>


Ukraine is putting up a hell of a fight, but we must also not be blinded by feats of heroism. Ukraine has been in full war economy and mobilization, their economy is right now living off of donations

In 2021, before the war, the average Ukrainian only made about 23000 UAH a year. That's equivalent to 6555 SEK or 6145 NOK with current exchange rates. I think you guys can afford a lot more than they could if you had to, without being overly reliant on donations.
Americans with money tend to admire the Nordic countries as well, much more than UA before the war, so I think you'd have an overabundance of personal donations on top of the better economy.
That's funny because Turkey isn't even halfway to democracy >

Why do we keep Turkey in NATO? We really need to lower our tolerance for dictators. >

Mostly for geographic significance probably. >

This is precisely why. >

Yep, It is where “East meets West” and the the West would prefer they lean West.
I mean imagine if Russia,Turkey, and Iran teamed up. Absolute geopolitical nightmare for literally everyone else. >

Not to mention, they control the entrance to the Black Sea.  That's access to Ukraine and Russia by water, and we'd definitely like to be able to tighten things up if Russia misbehave. >

Turkey doesn’t control it.  It’s controlled by an international treaty.  If Turkey started denying passage in opposition to their agreement it would go very badly for them.  The whole reason the treaty was established was because everyone else was sick of fighting over that strip of land in the first place.  Not because Turkey was dictating the terms of the agreement. >


Turkey doesn’t control it.

If they're at war they do which makes it a benefit to have them in NATO instead of in alignment with Russia or someone else.

The whole reason the treaty was established was because everyone else was sick of fighting over that strip of land in the first place.

~~Huh? The last fighting over that strip of land was 500 years before the treaty was made~~ <- wrong >

Gallipoli was 500 years ago? >

ww1 - and we know how it turns out - since then turkey exists! >

It's the ole Turkish ice cream trick >

Hahahaha, that made me chuckle! 🤣 >

I betcha Sweden joins NATO before russia sees Kyiv. >

Russia saw Kyiv and then they were forced to leave. They didn't see inside it, but the Hostomel Airport is close enough. >

I, too, have been to Reykjavik.
Well, I saw it from the airport during my trans-Atlantic layover. >

I think if you had heavy arms and a desire to level it, they'd consider that to be close enough to count as a visit. >

Those countries that support Sweden & Finland membership into NATO should just create individual defense pacts and bypass Turkey's veto. >

They already did. >

Do you have a link for that? I would like to read more/details >

Okay, as a Swede I'm pretty tired of this guy trying to curry favour from Russia and blackmailing the rest of the NATO. Erdogan want's us to crawl and relinquish all moral values that we have upheld over the years.
I realize that the Bosporus is very important to the US but as I see it either our real allies in NATO step up to send a signal that Turkiye can not play both sides like this if they want to be seen as a friend, or we need to back out of the process. Standing in the doorway is just painting a target on our backs and costing us diplomatic capital for nothing. >

As a Finn and proponent of Nato for 20+ years I have to concede that the arguments of the opposition about allying with an authoritarian regime like Turkey being unacceptable have merit. The process is too far to stop now, but at least no concessions should be made to Turkey no matter how long it takes. Worst case scenario we can find alternatives, its not worth sacrificing our moral principles. >

Well if we have to be stuck in this miserable limbo with someone I'm glad it's you guys. I'd vote for backing out, but I want to stick it out since we went in together and you have the tougher border. >

Relax, russia is gone. Erdogan basically has time limit on how long he can use turkish bazaar tactics. It doesn't matter if this takes decades. The most important thing is that we show on world stage that we are allied with the rest of the western world. In fact, this is good, since we don't have any obligations. One could even say that we are free members. >

I'm afraid I'm not quite as confident. A lot of people on reddit answer with bravado but the real reason we want to join is to have a binding agreement of being under the american nuclear umbrella of mutually assured destruction. We are not trying to receive incremental aid during an invasion, we are trying to deter invasion all together.
Are you saying that if Russia called the bluff and invaded Finland or Sweden, you are a hundred percent certain the US would unleash nuclear war on a global scale, changing history forever to the unimaginably worse, for someone not even a real part of the NATO alliance? Because I wouldn't if I were them. And they didn't do it for Ukraine, who trusted the Budapest Memorandum to be deterring enough. And the argument was "Ukraine is not a member of NATO, but if they invade Poland on the other hand..." >

Finland has been preparing for Russian invasion for 80 years so even if Russia tried they would have miserable time. In all the Nato discussions in Finland the importance of independent defence was always included. 
Given that Russia is throwing everything they have into Ukraine there have are no threat for years, probably decades. >

Of course they would have a bad time, but name any invader that had a good time the last 50 years. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan 1, Afghanistan 2, Iraq etc. (I guess the 1991 Gulf war sticks out).  Didn't stop any of those wars from happening. And as it stands right now Finland might actually survive on it's own. But as I see it, that's not our goal with NATO, our goal is to not become a battleground. And I think a stable and predictable Russia is a safer neighbour than an unstable Russia.
And think of it like this: we are smaller countries, like Ukraine (but even smaller). Ukraine is putting up a hell of a fight, but we must also not be blinded by feats of heroism. Ukraine has been in full war economy and mobilization, their economy is right now living off of donations, they receive state of the art intelligence without which they would be blind, they receive training in untouchable facilities abroad. Western air defence systems have denied the crucial air superiority and has been absolutely vital for aid packages from NATO protected supply lines in Poland that Russia cannot strike. Remove any of those advantages and we might not be laughing.
Russia in the meanwhile has had a small partial mobilization and still has peace economy. Without the massive and instantaneous sanctions their economy would not have budged.
I agree with the sentiment Russia has overestimated their forces, underestimated the resilience of the Ukrainian people. They have further underestimated the fast economical and diplomatical response of primarily the United states and United Kingdom.
As a Swede, we have been unprepared for every major conflict during the 20th century, in a false sense of security that other countries won't or can't start wars. During the 21st, for once, I'd like to be over-prepared instead of under.