https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-04-10/finland-sweden-set-to-join-nato-as-soon-as-summer-the-times
Finland, Sweden Set to Join NATO as Soon as Summer
Russia has made a "massive strategic blunder" as Finland and Sweden look poised to join NATO as early as the summer, The Times reported on Monday, citing officials.
The United States officials said that NATO membership for both Nordic countries was "a topic of conversation and multiple sessions" during talks between the alliance's foreign ministers last week attended by Sweden and Finland, report added.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/11/sweden-and-finland-make-moves-to-join-nato
Sweden and Finland make moves to join Nato
Sweden’s ruling party has begun debating whether the country should join Nato, and neighbouring Finland expects to reach a decision within weeks, as Moscow warned that the Nordic nations’ accession would “not bring stability” to Europe.
Both countries are officially non-aligned militarily, but public support for Nato membership has almost doubled since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to about 50% in Sweden and 60% in Finland, multiple opinion polls suggest.
@vivify saidWill Finland agree to NATO "deploying sufficient forces to repel any offensive on NATO nations by Russian troops" on its soil? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/[WORD TOO LONG]/ar-AAW3QC0?li=BBorjTa
Question: is this an example of "aggressive NATO expansion"?
Who gets the blame here? NATO or these two Nordic states?
If so, that sure sounds like "aggressive NATO expansion" to me.
@no1marauder saidYes, you have just stated the whole point of joining NATO.
Will Finland agree to NATO "deploying sufficient forces to repel any offensive on NATO nations by Russian troops" on its soil?
If so, that sure sounds like "aggressive NATO expansion" to me.
So unless you're arguing that merely joining NATO, no matter the circumstances and no matter who initiated, is always "aggressive expansion", you haven't made a point.
@vivify saidNATO has never before deployed large forces at the Russian border; in fact, before 2014 it avoided deploying any troops at all in Eastern European countries.
Yes, you have just stated the whole point of joining NATO.
So unless you're arguing that merely joining NATO, no matter the circumstances and no matter who initiated, is always "aggressive expansion", you haven't made a point.
Now do you see my point? Mutual defense treaties do not require the stationing of large forces in countries prewar.
@no1marauder saidYou seem to be forgetting the reason for NATO's existence: to stop Russian aggression. Seeing how Belarus was silently taken over by Russia, the threat of Russian aggression has drastically increased in just a short few weeks.
NATO has never before deployed large forces at the Russian border; in fact, before 2014 it avoided deploying any troops at all in Eastern European countries.
Now do you see my point? Mutual defense treaties do not require the stationing of large forces in countries prewar.
Keeping that in mind, doesn't it make sense to have the countries bordering the aggressive superpower to be suitably armed?
But let's back up a bit: do you blame Norway and Finland for this latest possible expansion or NATO?
@vivify saidNATO has an irresponsible "open door" policy. In the present climate of fear and hysteria, it is understandable that in countries close to Russia public opinion is shifting away from long held principles of neutrality. But Sweden and Finland add nothing to the alliance and should not be ushered into it particularly when the military chief of NATO is making provocative decisions that reverse decades of understandings between countries. An amassing of troops on the very border of Russia hardly decreases the chance of general war - I hope you are not as blinded as some others here to not understand that.
You seem to be forgetting the who reason for NATO's existence: to stop Russian aggression. Seeing how Belarus was silently taken over by Russia, the threat of Russian aggression has drastically increased in just a short few weeks.
Keeping that in mind, doesn't it make sense to have the countries bordering the aggressive superpower to be suitably armed?
But let's back up a bit: do you blame Norway and Finland for this latest possible expansion or NATO?
"Russian aggression" was the reason NATO intervened to dismember Serbia, overthrow Libya's government, and aid the US occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq? Whatever the original reasons for its creation, NATO now acts as an aggressive military arm of neocon philosophy aimed at securing Western world domination ad infinitum. It is perfectly understandable that those it is aimed at object to this agenda.
How was "Belarus was silently taken over by Russia"? They have allied but I don't see you claiming that Germany or Spain or Norway etc. etc. etc. have been "taken over by the United States". Maybe you could produce some evidence for such a claim; Belarus did not join in the attack on the Ukraine though the Western press had many articles claiming this was imminent.
The best case would be for NATO to disband entirely, but at the very least it should stop pursuing policies which exponentially increase the risk of nuclear war.
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@no1marauder saidSo....NATO defending an attack by Russia against any NATO nation is aggressive expansion? Is it an offensive posture to protect oneself?
Will Finland agree to NATO "deploying sufficient forces to repel any offensive on NATO nations by Russian troops" on its soil? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/[WORD TOO LONG]/ar-AAW3QC0?li=BBorjTa
If so, that sure sounds like "aggressive NATO expansion" to me.
@jj-adams saidNATO sending large numbers of troops to countries that border Russia is "aggressive expansion" which reverses decades of policy. That is on top of it admitting Eastern European countries which Western leaders pledged they would not do in order to entice the leaders of the Soviet Union to acquiesce to the reunification of Germany and a loosening of its grip on Eastern Europe.
So....NATO defending an attack by Russia against any NATO nation is aggressive expansion? Is it an offensive posture to protect oneself?
Is that sooooooooooooooooo difficult to understand?
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@no1marauder saidYes, it is.
NATO sending large numbers of troops to countries that border Russia is "aggressive expansion" which reverses decades of policy. That is on top of it admitting Eastern European countries which Western leaders pledged they would not do in order to entice the leaders of the Soviet Union to acquiesce to the reunification of Germany and a loosening of its grip on Eastern Europe.
Is that sooooooooooooooooo difficult to understand?
I just don't see where you are coming from.
You have been brainwashed. By your own choosing.
Also, I don't believe a lot of what you said, I don't think it's historically accurate.
I've provided this link before, but maybe someone will read it this time:
"U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu).
The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels.
The documents reinforce former CIA Director Robert Gates’s criticism of “pressing ahead with expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and others were led to believe that wouldn’t happen.”[1] The key phrase, buttressed by the documents, is “led to believe.”
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early