germany and paying taxes to both, welcome and willkommen - heard nothing but good things about the Finnish Army while working for ours over here.
64 F-35 at my calculations comes at approximately 5 Billion dollars, this is excluding spare parts and training. Finland military complete spending/defense budget for 2019 was $3.97B.
Edit: Actually it seems my calculations where off by 50%. This will cost you 10 Billion...
The Finnish defense budget for 2022 was €5.1bn, but I am sure they bumped it up after the Russian invasion. The overall cost of the F-35 acquisition is €8.378bn (jet fighter cost being €4.703bn of that). Naturally, such acqusitions are done gradually (e.g. over a few years).
Of course it will be spent over time, but we are talking about a single weapons system, unproven in combat so far, that represents four times the overall annual defense budget of Finland for Army, Air Force and Navy.
There was an open tender with all of the current/next gen western suppliers participating, with analysis comparing the capabilities of Eurofighter, Rafale, F-18 E/F, Jas Gripen, F-35 and their adjunct systems including weapon systems, tactical integration and their capability for several decades.
Finnish air-force is quite professional and skilled in what it does.
As a software geek I presume they spent the money wisely and with sufficient knowledge of what they are doing. Norway has 24 F-35:s in operation so if there were obvious deficiencies those would likely have been heard over the grapevine as nordic forces are quite close.
Never seen combat and when trying to do a dogfight with a F16 lost. This was promptly followed by a series of articles from US defense industry stating that nowadays dogfights don't happen anymore, contrarily to what we are seeing in Ukraine, plus arguments that the fight was not fair.
The reality is that the fight was not fair for the F16 that was loaded with two external fuel tanks, probably to make sure there was no way it could win.
The latest arguments are the F35 did not have yet all the latest software, but for me it's telling the fight was not re-staged again...
> Can you describe what you mean by this? Are you suggesting that no F-35 has ever been used in combat operations?
Yes. Complete zero air superiority combat missions as with the exception of bombing a few ISIS tunnels. But as this article from 2021 mentions, its not combat if the enemy can't shoot back.
"...The United States has been at war continuously since Sept. 11, 2001, yet the F-35 has flown zero combat missions. Zero. When I was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne, we would say: “That dog don’t hunt.” Perhaps sensitive to the F-35’s disgraceful war record, in 2018 the Pentagon sent a few on missions in Afghanistan and Iraq to notch up combat cred. Never mind that their help comes 15 years too late; the super-expensive F-35 was not designed to take out a weapons cache or a terrorist on a moped. Also, as any grunt will tell you, it’s not “combat” if the enemy can’t shoot back. If engine failure is the biggest threat to survival, then the F-35 might as well be flying over Kansas..."
"...The F-35 was flying “clean,” with no weapons in its bomb bay or under its wings and fuselage. The F-16, by contrast, was hauling two bulky underwing drop tanks, putting the older jet at an aerodynamic disadvantage..."
"...But the JSF’s advantage didn’t actually help in the end. The stealth fighter proved too sluggish to reliably defeat the F-16, even with the F-16 lugging extra fuel tanks. “Even with the limited F-16 target configuration, the F-35A remained at a distinct energy disadvantage for every engagement,” the pilot reported..."
"And when the pilot of the F-16 turned the tables on the F-35, maneuvering to put the stealth plane in his own gunsight, the JSF jockey found he couldn’t maneuver out of the way, owing to a “lack of nose rate.”"
"...The F-35 pilot came right out and said it — if you’re flying a JSF, there’s no point in trying to get into a sustained, close turning battle with another fighter. “There were not compelling reasons to fight in this region.” God help you if the enemy surprises you and you have no choice but to turn..."
> Be careful, we're getting close to sounding conspiratorial and we want to make sure to avoid that, because we can't have a discussion at that point.
Did they re-stage the fight? No
I provided my sources. Yeah...very conspiratorial...
> I provided my sources. Yeah...very conspiratorial...
As I said, you are approaching that with this idea that the F-35 is this big cover-up. It can't "fight", etc. etc. and I just do not have any interest in treading water near that discussion. It's not at all interesting or valuable in any way.
Anyway:
> Yes. Complete zero air superiority combat missions as with the exception of bombing a few ISIS tunnels. But as this article from 2021 mentions, its not combat if the enemy can't shoot back.
> "...The United States has been at war continuously since Sept. 11, 2001, yet the F-35 has flown zero combat missions. Zero. When I was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne, we would say: “That dog don’t hunt.” Perhaps sensitive to the F-35’s disgraceful war record, in 2018 the Pentagon sent a few on missions in Afghanistan and Iraq to notch up combat cred. Never mind that their help comes 15 years too late; the super-expensive F-35 was not designed to take out a weapons cache or a terrorist on a moped. Also, as any grunt will tell you, it’s not “combat” if the enemy can’t shoot back. If engine failure is the biggest threat to survival, then the F-35 might as well be flying over Kansas..."
Just because the F-35 hasn't flown an air-to-air combat mission doesn't mean that it hasn't been involved in combat. You're misunderstanding the role of the aircraft here and defining combat in such a way that unless there's an exact engagement that fits your criteria it can't possible be combat. That's not how anyone in the military actually understands combat. It's not binary, but a matter of degrees.
So not only has the F-35 flown combat missions, the missions it has flown which haven't been dogfights are exactly the kind of missions it was designed for. It's a multi-role fighter, there are different variants for different purposes, including battlefield C&C and target identification where the F-35 isn't even expected to engage but instead use sensors and identify enemy aircraft.
> My source are US F35 pilots...Note how somebody tried to undermine the F16 ( And airplane from the 80's) in the test
That doesn't make anyone an expert. I'm a military veteran - I just have an opinion on the systems I use. It's still an anecdote. Anyway here's another anecdote which contradicts your anecdotes.
"“I was at Edwards Air Force Base when the test pilots were there and they were writing that original report. It’s been the narrative ever since and I want to say a few things about that. . . . First of all, it should be noted the aircraft (F-35) was in its infancy stages and we were still just trying to learn how to fly the airplane,” Chris “Worm” Spinelli, an F-35 test pilot for Lockheed Martin, told the National Interest. “The entire CLAW [Flight Control Laws] hadn’t been delivered yet so the guys hadn’t really developed tactics, techniques, and procedures, etc. So to say that the F-35 can’t Basic Flight Maneuver [a term for dogfight], I think, is a gross overstatement. Honestly, you know I think it would be quite eye-opening to see an F-35 and an F-16 in a BFM engagement, depending on how it was managed. Certainly, the F-35 has some advantages that the F-16 does not, particularly in its helmet integration, along with its advanced weapons, which are a lot more beneficial in platforms like the F-22 or F-35.”"
The problem here is that you are thinking about aircraft in conventional terms. To the author and this pilot's point, the F-35's goal is to not even engage in a dogfight. It's like arguing that an Army Ranger is a crappy soldier because they can't beat a samurai 1-1. Can a dogfight happen? Sure. But you shoot from far away and the samurai doesn't even know what hit them.
> Did they re-stage the fight? No
Do you know of every single thing that the US military does? Do they publish all reports 100% accurately? Maybe they're publishing info like this so that rival forces feel secure in not upgrading their aircraft? There's no value in re-staging this exact scenario.
tl;dr you are implying that these is this big cover-up and the F-35 can't "beat" a 40+ year old platform and all of this stuff and basing it off of, frankly, no real evidence. You don't know what you're talking about. I don't really know either, but I'm not making strong claims here.
I am familiar with article you posted and others that, as I mentioned before, argue the F-35 did not have the latest software. Mostly the argument has always been, it does not matter because in modern air combat dogfight don't happen anymore. The fight in Ukraine is showing exactly the opposite.
The article you posted was written as a first person account, by a non military Pilot, ex-FoxNews reporter, ex-CNN reporter, ex-Pentagon procurement expert. I quoted the actual F-35 pilot involved in the dogfight with the F-16.
The overall F-35 program is bigger than the PIB of some countries, so from the beginning when the bad news started to come up, there was a strong incentive to
present the program on a certain way.
This post was dead when I stumbled upon it. I don't agree with it, for the obvious reasons, including the fact that I'm not American. Yet, my understanding is that this kind of opinion is shared by a large number of US citizens. I don't believe censoring it is the correct way to deal with it - it's not even off-topic as we discuss NATO membership in the first place.
An account created 24 days ago using talking points generally considered incorrect and inflammatory and the account name is literally named "donthellbanme"? And that is whom you chose to give the benefit of the doubt?
Yes. Before vouching, I skimmed their "comments" page. In my opinion, 90% of the posts there were flagged unfairly.
Being incorrect or even inflammatory is not a crime. Being unable to voice your opinion just because it makes other people go "yuck" when they hear them is not something I would like to promote or support.
Regarding the nick, my guess is that the author opinions have been controversial for some time, and they probably were banned for voicing them before. After a third time I can see myself making an account with similar name - at least if I was stubborn enough to try again.
Downvote the GP and ignore them all you want - you can fold their comment along with the whole subtree below it - but don't flag the posts. As you can see, if you bothered to read, there's a lot of fact-based refutations offered by other users in this subthread. These are better weapons against disinformation (if it's that) than pretending people believing that disinformation don't exist, and moving them out of sight, and out of mind.
To be honest, I wouldn't be writing this if it was a few weeks ago. I probably wouldn't even have bothered with vouching, and definitely wouldn't spent time reviewing the comment history. I'm lazy, after all. Unfortunately, someone here linked an essay[1] by pg and it changed my mind. We need more, not less, incorrect and inflammatory voices, because sometimes, someone from the flock of crooks actually is right. And we all lose if they're right but keep it to themselves.
Do large amount of Americans think that " We all know Russia will win."? Also, Finland builds its army? As in, NATO seems to be so eager on Finland joining cause they think they will gain something too.
I’m an American. For many decades the idea that the U.S. props up the rest of world at the expense of focusing on our people has been a strong one. It was very strong going into the 80s but has becomes less so since then. It is still used from time to time galvanize right leaning people. There is a strong isolationist bent within the U.S. too.
I do believe Trump was correct to criticize the lack of defense spending by many NATO countries and I too think Europeans should largely defend themselves. Personally I favor a multi polar world and would like the U.S. to retreat so to speak.
European countries will only spend money on defense when they calculate it as a necessity. During the cold war the Netherlands had a tank division stationed in Germany waiting for the Red Army to invade.
And I want to emphasize DEFENSE. Not "invade other countries in trillion dollar regime change operations".
It was US Congress that signed off on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
I support an imperial retreat by the U.S. I strongly disagree with the the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and our policies against Iran, and our support for numerous brutual regimes. Unchecked power is dangerous and it’s time for the U.S. to engage is isolationism once again. The EU will need to learn to either strengthen federalism and defend itself or remain reliant of the U.S. military tit. I prefer the former option.
Vouched this not because I agree with it, but because I feel it deserves a reply.
You should note that even Trump held Finland as a counterexample to European NATO countries that don't pull their own weight.
Finland is not a country that spends all it's money on social programs and doesn't have a military. Instead, we still have mandatory male conscription, and a very well-armed reserve.
Historically, we have trusted our defense in the principle of being strong enough that even if we knew that the Soviets/Russians could eventually beat us, the costs we could inflict on them would massively outweigh any possible benefit from conquering us. This no longer works because in Ukraine Putin has shown that he does not do cost/benefit analysis for his foreign policy.
I was only presenting an American view regarding the notion of “we pay for others at our own expense”. Trumps comments were directed at NATO members and not Finland or Sweden. He also famously said South Korea and Japan needed to spend more.
My personal view on the matter is that I support an imperial retreat by the U.S. The EU needs to listen more to the Baltics regarding defense and foreign policy.
Hmm, wonder how many billions European/NATO-countries/Australia have spent of their own money in an effort to help the US on its somewhat 20 year long misguided war on terror...
That being said, I understand the american feelings about this, as a lot of stuff have had the wrong priorities in the US for a long time, which I would argue is an internal matter and nothing to do with NATO (or its members).
The U.S. hasn’t criticized British defense spending as far as I know. Yes other countries have spent money on our misadventures. They do so, as one Australian put it to me, because if someone is going to be a hyper power you could do a lot worse than have it be the U.S. In exchange for our protection other countries do support us.
I support a more isolationist U.S. policy. It’s time for America to engage in an imperial retreat.
Tho, some of that "defense" were invasions on false pretense. What americans do in Ukraine is great and they deserve all the credit. But, some of past wars were less great.
>"For many decades the idea that the U.S. props up the rest of world ..."
It does not do it for free. It gets many benefits from "the rest of the world". Like buying US debt, trading oil in US dollars, access to cheap labor, bigger market etc. etc. Nothing of what it does is "free". This giant war spending also helps them to bomb other countries into oblivion when they feel like.
Yes. I was just commenting on how Americans see things. As a people we are extremely ignorant of international matters and don’t take into account that our over sized military does pay dividends. I don’t agree that those dividends are worthwhile anymore though. We are a nation with a first class military, first class level of cultural influence, first class level of soft and hard power that has second rate social programs. I would like that to be reversed.
Funny thing is, the USA isn't "paying for everything".
The people who whine about NATO members "not paying enough" seem to think all the other NATO countries have got rid of their armies and are defended only by US troops permanently stationed there. That's not how it works: They all have their own defense forces. Trump was whining that those are not big enough (and he was probably even [at least mainly] right there), but that just means that if there is a war in any NATO country, it will only be able to do "too small a part" in its own defense, and the other ones (yes, given their size, mainly the USA) will have to help more than they otherwise would. But until that happens, this "missing money" doesn't actually come out of any US budget; it's just not being spent at all.
For once, not even "just another one of Trump's lies", but certainly a huge over-simplification by / for the more naïve of his followers.
>> But until that happens, this "missing money" doesn't actually come out of any US budget; it's just not being spent at all.
(Fyi Not American.) That seems wrong, because America does already spend so much on their Military budget to have a 'preventative' presence plus standing force ready to respond. They spend each year keeping that force built, trained, operating etc .. regardless of if it's used.
That seems pretty obvious too, I don't know if your argument was made in good faith?
> "But until that happens, this "missing money" doesn't actually come out of any US budget; it's just not being spent at all."
That's like saying a 4WD SUV, which is much heavier because it can in theory go off road at any time, doesn't burn any extra fuel if you never take it off road. Maintaining the capability to send a huge expeditionary force to Europe at any time is mind-bendingly expensive.
Wasn't Trump specifically complaining about many NATO members not seriously working towards the 2% of their GDPs they were expected to spend on defense?
Which was also in the news around February since Germany seriously committed to meeting that requirement in response to Ukraine, thus effectively saying that he was not all too unreasonable to demand that?
I agree with you. Sadly you sometimes see comments being downvoted not because of the quality of the argument, the technical correctness of the analysis or validity of the logic arguments. Instead because they are presenting a less popular view.
Minority should be respected just as much as the majority. Downvotes make "less popular views" also less readable and promote a "tyranny of the majority" which is bad.
If downvotes did not affect the visibility and were called "disagree" it would be fair. Instead they serve as a mob's club in my opinion.
But will Russia really win? As of the last that I saw, Ukraine was doing remarkably well in getting Russian forces to pull back from many positions they initially captured, and what they have captured has cost them considerably. A German invasion of Poland this is definitely not in terms of agility. It's more like Italy's invasion of Greece, but without a bigger power to step in and take the reins. Putin can try other means of pressure, or go all out, but so far, the former isn't very visible and the latter will prove much costlier, even if he somehow takes a majority percentage of Ukraine. In other words, even if he did pull off exactly that, what then? How much would it cost to continuously occupy a country of 48 million largely hostile people? Remember what the U.S. occupation of Iraq cost? For how long could the 10x smaller Russian economy sustain anything close to such an expense bill while maintaining a friendly puppet regime, let alone directly occupying territory?
Well- if they cement their hold on the separatist regions, expand them a little, and ensure a fresh water supply for Crimea, they can probably spin it as a win and declare victory.
Ukraine is also suffering a lot from this war, even if they don't mention it much. They will feel a lot of pressure to accept a smaller Ukraine in exchange for peace.
All indications are that Russia and Putin simply can't allow Ukraine to win. Their attempt at (probably) Blitzkrieg and regime change failed, and of course they don't have the resources to occupy Ukraine.
So instead, unless Ukraine acceeds to their demands, they will get more and more bloody and bomb it to the ground. If that is the only course of action afforded to them, that is what they will do - as they have done in Afghanistan and Chechnya before.
This is monstrous and disturbing, but doing otherwise is seen as an existential threat to Russia. They have already shown they lack the power to pose any kind of threat to NATO (beyond nukes of course), so their only hope is to go all in on this.
There appear to be more nuanced balances than that. Putin avoided escalating the war via an explicit and public mobilization on May 9th, yet he certainly doesn't think he can easily win with the forces on hand.
Consequently, he must feel as though a public mobilization would have a higher risk (public opinion?) than reward (additional military manpower?).
In lieu of an influx of manpower, the existing Russian forces seem destined to grind down over time, both in terms of personnel and materiel.
IMO, he annexes Kherson-Crimea-Mariupol-Donbas, and calls it a victory.
Unfortunately, Kherson is still semi-resistant, Mariupol still (somehow!!) has active defenders, and ~1/3 of Donbas is still under Ukrainian control.
Donbas also has the misfortune of being an explicitly delineated area... so there's less wiggle room to redefine it as the portions already under Russian control.
And it's unclear that the Ukrainians would accept the above under any terms. Maybe "give us this and the rest of the country can join NATO"? But Kherson & Mariupol seem huge sticking points.
So the most likely outcome is that the war grinds on, with Russia attempting to achieve the above goals, Ukraine continuing to stubbornly resist (with NATO armaments and supply), and Russia continues to launch long-range strikes against western Ukrainian industry to increase pressure for peace. Which is to say, ugly.
Notice who is pushing the narrative of Russia bogged down - journalists, politicians and their nominees, economists, and people with an active career in the military. There are also some dissidents in the West pushing the opposite narrative - ex-marine, retired intelligence officer, weapons inspector, colonel from a neutral country. Which group knows more about how a modern war is waged? Which group has a better track record so far? Which group openly admits they're releasing unverified claims in order to shape the public opinion?
> How much would it cost to continuously occupy a country of 48 million largely hostile people
If Russia limits the territorial acquisition to Russian-speaking regions, they'll be fine. Minorities are almost always strongly in support of unification with their nation-state. Some historical examples - 77% of Sudeten Germans voted for Nazi Sudetendeutsche Partei. 99.7% of Austrians voted for unification with Germany in 1938 referendum. 95.6% of Crimeans voted for unification with Russia. 95.7% of Cypriots voted for unification with Greece in 1950
> There are also some dissidents in the West pushing the opposite narrative - ex-marine, retired intelligence officer, weapons inspector, colonel from a neutral country.
And above all, right-wing kooks, useful idiots, and outright Putler trolls. Quite a few of the people you mention also seem to belong to at least one of these categories.
> Notice who is pushing the narrative of Russia bogged down - journalists, politicians and their nominees, economists, and people with an active career in the military.
> There are also some dissidents in the West pushing the opposite narrative - ex-marine, retired intelligence officer
> Which group knows more about how a modern war is waged?
Ahem...
> Which group has a better track record so far?
Well, not the ones who said "This will be over in less than a week!" eleven weeks ago.
Even Ukraine said they aren’t interested in fighting for the eastern parts of the country because the local population will likely be hostile and make
their jobs much harder.
They are strictly focusing on preventing any greater expansion than what happened prior to the invasion.
There are arguments that Mariupol and maybe even Kherson have a relatively large pro-Russian population compared to other parts but I still believe they want to protect them regardless since they aren’t nearly as large as the more eastern parts and it blocks access to the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea ports.
> Even Ukraine said they aren’t interested in fighting for the eastern parts of the country because the local population will likely be hostile and make their jobs much harder.
Source?
This is simply not the case, their is intense fighting in the Donbas region by both UA and Foreign legions, and places like Bucha and Kharkiv are all on the East and are all subject to the indiscriminate shelling of residential areas of mainly Ethic Russian Ukrainian citizens in what are some of the worst crimes against of Humanity seen since maybe the Croatian-Serbian conflict.
These places may not be as nationalistic as Lviv, very few places are in fact, but it would be absolutely foolish to say that considering this [0] was just released last month which specifically states it's intention to de-occucpy Crimea from Russia.
And after what is seen in Bucha, Irpin, Kharviv, Mariupol etc... there are no Russian speaking regions who think they are going to be spared from the indiscriminate and needless death they have seen of women, children, men. They now see them for the violent murderers that they are. Those that remained probably left for Russia.
Even the dissenters posting on social media are being tracked down by the Ukrainian military and being arrested/detained which honestly is fucking terrifying, but consistent with it's actual intended use--State surveillance.
This isn't 2014 anymore, where it was mainly the Azov holding off things in the Donbas against Russian sponsored separatists and sympathizers, things have drastically changed and while I doubt loyalty is 100% to he Ukrainian government it's really crazy how united that country has gotten since the invasion. I had mixed feelings of Azov because of how they violently dealt with Russian-leaning supporters back in 2014, but after what they've done in Mariupol it goes to show that it's not something they tolerate any longer. They sacrificed themselves in order to protect them in the steel mill and are bravely still the only thing left from total Russian occupation of Mariupol.
People around here don't know this but Bitcoiners were some of the first non Government affiliated volunteers in Ukraine to help back in 2013 during the Maidan Revolution and then 2014 for the war in the Donbas. This is where our technology got battle tested for real, hence why it has played such a pivotal role in distribution for funds when the Ukrainian Central Bank suspended withdraws of UAH on the day of the invasion just as it did during the capital controls and hyper inflation in 2013/14.
I won't go into a tirade about it, but this is why many of us Bitcoiners get so upset when we hear some misinformed arm-chair coder in the comfort of his apartment in SV tells us why 'bitcoin doesn't matter, no one uses it' type diatribes. It's a waste of my time but all it's all there for people to see that it was critical in both 2014 and 2022 to support Ukraine.
And the fact that you can make such blatantly misinformed statements reflects the level of ignorance on all of the aforementioned topics.
I'm honestly curious, how did/are bitcoiners using BTC and crypto tech to help people in these regions? What's the methodology? And also for actually spending/using the coins.
Also, from your wider comment, by the way you phrased it, I can't quite tell who you're saying is shelling ethnically Russian men, women and children in these areas a crime against humanity, the Ukrainian military or the Russians?
> I'm honestly curious, how did/are bitcoiners using BTC and crypto tech to help people in these regions? What's the methodology? And also for actually spending/using the coins.
Start here [0], this discusses BTC involvement in the Maidan Revolution, and then the come back alive campaign with the Azov in the Donbas region in 2014, and then touches on the Government backed initiative by the Ukrainian Ministry of digital reform in '22. Ultimately, the Zelensky government backed the creation of United24 with BTC at it's core.
It's worth doing your own research, I can assure you it's really worth your time to see how effective open source technology can boot-strap itself so quickly in conflict zones. Ultimately, it's a testament of Human ingenuity and perseverance in some of the most daunting situations.
> Also, from your wider comment, by the way you phrased it, I can't quite tell who you're saying is shelling ethnically Russian men, women and children in these areas a crime against humanity, the Ukrainian military or the Russians?
Sorry?
Even if you were completely lost by what I wrote, are you seriously not aware of what is happening in Crimea, Kharkiv, Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol? It's Russians killing other Ethnic Russians on the Eastern and Southern parts of Ukraine; then turning around and saying it's Ukrainians killing their own citizens as we see Russian soldiers shell, loot, steal, rape, murder all over Ukraine without any hesitation or regard for Human life.
>I'm just tired of the USA paying for everything when we don't have the money.
It's not like the rest of the world is forcing USA to spend so much on military. Apparently USA just wants to be military superpower.
>We all know Russia will win.
I don't. There is no military victory in sight for Russia as long as supplies keep flowing to Ukraine. Putin can't back up but someone else can, even if they shared Putin's ideology because they can blame Putin for failure. War ends after Putin is displaced or dies.
So many things to comment on this, but I'll just address two points.
One. Finland has not been phoning it in. There's a reason Russia has not invaded Finland after they we pushed the fuckers back during WW II. This is not remotely a case of the USA taking care of Finland's defense against russia. I invite you to participate in some of our joint military exercises to find out how things work over here.
Two. Russia cannot win. It has become painfully clear that their outdated mob-run cleptocracy of untrained looters cannot possibly win any type of war. Even with Russia's military doctrine where “send more men” is the main strategy, they cannot win. The math is clear. Russia simply does not have the power to win in any meaningful way.
I don't know how other people feel. I'm as frequent on Reddit as on HN but the rules are stricter on HN than on most subreddits. It is highly doubtful that calling names could be good for "communicating the right messages." In any case, if you don't want to abide to HN's rules, then please go somewhere else!
How can Russia pressure and disrupt the process when NATO members are the ones most afraid of Putin? Finland's doing this only because of Russia's actions.
I can't imagine anybody vetoing Finland's membership. In fact, the more the merrier^Hstronger.
NATO won't accept members that are entangled in regional conflicts which may turn into wars soon (that's why Ukraine couldn't apply anymore after 2014). So Russia's solution would be to start such a conflict, sooner rather than later.
I think the greater reason for hesitating to accept Ukraine up until now would be their still-unstable democracy and high level of corruption.
When the war is over, it may be that the new-found unity caused by the external threat will be enough for them to reinforce their institutions significantly. This could reach a point that could ensure lasting democracy while enabling them to properly fight/eliminate most corruption. At that point, combined with a peace treaty with Russia, they should be able to Join.
NATO has no problems with unstable democracies and high levels of corruption. It was founded by the US...
More likely, Ukraine after the war will be a massively destroyed country, with widespread poverty and a constant need for western powers to pour money into - and that breeds corruption. The only way forward - should they survive as a nationstate - would be some kind of grotesquely enlarged Marshall Plan - they would become in the 21th century that what Germany was between 1946 and 1990: A military bridgehead and designated battlefield should Russia get another taste for war, with modest economic growth.
The level of destruction happening in Ukraine now is, while still terrible, an order of magnitude less severe than what happened in large parts of Europe during WW2. Many countries had around 10% of the population killed, and for those involved in the fighting, a large fraction where men in their most productive age.
Still, most countries had rebuilt their economy to pre-war levels before 1955, and in many cases around 1950.
Given the very small size of Ukraine's economy, reaching their pre-war level will not take very much. Should they, as I predict, come out of the war as a united nation, able to get rid of most of the corruption, they may be able to massively outperform their pre-war gdp fairly quickly.
If they return to pre-war levels of corruption, no amount of economic aid will bring their economy to western levels.
Ukraine can be paid war reparations with the money confiscated from Russia, including Russian reserves. It might actually boost their economy compared to pre-war situation.
Don't worry, that money is gone. It's already in the coffers of western oligarch-equivalents and shareholders. Did you think all that military hardware we've sent them grew on trees?
Would I, as a Finnish or Swedish lawmaker, trust that promise? The US has not won a war in eighty years, and their shoot first, ask questions later approach may ultimately be more destructive than Russians could ever be.
In Afghanistan an Iraq civilians were collateral damage, they weren't targeted on purpose. Whereas Russia is conducting planned genocide, as evidenced in Bucha and Mariupol.
I think that NATO can't accept new members that are not in control of their own borders; the moment such a new member accedes, NATO would find itself in a state of war.
I'm Finnish, and I'd like to see them try. (and fail (again))
Imagine diverting 50% of Russian troops from Ukraine, where they are already struggling, to another special operation in Finland. Can't see it happening.
They'd have to actually declare war to conscript the whole population and what nonsense could Putin say to sell that to his people at this point?
"It worked" is not the phrase that comes to mind when I think of WWI... yes, where was that outcome, but at the cost of tens of millions of deaths[1], years of trench/chemical warfare, exacerbation of the 1918 pandemic.
If we could avoid its equivalent in the 21st century, that would be good.
They're certainly not Russia-aligned. They've never liked each other, and Turkey has been crucial in strengthening Ukraine's defense with their Bayraktars.
They are not aligned, but they deal with the Ukraine conflict in a very pragmatic way. On the one side they are delivering drones to Ukraine, which have proven to be one of the more effective weapons agains the Russian army, on the other hand they will accept Russian tourists into the country this summer.
IMHO Erdogan still owes Putin a favor for being tipped off on the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt.
There's a subtle difference. The straits weren't "closed", one of the Russian ships was allowed passage because its home port was registered as Sevastopol prior to the present conflict.
"pursuant to the terms of the agreement, Turkey cannot block Russian warships based in the Black Sea from returning to their registered base."
I don't understand what point you are trying to make. Are you saying Turkey should have gone against the rules based international order and blocked Black Sea based ships?
Turkey was under no obligation to do anything. Yet they closed the straits to Russian ships to the extent that they possibly could.
To a populistic loudmouth like he is, he doesn't need a good argument. Also he is trying to relativise war in Ukraine with a lot of Russian style propaganda. Don’t think he has any say in it though. At the same time he is in open conflict for months with the prime minister who wields real power. So if one says one thing the other will say the opposite and call the other bad names. Unfortunately the prime minister is corrupted through and through, as the whole party which forms the government. So citizens are just between the rock and a hard place since the war ended in 1995.
One of the issues of allowing more and more people into NATO, is that potential for fracturing of the alliance increases.
Especially, the original core alliance was very aligned after WWII, politically. However as NATO expands east, the potential for issues down the road grows.
Look at the Ukraine. Let's imagine that this horrible war never happened, Russia never attacked, and that the Ukraine would join NATO in 2023.
Now fast forward to 2030. Russian political games, and influence, has caused the Ukraine to become more aligned with Russia.
What then? Now, the alliance has a detractor of its goals within!
And what of other geopolitical issues? Who will be China's best friend, in 2030?
With the alliance at its original members, it was more tightly aligned.
Now? NATO is becoming far more political.
Perhaps this is apparent to many, but I feel this is not as apparent as it should be. For as NATO becomes stronger physically, with more members, it becomes less strong politically/actively.
An example. If someone attacked Canada or the UK, the original NATO members would have responded instantly.
What about Croatia? Would the response be the same?
> What about Croatia? Would the response be the same?
Yes, without a doubt. Perhaps a little slow, but ultimately the response would be the “same”[1]. The US and UK have existential interest in maintaining NATO.
Croatia and Hungary would be kicked out of NATO before Sweden and Finland would be prevented from joining. At the point of Finland announcing that they will apply, all of the negotiations and box checking are done beforehand. They don’t leave things like this to chance.
Some say “but there is no mechanism for kicking out a member”. It doesn’t matter. The primary NATO members will just have a vote and say you aren’t part of NATO anymore and that would be that.
[1] I’m using “same” here because an attack on the UK or Canada could never be treated as equivalent to an attack on Croatia given the circumstances needed to be attacking those countries and the kinship of the US with those countries. A better way of phrasing would be if Croatia was legitimately attacked and invoked Article 5 of NATO (the mutual defense clause) the U.S. and others would come to Croatia’s defense. There is absolutely no doubt about this.
Considering that NATO is effectively non functional without the US, the process does not need to be written down. The US president can just make it happen as long as his rationale is supported by 90% of NATO. Defense alliances are a trust thing, not a contract thing.
He has poured considerable amounts of time and money and other forms of backing into regime change in a number of NATO members; he extensively backed Le Pen and Zemmour, Trump (and enjoys public support from a number of US senators), has close ties to Gerhard Schröder, and of course has extensive networks in the British Conservative Party - sufficient for the current Prime Minister to appoint a Russian as a member of the House of Lords over the objections of British intelligence agencies - and Brexit.
It only takes one of those to pay off at the right time.
I can't speak about other countries but the idea that Russia could use its influence to convince the UK to veto Finland or Sweden's entry into NATO is absurd. The Conservatives may have been happy to take russian money before the invasion but it would be hard to do so now and political suicide to be seen as bowing to russian political interests.
Yep. Anyone doubting that Putin actively funds and influences right wing politicians in the West needs only to look at Putin's state spokesman, Dmitri Peskov's daughter, Elizaveta, is an assistant to far-right French politician Aymeric Chauprade, a French Member of the European Parliament.
They can do a lot of things. None which are good for Russia but their leaders might perceive this as a direct threat to their sovereignty and take extreme measures.
Either they stop this now or it's all over anyway.
This is reckless - we need to start a path of de-escalation - give Putin an offramp. Get to back to calm waters.
Then let diplomats do their little dances until there is a hopefully more reasonable people in power on both sides.
Perhaps, but trying to become a NATO member has a much higher chance of getting you embroiled in a war than not doing that.
This continued escalation can't help but lead to nuclear war, our leaders are playing an extremely dangerous game of chicken.
If anything, Russia's botched invasion of Ukraine should show other countries in the region that there isn't so much to fear from them, and that NATO can be counted for help even without having to risk triggering Article 5 against a nuclear power.
And make no mistake: a hot NATO-Russia war is the worse possible outcome for everyone involved. If it came to that, it would be objectively better to become a vassal of Russia than living through a nuclear war, for the vast majority of the population.
Appeasement worked great with Hitler and Mussolini... Finland is a sovereign nation and has the right to join any defensive union it wants.
Interesting with all the down votes, wonder if Russian bots have reach even on HN? The fact is that this is happening, and Sweden is joining too, and I'm glad we are.
You need some very twisted Russian logic to see sovereign states joining of their own accord, with majority support in the population as a valid excuse for Russia to attack us.
Here is how the US responded to the Solomon Islands military treaty with China (emphasis mine):
> If steps are taken to establish a de facto permanent military presence, power-projection capabilities, or a military installation, the delegation noted that the United States would then have significant concerns and respond accordingly.
Note that the Solomon Islands is also a sovereign nation, and that it is > 10,000km away from the US border, and >2000km away from the border of the closest US Ally, Australia.
My point is not whataboutism, it is that sovereign nations have an interest in the military alliances of other sovereign nations, and that the security of one state doesn't stop at its borders. Joining hostile military alliances or massing troops at a shared border is logically viewed as a security threat from another nation, and sovereign nations have a right to attempt to prevent such actions.
Of course, doing it by force of arms the way Russia did is entirely illegal and immoral. Even the threat of violence is considered unacceptable by the Geneva convention, though of course that is often ignored. But complaining or seeking diplomatic and even economic ways to prevent such actions is not immoral in my view, and it is certainly not unusual.
I don't know the situation, but if Solomon Islands are doing this of their own accord, and that's what their population wants then I'm not against that. But then again I'm not American. I understand that there are cases, like with the Cuba Crisis, where the fear was warranted. The Soviet's had a history of invading and occupying other nations. China is mainly a threat to Taiwan, and perhaps historically to Vietnam, but unlikely to seek territorial expansion outside of Taiwan. Yes, the US also has blood on its hands, but nobody can argue that the US has tried to invade in order to occupy and integrate foreign territory in modern times.
> I don't know the situation, but if Solomon Islands are doing this of their own accord, and that's what their population wants then I'm not against that.
You may not be against that, but my point was that this is mostly not how world leaders think. Note that it's not just the US - Australia, New Zealand, and I'm sure other countries in the area also came out strongly against this, and similarly explained that it affects their security.
Of course, unlike Russia, they didn't literally illegally and unacceptably invade the Solomon Islands. However, if China were to participate in a revolution-coup combo (as Victoria Nuland and the US ambassador to Ukraine were doing 2 weeks before revolutionaries forced Yanukovich out [0][1]); and then a pro-Chinese leader (even one with popular support) started being armed by the Chinese government, and holding joint military excercises defending from an Australian invasion [2]; then the situation would perhaps change.
It's important to note not just what is morally right and wrong, but also what are the established rules of the world. It's great to fight against those rules as much as you can (and US citizens have more power to change this than any other people on Earth, as the voters in the most powerful country in history which is at least partly democratic), when they are unjust, but that doesn't mean you get to ignore them while they are in place.
Is it not possible that it would be preferable to both sides, even in a hot NATO-Russian war to stick with conventional weapons?
Russia just wants Lebensraum, which would be ruined by nukes, and NATO would probably not want to seem excessively cruel to Russian civilians when their purpose is supposed to be entirely defensive.
Testing something like this is dangerously close to the brink. It's highly unlikely that the losing side would agree to lose without using their most powerful weapon, and it's highly unlikely that NATO would wait for a Russian first strike, which they would likely believe very possible, especially given all the demonization of Putin and Russia.
Don't forget that there have already been numerous close calls in terms of nuclear war, without anything close to a conventional war as background.
> If I were living in Finland, I'd feel safer (against external aggression) if the country was in NATO than if it wasn't
Finland might feel safer once they're in NATO.
The rest of NATO (and non-NATO states in Western Europe), perhaps not quite so much. Surely the risk of NATO being involved in any conflict only increases as NATO grows?
"Surely the risk of NATO being involved in any conflict only increases as NATO grows?"
No, it diminishes. NATO is a defensive alliance. The more members it has with credible military spending (which Finland has) the higher the cost for Russia to invade.
I should add that Russia desires the Baltics, which are in an awkward position to defend by NATO. Finland has a strong military and its proximity to those countries makes an incursion somewhat less likely.
Indeed they demonstrated that, but don't underestimate the effect an existential crisis like this has. We will almost certainly see heavy changes coming to the Russian military. It could be that in five to ten years their military is actually capable, after both structural and strategical upgrades.
And the lines we now draw between NATO, Russia and China could well be the lines of a WW3 within a decade. Hopefully not though.
The more NATO expands, the higher the risk of that war. Russia joining China wasn't even a foregone conclusion, but our leaders are doing everything they can to push it in that direction.
That doesn't follow. Even though Russia has not been able to occupy most of Ukraine, they've still been able to attack the civilian population. Either through medium range missile strikes, or with occupation forces committing war crimes before being pushed back (to put it mildly). I assume the citizens of Poland and Romania much prefer being able to go to a shopping mall without being subject to missile strikes.
> Only if you assume the risk of conflict in any member country being the same as when they weren't a member
Let's imagine we're France.
What's the actual risk of us being directly attacked by an enemy country, starting a conflict?
Now imagine we're France, obliged to join in a conflict by NATO's "collective defence" Article 5. This conflict was already started by an enemy attacking any one of the other 29 NATO members. Particularly murky that now NATO claims cyberattacks count for article 5, and since 2001 we know terrorism can count too.
What's the risk of the latter compared to the former?
I don't see Article 5 as the providor of peace that so many appear to assume it is. Now that the Cold War is long-gone, and it's no longer as simple as "NATO vs Warsaw Pact" in which is was fairly easy to see which side you'd want to be on, I also don't think Article 5 is worth the paper it's written on.
For instance, would your country's citizens be happy to join a war over Taiwan?
Thing is, Putin has boxed himself in; he's said publicly that Ukraine is not a thing, that so-called Ukrainians are in fact Russians, and that he aspires to a Peter-the-Great-style Russian empire stretching from Vladivostok to the Baltic.
The only "off-ramp" I can see being halfway-acceptable to Putin would be for Ukraine to surrender their claims to Donbas and Crimea, in exchange for Russian security "assurances". Even that would make Putin look weak; he's declared that one his goals is to "demilitarise" Ukraine. To do that he would have to conquer the whole of Ukraine.
So any promise by Putin to accept a proffered "off-ramp" would be seen with a very jaundiced eye by Balkan, Central European and Baltic states. And by me, actually.
I'm no warmonger; far from it, I've been mostly a pacifist most of my life. But any "off-ramp" plans would either be unacceptable to Putin, or they would lead to a new war.
It's interesting to look into what kind of person Peter The Great (Putin's hero) was.
He built the Summer Palace in St. Petersburg in emulation of the European palaces he visited on his tour of Europe. But unlike European palaces, in the Summer Palace he installed a torture chamber, in which he personally tortured then murdered his own wife. He seems to have enjoyed torture and murder.
This is the model that Putin so admires.
I don't know that it's yet possible to ascribe any war-crimes to Putin personally. The crimes that I've heard tell of are of the kind that might be carried out by low-morale troops in any army.
Of course, the Russian army in Ukraine necesssarily have low morale; they've been ordered to attack and kill people that their own leader has said are their "brothers".
Low morale in the Russian armed forces is a persistent problem; in WWII Russian assaults, Russian machine guns were positioned in the rear, to kill any Russians that thought to fall back. It's not surprising that in the fall of Berlin, there was widespread looting and rape by Russian soldiers.
All soldiers behave like this, to a greater or lesser extent. But this Russian army has been engaged in city-flattening, rape and murder to a shocking extent.
Personally, I'm not inclined to forgive. But that's not my call; I'm not Ukrainian.
Objectively, this is not true. Putin wanted war. Leadership around him wanted war too. They wanted war they will win fast, but even if that succeeded it would be war too.
Nobody wants war, but we also don't want to be part of Russia.
Putin can de-escalate this anytime and "losing" doesnt make him seem any worse than starting a war, killing tens of thousands and making millions flee their homes.
I wish I believed that. His credibility depends entirely on his ability to threaten (to poison his opponents, to flatten cities). He's a strong man, and he can't afford to be seen to back down.
Here's the only off-ramp I can see working:
"Mr. Putin, you can keep your yachts and your offshore wealth; you won't be pursued for warcrimes. But you must exile yourself from Russia, and never darken the world stage again."
I don't think Putin would accept that deal; he'd rather go down with his ship. He thinks he's Peter The Great.
> Either they stop this now or it's all over anyway. This is reckless - we need to start a path of de-escalation - give Putin an offramp. Get to back to calm waters.
Putin has demonstrated again and again that he will interpret any de-escalating, sensible political moves as weakness. Any attempt at appeasement or compromise will be seen by him as an invitation to dare the next aggressive step.
Orban is the prime minister not the president. As for being chummy no Hungarian prime minister or president current or former has ever served as board member for Gazprom, nor served as head of shareholders for Nordstream AG, or director of the board for Rosneft the Russian oil company. All these positions were/are held by a former german chancellor Gerhard Schröder whom had put Germany onto the path of closing perfectly working nuclear plants and thus leading to the current dependence on Russian oil and gas:
You are trying to shift the blame, but Germany was not blocking the airspace for weapons delivery to Ukraine or blocking the sanctions. Ration of dependence of Germany on Russian Gas/Oil is way lower then ratio in Hungary.
I'm putting things into perspective. Hungary has 136 km shared border with Ukraine, it also represents only 0.25% of the global GDP, and it is a small country of less than 10 million inhabitants that took in 700'000 Ukrainian refugees. It is okay to disagree with some of their positions, but to put blame one them for the current mess is ridiculous. As for ratio of dependence I have no idea how you did measure it, but it was certainly not per capita gas consumption.
Don't forget Merkel. There are still people that say that Merkel was always against German dependence on Russian gas but could not do anything about it. For 16 years!
There is more "evidence" that Merkel is a long-term Russian intelligence asset, recruited from her youth in East Germany,[1] than that of Trump being the same. One guess on which claim is incessantly repeated by the bien-pensants of the chattering classes.
Bonus: Trump and Stoltenberg argue on camera (<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpwkdmwui3k>). Who turned out to be right? Who turned out to completely, totally, 100% wrong?
[1] Something else never talked about is how her parents moved from West to East Germany when she was a baby
Fair enough. I must imagine there will be intense pressure from NATO members towards Hungary if they're the only ones protesting. Is there a process for booting a member?
The process has been going on in unofficial sense since the start of Putler's war, but to minimize risks, the official process is only kicked off now. It was only started after it was verified that there are no internal or external blockers and that Sweden is in lockstep.
Oh, there was little doubt a Finnish application was on the way. From what I can tell from Swedish media, it's more or less decided there aswell.
Both Finland and Sweden signed a defence agreement with the UK yesterday. Norwegian newspapers has claimed Denmark, Iceland and Norway are also going to offer Finland and Sweden military aid in case of Russian shenanigans during the application process. That leaves both Finland and Sweden fairly safe, and the only noteworthy risks would be cyber warfare and Russian psy-ops used to turn public opinion against a NATO membership.
As for the application process itself, Stoltenberg pretty much promised a swift handling in the NATO end of things, but as you mention, it has to be unanimous and there is always a chance someone with power might be in Putin's pocket, or oppose the idea for other reasons.
Actually it is not a contract, because it is not contractually binding. It is more a promise to help. And Churchill promised to help Finland in WW2 and did not keep his promise.
On an international level, there is nothing but promises and sanctions, unless we resort to warfare. Let's hope it won't be neccesary to put those treaties to the test.
Ultimately you are of course right, but this is not a fair characterization for this case.
Some agremeents are made through the normal legislative process for each country, and are enforceable by international courts.
These promises by heads of UK and Finland are not that kind of enforceable agreements, as they have not been approved by the legislature. They are just political statements by heads of state.
The ship has sailed for Russia already. USA will not tolerate obstruction by Germany, France or Hungary. Recent meeting about Ukraine support was hold in Ramstein and this place was chosen intentionally - to show who is the master of the show and who should sit and listen.
By attacking Ukraine Russia wanted to "push" NATO away from its borders, but it all went backwards - now they will have a new, 1300 km long border with NATO member countries.
Russian fleet in Petersburg can be decommissioned now, as there is no merit to maintain it while Gulf of Finland can be easily blocked and is under traditional artillery control from Estonia and Finland side (it is just 80-100 km wide).
In fact in case of military conflict Petersburg is lost, can be attacked from the West and the North by land and covered by long range rocket artillery like Himmars (it is just 200 km away from Finnish and Estonian borders).
Same story with Murmansk harbor, it will be very difficult for Russia to defend it against attack from Norway and Finland given the very long and fragile supply line - a single E105 route, 1000 km long or train connection that goes along that route. Imagine famous Kiev 60 km convoy multiplied by 10 and attacked not by post-soviet era weapon that Ukraine had but by state of the art equipment.
Russia will have to put a lot of forces over there to be able to protect new attack line that they have opened by themselves. Build hell a lot of new infrastructure, provide logistic support, etc. The costs will be exorbitant.
When countries like Poland, Romania or Baltic countries became NATO members it was clear that they will need to be protected by western armies (although Poland is quickly catching up with its military potential, other countries is developing too). Right now situation is different: two very strong, well equipped, well trained armies are joining the Pact.
Another 300 modern tanks, Sweden by itself has more than 400 modern combat aircrafts of various types, Finland has just contracted 60 F-35 (with loyal wingman option that doubles the potential in future), plus artillery and other best of class equipment.
Indeed, Putin, Gerasimov and Shoygu are master strategists.
> In fact in case of military conflict [St.] Petersburg is lost, can be attacked from the West and the North by land and covered by long range rocket artillery...
Ah...if I recall, the Germans - with a very large, experienced, and well-equipped army, at the time - assumed that St. Petersburg could be taken fairly easily back in 1941. That turned out not to be the case.
Just to make the numbers clear, Leningrad had something like 2.5 million residents in 1941. Depending on who is counting, somewhere between 600 thousand and a million died during the siege of Leningrad (largely from hunger, which is a separate long discussion).
There were also somewhere on the order of 350-400 thousand Soviet soldiers killed in the battles around Leningrad.
It's pretty hard to "take" a multi-million person city if the residents are willing to accept double-digit-percentage fatality rates to prevent it... The big unknown is always whether they will be willing to accept it.
Russia just shut down their electricity export to Finland, Finland shrugged and made up the 10% difference with a combo of local production and buying from Sweden.
UK has also made written guarantees to protect Finland (and Sweden) during the application process.
In practical reality, if Russia were to attack Finland or Sweden now, the answer from NATO would be pretty much the same as if they were already members.
> In practical reality, if Russia were to attack Finland or Sweden now, the answer from NATO would be pretty much the same as if they were already members.
Really? Why is this true of Finland but not Ukraine?
Because NATO has the initiative here. The guarantees, unofficial or not, now function as a deterrent for possible Russian aggression. A promise/threat to join a hypothetical future conflict is very different from joining an existing conflict. One is a deterrent, the other is escalation.
Besides, Finland has been a close NATO ally for a long time, shares NATO values, our military is already 100% NATO compatible, and we are strategically and geopolitically a pretty important piece of the puzzle.
Because that would have been agressive from the NATO standpoint. Russia was not having a "war" with Ukraine, from Putins standpoint they were going into their own country to protect their citisens. That would just have played out Putins way to support his narrative that Russia is under attack from the rest of the world.
"In response to the deteriorating situation in the Donbas, Russia abandoned its hybrid approach, and began a conventional invasion of the region. The first sign of this invasion was 25 August 2014 capture of a group of Russian paratroopers on active service in Ukrainian territory by the Ukrainian security service (SBU)."
Kinda my thought here. Finland and Sweden in NATO formalizes some stuff but I am highly confident if they were attacked and not in NATO we would probably still show up. They are close allies.
That is a problem like eu that need to be handled, especially now that turkey is in the way. I think one has to rethink. The key is what are these military alliance is for. For democracy then we can have an alternative one.
A new alliance covering South Korea, japan, Taiwan, Australia, eu, Sweden, Finland, Canada …. Soviet Union is gone.
Turkey is a liability as it is not a democracy. And it is a problem.
