Technically it’s not “post-WWII neutrality”, since this specific neutrality began when Sweden declared its neutrality in September 1939, which isn’t after WWII, but pre/during.
Good for NATO, good for Sweden, good for Europe, good for Ukraine, probably good for the Russian people. Bad for specifically Vladimir Putin.
NATO is basically a mutual-defense treaty: all member states agree to fight on behalf of other members if attacked by a third party. Having Sweden in the organization means that there are more soldiers available if other members are attacked (good for NATO), it means that Sweden has allies if they’re attacked (good for Sweden), and it means that Europe is more united as a defensible whole (good for Europe). And it reduces the possible targets for Putin’s aggression (probably good for the Russian people, definitely bad for Putin). It also means that, once the war in Ukraine ends and they join NATO, they essentially cannot be attacked by Russia again (good for Ukraine).
it’s amazing the chain of effect that happened when putin got so bold that he got orban to not only side with ukraine but also drop opposition to finland joining nato which caused sweden to join
You’re right. Go tell them they have nothing to fear from Putin because the Shield Of History is protecting them. Meanwhile Australia, New Zealand, USA et al should all dispand all of their defense forces because they’ve never been invaded before so of course, history protects them too
Not much if you’re left to defend yourself against a dictator who likes playing land grab and takes any excuse to rape murder and torture to subjugate as a valid excuse.
Look, I hate war as much as the next guy, but you gotta be pragmatic here. Putin is NOT a nice guy, to make an understatement. Without Putin’s in this world, we wouldn’t need wars, but here we are…
What does this even mean? Ukraine wanted to join nato, but didn’t because Russia threatened them and so they dropped it. And Russia invaded anyway. Had they been part of nato Russia wouldn’t have touched them.
The only valid criticism of that I think is Serbia, but considering that was to stop a genocide, I’m okay with that. I wish NATO had done so for other genocides too.
I think this haterred towards Putin blinded most of us to let governments increase their authorariansim. Like in US after 9/11. Of course Putin is dangerous, but he can’t even win a war in a small country right next to his. Lost more troops then Ukraine. Meanwhile NATO expansion across the World and US influance is truely scary and unprecedented. Most of the wars in World are started by NATO counties and here we don’t hear about is as much.
All the invasions of Iran, Afganistan, Vietnam, Syria, etc where unjustfied invasions just like Ukraine and in case of Palestine, far worse. Yet, media successfully is pointing our focus on a single war in Ukraine where Russia has made no advencments and is clearly inferior military power. It reminds me of 9/11, when fear from a small group of terrorist gave the government power to spy on all of its citizens, run torture camp in Guantanamo and remove citizens rights one by one.
Ah, yes, the scary defense-only alliance. Purely by design it doesn’t have the lawful capacity to do any of the things you said, and single members (US or UK) don’t represent it.
Ah yes, no advancements in Ukraine where 1/3 of the country is under occupier control and in entrenched positions.
In is defensive only on paper. In reality it is NATO weapons that supply wars in Middle East. Joining NATO isn’t just mutual defense, you need to sign a lot of other requirements that inevitably gets you under strong influance of US military and finances. Check out military intervantions of NATO, they are all offensive, no one ever attacked a NATO country, they are too strong. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO#Military_operationsNone of these counties they invaded where part of NATO, Iraq, Afganistan, Kosovo, Bosina, Libya.
Laws don’t matter when you have the military power. Laws only apply to the weak. Powerful countires (and people) don’t protect them selves with laws, since they have the military. When Assange and Manning published US war crimes, militry officials didnt go to jails, but they, whistlblowers and journalists did. Don’t fall for the laws for a second, they don’t apply to them.
You are not wrong that a lot of shady things can happen with military power. It is a fine general statement.
But with regards to NATO, I think you are misinformed (or mixed up?). If all those were invasions (and NATO is so strong), I don’t see how any of these countries could be independent countries now.
There is this wikipedia article with a list of all the countires in the world with their military presence outside of their countries. en.wikipedia.org/…/List_of_countries_with_oversea…You can google for each of these countries as well, such as France and their presence in Africa, as well as other “past”-colonial forces, US with their presence in Kosovo, Turkey with their presence in a lot of Balkan countries (also previous colonies of Ottoman empire). There is a lot of countries in the World that where past colonies that never got rid completly of their imperialist rulers. In fact during cold war they made an alliance just for that, that is where the term third world comes from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_WorldObviously imperialist didn’t like that and the media propaganda changed the meaning of that term to the “developing country” to excuse them staying there while they “develop”. Never actually leaving of course.
You can say that for literarly anything. Wikipedia has sources for every claim. Are you dispututing that NATO was in those countries. I have seen some of those troops in those countries with my own eyes.
Not defending the probable Russian shill, but Wikipedia is a pretty reliable source. What it is not is a primary source. But every claim has a source whose reliability can be assessed (and what counts as reliable is going to vary from person to person). So, no, if I’m writing an essay or a formal document, I’m not going to cite Wikipedia. But if I’m arguing with strangers on the internet, Wikipedia is a fairly credible place to start backing up your claims.
You’re conflating a lot of topics in your discourse but you clearly don’t understand what you are talking about. Yes, many countries have military bases overseas. That is not controversial or new. They are used as means to expediently deploy troops and assets to various global positions. The fact that some of these countries happen to be part of NATO has nothing to do with your previous position.
It is more then just having a base. They often run the whole country. I simply tried to find a single list for all of it, but if you look into these cases, one by one, you can see what I mean. Take French troops in Africa, they are collonizers that never left and their government can’t kick them out. Take NATO troops in Kosovo, they are completley dependent on US support to exist. Or Israel as well. Or many other places in Middle East. These are not volontery military presence in these locations, they are invasions which people can’t get rid of, either under threat of antoher force taking over or because they just wont leave.
You’re doing it again and at this point it feels intentional. You’re taking five different things that are unrelated and mixing them but throwing enough vague terms hoping that something will stick:
French troops in Africa
Nato in Kosovo
Or Israel (whatever that means)
Or many other places in middle east (whatever that means)
Russian weapons supply a lot of wars in the Middle East too. Russia funded the 10/7 Hamas attack. Russia gassed and bombed a lot of civilians in Syria. Russian mercenaries are keeping the civil war going in Libya, as well as couping lots of governments across African countries in the past year
I am not defending Russia. They do horrible things as well, but it is no excuse for our governments to do these things too. And they do it a lot more. As for Russia funding Hamas attack, that just sounds like insane propaganda, sorry. Israel government funded Hamas and let 10/7 happen on purpose to justify genocide, they even brag about it.
The US called on NATO following an attack on them. The idea was to fight those who had attacked the US, which is in the purview of a defensive alliance. Of course that didn’t end up being the reality because the bush admin lied about Iraq.
Kosovo, Bosina
This was not defensive, you’re correct. But it was instead to stop a genocide of Muslim people by Serbia. Kosovo exists because of NATO involving themselves to stop genocide.
Well if you claim that you are attacked by “Terrorism” and you declare war on it, you can make any invasion a defensive action. That is my point, in theory it is defensive, but they can twist it any way they want to make it offensive. Also if you go around the World claiming you are there to stop a genocide (ironically while funding a genocide yourself) just so you can send your army there, than you have no reason for CIA not to just finance some genocidal maniacs on one side to justify you going in there to “save” them (like Israel funded Hamas, and HIlary funded Trump). This is not even legally clean, just ignoring the laws when they don’t suit your interests.
There’s a difference between NATO countries and NATO the organisation.
The United States would be going around the world starting wars regardless of whether it’s in NATO or not. Got to feed that industrial military complex
But they also influence NATO organizations through various requirements of joining the NATO so that in the practice, they are involved. NATO as an organization has participated in mmultiple invasitions around the World, it is on the Wikipedia page. All of their military involvements where in non-NATO countries. Nobody ever attacked a NATO country, they never did a defensive war. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO#Military_operations
I never said NATO is not effective defensive strategy for the government, just that it is effective offensive strategy as well. However this only applies to the government, not the people. Troops are sent to die in these offensive wars, while otherwise they would be safe at home. Don’t spin this as an opposite claim that all non-NATO countries end up in a war. Some of the countries now in NATO where invaded by NATO first and then forced to join. That is like saying surrendering is safer then being nutral, bacause they can’t attack you if you are already surrendered.
A country that is attacked by NATO doesn’t join it after 15-20 years with their populations support. They fund the politicians that are pro-NATO and get them to join it without the support of the people. It is what actually happened in places like Montenegro. Just beacuse it is horrible, don’t assume it is not true. As for blaming me of spreading a russian propaganda, beacuse of letting you know that we have part in impersialistic regimes, I have a book for you.
Montenegro didn’t even exist as a political entity when the Operation Allied Force was in operation. Montenegro was created when it split from Serbia in 2006. At which point it found it’s self on a border with a russian friendly state and rightly sought protection from NATO. which makes sense with NATO being a defensive alliance
I would remind you as well that the bombings of serbia were signed off on by the UN security council which included russia to bring an end to the conflict there. The bombings did bring an end to the conflict there.
It’s disingenuous to just say “hurr durr nato bombed serbia. nato bad”
And yeah, when you toe the kremlin line, people call you kremlin shill. no amount of childish pictures you post will change that
Well the people in Montegro existed and they where part of the same country that was bombed. There are more montenegrians living in Belgrade then in Montegro, they didn’t like the bombing. Besides, Serbia is not Russian friendly at all, that is propaganda. Serbian government did 10 times more NATO joint military exercises then with Russia, not only are they not Russia friendly, they are hardly neutral. They have NATO offices inside the general military headquaters, the same that building that is still in ruins from the NATO bombing in 1999. Main opposistion persidential candidate in last elections was a litaral NATO general. Serbia also recieves more donations from EU then any other entetiy and every law passed in the last 20 years was EU law in hopes of integretions that will never happen and people know it. Entire Blakan is under NATO thumb, the rest is just politics and PR. When you see the actual actions, like Serbia passing secretly passing weapons for Ukraine or wikileaks files showing CIA using Balkain states to supply weapons to taliban, the picture makes far more sense.
They are made to be willing by funding politicains that secretly support it. When they get in power, they join without the support of their people. CIA has a long history of medeling in elections and this statement that it is willing is of course manufactured, as most of the democratic processes are.
Send people to all corners of the Internet to sow your pro-Russian stance. And if not paid, I would say a Putin fan, someone being threatened by the Russian government, or just a troll. Take your pick. All are possible.
I think Putin is horrible, I never said otherwise, not a fan. And a troll doesn’t post sources, you however are a troll. You just call everyone who critiques NATO a Russian bot. You are either a troll or completly insane
Targeting a smaller, receptive audience is actually better than going after larger and more diverse ones. With the later you’re more likely to get called out for your bullshit.
The former is more likely to listen, and a small echo-chamber will eliminate dissidents. That relatively small core group will gladly modify the message to better appeal to the local/culture they belong to, and spread it wide-and-far while obscuring the original source.
It’s a highly effective strategy: look at Qanon. It started on 8chan of all places, with a tiny userbase behind it.
Removed under rule 5, you’re free to attack their content, but not them personally.
“Rule 5: Keep it civil. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (perjorative, perjorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (perjorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect!”
Fine, I accept that, but what exactly did I say that caused the post to be removed? All I said was he was probably a paid posted. How is that not being civil?
“This poster is a paid Russian sympathizer. Baby account, bad English, and only posted in posts regarding this topic.”
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (perjorative, perjorative). **It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (perjorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members.**Engage in good-faith and with respect!
Attacking other users, which you did three times in one comment, is not allowed.
Yeah, no. Your interpretation is incorrect in my opinion.
Yes, it was a baby account. Only 6 hours old. The icon next to their name is a baby. How can you punish me for something the site does as well?
Also, the English the person used did not sound like it was English as a first language.
Lastly, let’s take a look at your verbiage.
Perjorative: expressing contempt or disapproval
Calling a person a paid Russian sympathizer does not meet this definition. He was acting as if Russia is the victim in this story. I was saying what he was.
I would appreciate if when reports are made, they are actually looked at and not blindly removed.
No, it’s not. Calling out what someone is does not meet the definition. Additionally, you said I did three things in my comment, most of which were false.
Unless you have positive proof that someone is a paid Russian shill, yes, that IS a personal attack and will be removed.
The rule is simple: You do not attack other users. Full stop. You can disagree with their ideas, but the minute you throw down unfounded accusations, that’s a different deal.
I think this haterred towards Putin blinded most of us to let governments increase their authorariansim.
Don’t you think this haterred towards Putin caused by increasing authorariansim of my country’s government? Because Putin is fucking head of it.
Of course Putin is dangerous, but he can’t even win a war in a small country right next to his.
I don’t know what is (not) concerning to you, but for me Good Uncle Voenkom that will send me to die in trenches for Stability™ of Putin’s yachts is concerning enough.
Your people are Putin’s first victims. I hope we’ll one day have cooperation and peace between Russia and the West, as proper friendly neighbors. You guys deserve so much better than Putin.
All the invasions of Iran, Afganistan, Vietnam, Syria, etc where unjustfied invasions
The US has never invaded Iran
Afganistan was completely justified; the US could not let 9/11 go. Few countries in the world disputed this at the time, even among those unfriendly to the US. You can certainly criticize how it played out–I sure as hell do.
Vietnam, yeah, not going to argue there
Syria was a complex 13 way clusterfuck. We supported a specific side against another specific side, mostly with material and air support, and some limited ground support. It’s not exactly an invasion, but this is certainly another place where it’s more about how it played out than the support in itself.
Maybe he meant Iraq? I think Afghanistan taught us a lesson in what we’ve become. We were a country that could bomb another into the ground, but then rebuild it into a functional society. Regardless of the morals of that, japan and south korea are functional if unhappy. Unhappiness describes life, but I feel like the contracting on top of contacting and the line goes up profit obsession infected out zeitgeist so deeply, we are no longer capable of rebuilding what we destroy.
If you’re called a Russian bot so often that you need to have a prepared meme response, I feel like it doesn’t matter if you are or are not a Russian propagandist.
The cool thing about bad faith propoganda is that eventually, you trick dumb people into repeating it.
It does matter if it is my honest opinion or if I was just wrongfully accused. One would be a critique of me, another is a critique on the propaganda that anyone who disagrees with people in power must be a KGB agent.
Eh I don’t think we failed at nation building in Afghanistan because we’re incapable of it, but because we didn’t take the time to understand Afghan society and we weren’t putting enough resources towards construction.
I did mean Iraq, but Iran is not much better. US staged a coup in Iran to get a puppet government en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état#Re…Afganistan is not justified, you don’t invade an entire country because of a terroist attack. It was an excuse, just like the Patriot Act for more imperisalism and antidemocratic actions. Calling things invasions are semantics, more important is the bigger picture. US has huge influnace in the region thorug coups and military invasions.
That is like saying it is justifed to bomb New York because Biden is helping Israel in their genocide. People are not their governments, going to war for revenge is cruel.
Not really. More like if there was a terrorist base in the US that was being used to bomb Gaza directly and the US was giving them money and equipment to do it.
Well they are giving them money and equipement to do it. The only difference is that isntead of one attack it is complete genocide of people and the fact that the base is not in US but in Isreal. But the support is the same and the crime is even greater. There is no sense to blame Afganistan for 9/11 and not US for genocide.
And that is exactly the point. Only thing it matters is that you have the power, all sides do horrible things, it is the power balance that has some meaning, not morality here. Currently power is very much on NATO side. No one can touch US when they commit war crimes, instead the whistleblowers and journalists are the ones that go to prison, like in Assange and Manning case.
US has far more influence in Middle Easst then Russia. Russia didn’t win anything in Middle East. US has control of Saudi Arabia and Israel quite famously. Most other governments where once funded by the CIA as well.
Such control of SA that they murdered Khashoggi with no reprisal and not only is SA China’s biggest supplier of oil but they also have nuclear agreements
NATO is heavily influenced by US. When they ask other countries to join, they wear a NATO hat, when they invade other countries they where their counturies independent hats that just so happens to be in NATO.
Oops you admit they are not the same, but try to confuse the issue with “influence”. Followed by more with “hat” which is lol worthy. NATO did not invade Iraq. The US did.
Something tells me you’re trying to be intentionally obtuse trying to conflate everything so ciao
It is in regards to this article that we are talking about these things. NATO membership grew after this Russian invasion. Even from countries that are under no obvious imidiate danger.
I don’t think this deserves the attack, guy speaks their mind, perhaps not from the most knowledgeable position, but I think it’s valid nonetheless. There are a lot of arguments being made without really being arguments, more like spoken worries, and I agree with their trepidation, I feel kind of the same way, in that I am wary of the future and not as expediently joyous over the occasion so to speak.
Also, I felt like when the CEO Prime Minister of Sweden appeared in the House for the State of the Union address to standing ovations felt like we were bringing water and dirt before Xerxes. A half demented, half man half werewolf Xerxes, I have a conspiracy theory that Biden and Trump are the same person. Make of it what you will, the list of US atrocities committed across the world and our common history is a long and dire read, and only seems to get longer every year.
I’m glad to know that if “someone” invades Sweden the whole planet will go down in a nuclear holocaust, as a deterrent you know, but at the same time we’re ironically posed before a problem common to Americans and Swedes alike- when it comes to our choices it’s slim pickings.
You clearly see this as a game. You know exactly what I said and you are running away from it, just to have some kind of play of semantics like that somehow communicates some greater point. I really have no idea what is the point of this comment of yours.
Iraq was bad so let’s let Russia annex any bit of Europe it wants. Checks out. I was vehemently opposed to Iraq. This is not Iraq. Not all wars are the same
No. I’m not assuming youre pro Russia. I think that you think that Russia is militarily impotent, given that you said as much. And that is on my opinion, wrong: see Crimea, Georgia, Ossetia, Moldova amongst others. Absent NATO, they’ve been invading and occupying neighbours quite happily. There’s a demonstrable threat to which NATO is a demonstrable defense
You can’t seriously compare Russia and NATO by military power. They are competent to keep small regions under control, but they don’t have even a small portion of the world wide power that NATO has.
I did not and was not comparing the power of NATO to Russia.
You said “[PUTIN] can’t even win a war in a small country right next to his.”
I pointed out that this was false, as evidenced by the number of small countries next to his that he’s already annexed or invaded. Even Ukraine hasn’t been able to repel Russia even with western aid.
I am not moving the goalposts, I am trying to put things into context rather then nitpicking every single sentence and strawmaning every argument. I speak in general terms, as I am not a robot. Everything I say is in a general political context.
Expecting you to mean what you actually said is not a strawman. If you meant something else then clarify rather than argue an amorphous moving general vibe.
Putin doesn’t want to win. And actually pretty much everyone benefits from this long standing conflicts. Except for Ukrainians and some dirt poor African nations.
Yes. Also blame the members of the security council for preventing the UN being effective in solving global conflicts. Ideally, NATO wouldn’t be necessary
Yeeeaahh, but this is a slightly different beast. Even if the UN had fangs ( you’re right there), we’re talking about a nuclear dictatorship with visions of conquest here.
I think you might be reading something into my comment that wasn’t there. Or I didn’t intend, at least. In no way am I trying to minimise Putin’s evil behaviour. The point I was trying to make is that NATO shouldn’t be necessary. The UN should be capable of keeping everyone safe. I’m not anti NATO nor anti UN thou.
Disagree. UN is a diplomacy tool, NATO is a defense organization. Entirely different goals, and if UN was a defense organization something else would have filled the void for diplomacy and you’d say UN wouldn’t be necessary.
You don’t play diplomacy with your friends. And you cannot get your enemies to sit down if you’re aiming a gun at them. The UN not having teeth is the point.
They only come into play after a ceasefire has been negotiated. When there’s countries fighting a war they tend not trust each other. When you make an agreement to keep a demilitarized area between adversaries they tend not to trust the other to not secretly send their military into that area and launch a surprise attack.
So you put peacekeepers in that area to report to everyone if either side is breaking the ceasefire agreement. Note they aren’t there to enforce the ceasefire, they are there as a trusted third party to monitor and report on both sides.
Don’t get me wrong, peacekeepers are a very important in diplomacy. They make it more likely that countries that distrust one another will agree to peace.
But peacekeepers aren’t a fighting force. If a country is determined to attack another, they will attack even if there’s peacekeepers between them. This has happened before and the peacekeepers will report on the attacker breaking the ceasefire agreement and leave. War still happens even with the presence, alliances are still necessary to remove the incentive to go to war.
Not quite the point I was making but I shouldn’t have got sidetracked into talking about peacekeepers. The point I was trying to make (badly, apparantly) is that UN would be more able to bring pressure to bare against belugerent states if the security council didn’t have such an extreme veto. All that stuff occurs before you get to the point of defending against an invader
It’s wild watching all the “human entropy” build up at the same time to hit in a really shitty fruition of shittiness. Religious conflict and genocide in Gaza, hottest planet records month after month, Russia/china/North Korea building up for WW3, a massive rise in fascism across western nations, with a culmination in this year’s US presidential election, unprecedented corporate profits as inflation skyrockets, AI companies abandoning ethics for financial gains as the LLMs rapidly grow in capability
It’s like Murphy’s law hitting the planet all at once, we’d just need some new COVID super strain to hit right as WW3 kicks off to be the cherry on top
Ironically it’s like it delayed it to occur when everything else is beginning to rear its head. Everyone was so focused on Covid they couldn’t be shitty for a little bit. Not anymore. WW3 is one thing, WW3 with a fascist, fractured west is another
What I don't get is the sissy sub fascists nowadays. The dumb fucks generally want to wage war with everybody and now that there are legitimate threats to their precious Vaterlands they are pacifists all of a sudden. I get it, they a funded largely by russia and china etc, but do they really think they won't get shafted when the west collapses? Absolute omega farts.
Sell all of your assets and build a self-sufficient ranch on New Zealand. Looking at WW3 projections it’s going to be one of the places untouched by a nuclear war and won’t feel the effects of a nuclear winter as harsh as other places. Hmm, it looks like that the billionaires building their doomsday bunkers at New Zealand has the same idea.
The one rogue nuke hitting New Zealand would be a heavy hit to Peter Thiel and his buddies' apocalypse plans as they continue to buy up the whole country.
NATO is strictly a defensive alliance so any power that did start WW3 would be pretty damn stupid to be aggressive against NATO. And better for everyone this way, rather than give Russia a chance to chew up Eastern Europe country by country like they tried against Ukraine, Georgia and Chechnia.
NATO is defensive only on paper. Almost all of the wars in the World right now started with invasion of NATO countries in middle east and african countries still unofficaly under collonial rule of western european countries.
This is classic case of fearmongering. Russia can’t even win a war in Ukraine, despite local support of some of the Crimean citizens and proximity to their nations. They can’t get to Sweeden by the end of this century, Meanwhile, NATO is the biggest war allience this World has ever seen and it is scary how centralized the power in the World has become and US oil companies running the whole show.
If only thing you can say to someone who is proving you wrong that they must be paid by some boogieman, you are insane. Just because I critize the government doesn’t mean I support other governments. This is some cold war type of red scare. During cold war if you speak about worker rights you are branded a communist soviet spy. Now you say that NATO is resposible for wars that they admit to, you are all of a sudden a russian bot. https://lemy.lol/pictrs/image/21dbd7cd-7612-47b8-9f40-6837340c4108.jpeg
It’s generally suspicious when someone with atrocious grammar and spelling says Russia isn’t a real problem, but NATO is, and then shows a fundamental misunderstanding of NATO and can’t distinguish formal NATO action from other Western military action.
When you debate grammar it shows you have no good arguments. I don’t always spell things correctly, because I am more focused on making sense, then appearance. If you understand what I mean, that is good enough for me. I understand that Russia and NATO are both problems and I understand that NATO is obviously far more powerful and bigger. I also understand what NATO claims to be, but I also see their presence in places where legally shouldn’t be. Take Kosovo for example, by the UN it is not recognized as independent, legally it is part of Serbia and Serbia does not support NATO troops there. Legally speaking, that is an invasion. Practically NATO countries invade many Middle Eastern countries as well, they wear NATO hats when they speak of peace, but often (but not always) remove that hat when they invade other countries. You can either accept that both NATO and countries that invade Middle East are the same countries run by the same people with same interests and same goals, making it the same thing. Or you can pretend that only what is legally defined as separate is important, but then accept that legally NATO also sometimes invades countries and were never invaded themselves, making them more offensive then defensive. You can’t have it both ways.
Good. Sweden has very strong military capabilities with their Total Defense strategy. They also have very advanced weapons development and a huge defense industry, including their Gripen fighter jets. NATO got a lot stronger today.
As a Swede I often find myself thankful we don’t have the military brainwashing the US has, even though we have a strong military for such a small country. The army stuff is there if you look but if you don’t care you don’t notice it much, if at all. I’m not invested enough to have a really informed opinion about us joining NATO. But from what I know it’ll be a good thing, just being able to help countries more that need it is enough of a reason IMO.
As a Finn, I thought that joining Nato was the last nail in the coffin. After several decades of crawling towards it, we’re finally a western civilized country now.
You swedes were there already for historical reasons though, but very nice to have you in the same military alliance.
NATO was originally founded so that we’d stop invading each other, which should still hold true today.
I like to think of most developed nations as young adults. All of us are supposed to be mature, which means no more war. We can just talk about things like responsible adults.
Sadly, some of these younger fucks still haven’t grasped the concept of “don’t be an idiot”, and we now need NATO for a strong message of “no, you’re not going to touch us, there will be consequences”. It’s a sad thing that we still need to do so, but I’d rather have a large group of friends that I’m sure will have my back if someone would start shit.
So yes, Sweden joining NATO is a good thing. If anything it will lead to better cooperation and coordination between our countries. Not just in the event of war, but just sharing defense resources and intelligence as well. But the best argument is that we just like you Swedes, and we want to keep hanging out together.
NATO was, too. It’s like nuclear weapons. Deterrence. Not meant to be used, but it’s a stabilizer.
That’s why Trump’s words are so harmful. It undermines the deterrence value and the trust. Even though the US is the only country that has ever needed to activate Article 5, after 911. But he probably doesn’t even know that.
Unless you happen to be Russian or some other power seeking to use military aggression, or the threat there of, against Europe or North America, NATO expansion is a good thing for all parties. The larger the alliance, the more viewpoints, training and speciality each nation can provide and there is less gap for something to get through. Ukraine is a perfect example of why this should have happened a long time ago but political will wasn’t there.
Sweden has a lot to offer NATO and vice versa, its certainly self sufficient for its military needs but with the defense guarantee it can now afford to diversity its military a bit more than its used to with not everyone and everything needing to adhere to a total defense doctrine. There won’t be any Swedish Expeditionary Forces but Sweden does have some rather unique experience and training it can exchange with its western neighbors and possible get some technology exchange and other material assistance to help shore up the northern borders of NATO. The Baltic Sea becoming a NATO lake just a bonus now if Russia tries to start or continue its usual shit.
This just means that Sweden will have send their troops to fight wars in middle east for oil companies. Russia is hardly capable of attacking Ukraine that is right next to it and has some local support of some Russian citizens. They would never make it to Sweden in the next 100 years. But a lot of lives will be lost in the Middle East in that time.
Only on paper. In practice there are many financial and military infulence that US gets when a country joins NATO that result in joining wars in Middle East.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO#Military_operationsAll of NATO wars were in non-NATO countries, all where offensive invasitions. They fight in MIddle East for oil companies. I do not sympathize with Russian government, they are just as bad when given the chance. But NATO is scarier. Calling people to support Russia when they critisize your government is insane.
Wikipedia has citations. I don’t know what could you find as more reliable? What did you have in mind? Also I don’t think this is fair. I gave you the source, it is just as reliable as any other, since it has citations for all of it. If the situtation was reversed and you saw wikipedia article that claimed the opposite and I replied exactly the way you did, how would you react? Be honest
And again, the only mandatory after Article V have been monitoring and patrolling US airspace for a few months after 9/11 and some maritime operations in the Mediterranean to protect shipping and prevent terrorism and smuggling. All those other NATO operations were voluntary, and other NATO countries have happily told the US to fuck off when they don't want to be involved.
Also, Sweden, despite not being in NATO, also participated in operations in Afghanistan. Your premise that being in NATO necessarily causes you to be involuntarily dragged into gallivanting around the Middle East is simply false. Other nations have autonomy and agency, actually. Not everything is about America.
Sweden, like many other non-NATO states, are only officially not in NATO because of lack of popular support. These wars are used to pass these things officially. US influences many countries, being in NATO officailly makes this easier. As volontery as it might seem, people rarely give support for these things and politicains that do usually get funded by the US.
They actually did get Europe involved en.wikipedia.org/…/NATO_Training_Mission_–_Iraq#O…Germany,France,Spain,Poland,Norway all of them ended up training armies for US oil companies invasions. Influence is there.
This was all after the invasion to support the fledgling new Iraqi government.
If ten trainers from Norway training the Iraqi military to resist terrorist attacks is your idea of an example of gross western imperialism, you'll have to forgive me for not being hugely convinced.
You took it out of a context of a bigger picture. Of course on it self it is not the end of the World, but it was a simple show of how US influneced NATO states to do its bidding to get oil. Other horrible things that they are doing around the World and other NATO invasions are what really puts it all toghether.
No, it is not, and I'm not going to allow you to just walk back your claims after some inconvenience. To quote you yourself:
This just means that Sweden will have [to] send their troops to fight wars in middle east for oil companies.
No, it doesn't. NATO membership does not mean that anyone is forced to fight wars in the Middle East. If that were the case, all of NATO would have been roped into the Iraq invasion, but they weren't. The vast majority told America to fuck off during the invasion, and only lightly participated in some minor training operations with the Iraqi military afterwards.
And again, Sweden not being in NATO did not prevent it from participating in other NATO campaigns in a voluntary capacity. Your claim that Sweden joining NATO means that it's going to be forced to participate in all these Middle Eastern wars against its will simply does not stand up to even a cursory look at actual reality. You can believe whatever you like since it appears that you're immune to facts, but anyone else reading this should know that you're not saying anything based in actual evidence.
Also, if you really think that ten Norwegians trying to teach Iraqi soldiers how to resist the groups that later became ISIS is an example of the "horrible things" that NATO does, that says much more about you than it does about NATO. The world is actually more complicated than "US brainwashes the world into killing the third world because oil".
They are not forced legally but practically indirectly. It is as voluntary as someone agreeing to landlords terms or those of your employer. Legally speaking, yes no one is forcing you, practically speaking you don’t really have a choice and such a system was created on purpose so you can’t have a choice. Once you start depending on US for their support in your defense, you need to scratch their back in doing an invasion or two so they keep supplying your weapons.
It absolutely is; this guy is either an idiot or deliberately misleading.
Article V has been invoked exactly one time, by the United States after the September 11 attacks. The direct outcomes of this were two operations: Operation Eagle Assist, where NATO forces helped patrol and monitor US airspace in the immediate months after 9/11, and Operation Active Endeavour, a maritime operation where NATO ships patrolled and secured shipping lines in the Mediterranean. NATO itself was not directly involved under Article V in the Iraq invasion, though some members did voluntarily participate (hence Bush's "coalition of the willing").
There have been NATO operations in the Middle East under Article IV invoked by Turkey, which mandates only military consultation from members, not direct intervention, though they may voluntarily participate if they want. Likewise, NATO was involved in Afghanistan (which, it should be noted, is not in the Middle East) and Libya in a similar voluntary capacity. It should be noted that, despite not being a member, Sweden did participate in NATO operations in Afghanistan, voluntarily.
Sweden is only obligated to participate in military action if a member state is actively attacked. Otherwise, it's able to voluntarily participate in other NATO operations, as it has already done in the past. That NATO is a tightly organized and coordinated international military organization makes it really useful for large international operations - generally directed by the UN - but outside of defensive invocations of Article V, these are strictly optional, and members very much have refused to participate in American-led operations that they don't agree with (see Iraq).
So – pure curiosity… Which countries could yet still potentially join NATO.
Switzerland doesn’t join anything ever, so it’s the dark horse. But since everything is done by referendum there, it could change on a dime if the public demanded it.
Austria literally has it in their constitution that they aren’t allowed – but in theory they could change their constitution (unlikely).
Moldova has the whole Transnistria incentive – but NATO would be shy about that one, because that could potentially immediately put them in hot conflict. However, suppose they backdoored their way in by creating a union with Romania (not impossible, but complicated).
Ireland has been neutral forever – but the public support for Ukraine is extremely high. So they might even be possible. Higher than Switzerland anyway ;)
Bosnia and Herzegovina is sort of a special case where they’re sort of partially engaged already.
Serbia is extremely unlikely while they continue to be extremely contemptuous of everyone. That’s fine. Although Kosovo is sort of under NATO protection.
In theory, Georgia or Armenia would be candidates, but Turkey would pooh-pooh Armenia right away, and Georgia has contested territory.
In order of odds, I wager: Ireland, Moldova (via Romania), Georgia+Ukraine (in that order chronologically).
Ireland has no chance, people here are extremely pro neutrality to the point there were protests when American Airforce jets refueled here. It’s not a case of alignment, it’s that nobody wants to get involved in any sort of conflict.
To be fair, Ireland doesn’t have the resources or population to be involved in a continental conflict in a impactful way. Getting involved in a war you might not win and might result in the end of your small nation isn’t normally a good idea.
I don’t believe nato could lose a war with Russia, but I don’t blame Ireland for not wanting to risk it
If Russia somehow won a war against NATO and took over all the European NATO countries, which is the vast majority of Europe, what would prevent them from just taking over the leftover bits at that point?
Yeah neutrality is worthless at that point. Sure Hitler wasn’t going to stop with the UK. We were definitely next.
The main advantage it has given us has been as a trusted UN peacekeeper where the Irish Defence Forces have been seen as a neutral third part to conflict and they have done and continue to do solid work abroad in that regard.
Doesn’t Ireland already have defensive pact status with a bunch of NATO members through the EU? If your fellow EU states are being attacked, can you really stay out?
Hi-dilly-hi…hi-dilly-ho…over the side of the boat you go!
Nah we’re all friendly now for the most part. Sporting events excluded naturally where fervent, screaming nationalism from the Irish comes in and the English wonder why we are so angry at them. :D
There was a lot of backlash in the last few months when Leo Varadkar attended a defense conference which was mostly NATO members. He was forced to state that Ireland will not join any military alliance whatsoever. I do agree that it feels wrong to not support countries that realistically we’re aligned with but the Irish military is in such a state that if we tried I’d expect Ukraine to actually donate equipment to us instead
A reunified Ireland could benefit from being in NATO in case England loses their God damn minds and tried to take them back at some point in the future, but I guess those days are over.
Yeah, those days are gone thankfully. Also it would be a mistake of epic proportions to try and subjugate the Irish one last time tbh. Epic proportions.
Never in a million years would Switzerland condemn Israel. The state loves Israel. Maybe a strongly worder “please don’t kill children in hospitals” was said, but no measures whatsoever were taken
Yes. Israel fully depends on US for weapons and finances. Just like NATO. So naturally US government uses both for the same purpose of controlling oil in the middle east.
Most member states have been in support of Israel. Most egregious being US and Germany, but France is ranking high. Supporting Israel is quite zionist in my opinion
US has authority in Israel and NATO, so they can make both of them fight in these wars that benefit their oil companies. So NATO and Israel are part of the same miltiary force, only run by different puppet governments.
The Irish express solidarity on a regular basis. The anticolonial struggle against the English has made them way closer to Palestinians and other colonized peoples than the rest of Europe.
You got downvoted but you’re not wrong. NATO is getting good PR at the moment because of Ukraine, but the invasion of Iraq and Libya are examples of how god-awful NATO is. Iraq was invaded out of trumped up accusations but the real reason is gaining access to Iraqi oil. I remember it was France and UK who were antsy to invade Libya while US refused initially but eventually caved in. Look at the long term implications of such invasions. ISIS sprung up, and Libya is in a civil war causing thousands of refugees which Europe absorbed.
NATO is getting good image at the moment because of recency bias
NATO didn't participate in the invasion of Iraq, so what exactly are you talking about?
You might remember the term 'coalition of the willing'. The only major ally the US actually got to come along with us to Iraq was the UK. Everyone else rightfully sat out of that mess.
Nothing clever needs to be invoked. It’s baked into the text of the treaty. Article 5 is what’s invoked to bring the whole alliance together to defend against an attack on any one member. However, Article 6 limits Article 5 to attacks within Europe, North America, Turkey, and islands in the Atlantic north of the Tropic of Cancer. Strictly speaking, even an attack on Hawaii wouldn’t invoke it.
I guess countries outside that area could join, but without a change to the treaty, the key clause in the whole thing wouldn’t apply to them.
If only there was some way to address this. I guess we should just start a new alliance if we ever want to accept people outside of the North Atlantic.
A lot of countries from your list are already very close with NATO, they have NATO offices in their top military command and do most of the military exceraises with NATO. NATO also has a lot of officers of these countries on their paycheck, even some biggest presidentail candidates in these countries are NATO generals.
NATO has a huge control over the netural governments, only reason they don’t join is because of their populations that don’t like NATO countries invading middle east for oil. Mostly in the Balkans that is the case and some of the countries that joined, they did it without referendums against the will of their people. There is a big sentiment of NATO looking imperialistic and treating middle east and the balkans as colonies. Bosnia for example, doesn’t even have real independence, high representitve placed by the west, from the UN can veto anything that is not in their interest. “So far, all of the High Representatives named have been from European Union countries, and their principal deputies have typically been from the United States”
Side note, this is also the French spelling of Putin. So you can eat Poutine while being mad at Poutine (I’ll let you guess which is which, unless you’re a cannibal then everything goes TBF).
The last name of the president of Russia is Пу́тин. Since people can’t read that without knowing Cyrillic, we need a way to map Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet. However, neither Cyrillic nor Latin script have universal pronunciations: the phonetic value of letters change depending on the language. This leads to the romanization of a name being different depending what the source and target language is. Пу́тин is Putin for Russian-to-English, but Poutine for Russian-to-French. They’re both equally correct, and neither is a change from the other.
Yeah, he is either stupid or desperate. It does worry me how centralized power balance in the World has become over US controlling most of the conflicts and countries in the World.
I’ll pick the middle option: Putin is high on his own supply.
The man made it clear that dissent will be met with swift and gruesome consequences. This is a sure-fire recipe for surrounding yourself with yes-men that are not smart enough to get the hell out. And BTW, that’s always a career where everyone’s last promotion is “pavement inspector”, and training starts immediately at an open 6th floor window. So there’s some cocky, can’t-guage-risk-for-a-damn people mixed in there too. The result is a bunch of decisions from the head-of-state that only make sense between those in his court, and fail to hold up to scrutiny outside those walls.
These are not arguments. It is a list of fun buzzwords. Do you have anything specific or concrete to talk about? Am I talking to ChatGPT? I need to know! Are you my skynet daddy?
Don’t be so blinded by your hatered towards the Russian government to not notice how US used this to strenghten their control over Europe. As horrible as this Russian invasion is, it is nothing compared to the decades of invasions in middle east done by NATO countries. Sweden will have to send their troops now to fight for US oil companies.
It’s funny how you dismiss Russia from being involved in the Middle East when it was one of the main reasons why the Middle East is so unstable. Bur continue on saying how bad NATO is.
How is Russia one of the main reasons that Middle East is unstable? Middle Eastern borders where drawn by the NATO mamber states, all terrorist organizastions are now publicly said to be first funded by the CIA. Every war that started in the Middle East was by US invasion and funded coups. Russia is bad and it got involved in some of the confilicts, but lets not be blinded by the hatered towards them so much to forget all the crimes in the Middle East done by our governments and pretend it is Russias fault for everything.
I understand that. I am not saying they are not wrong in this. I am just saying that our governments are using this to extend their power, like they always do and is hurting us even more then the problem itself. As it always does.
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