By your logic, if Russia ever did invade Sweden, the "logical" thing to do would be to lay down arms immediately: after all, we all want to live a "peaceful life", right? Presumably the same would go for Russia making demands on the size of Sweden's military budget.
Yeah, right. Remind me please who was NATO defending against during the military operation in Libya? Iraq?
Regarding the rest of your arguments, whether you want to support joining NATO is your own business. I'm just looking at it from a game theory perspective. As far as I remember, so far there haven't been threats from Russia against Sweden. Now you want to join and there is a threat. You may be indignant and think other countries have no right to choose for you but the reality may be different, as the Ukrainans are finding out. Now they will have to forget about joining NATO AND will get occupied, when they could have just admitted that they can't beat Russia and agreed to not join NATO.
It would be easier to explain why NATO invaded Iraq if it actually had. :-) The Coalition invaded Iraq.
NATO, as such (not just NATO members operating outside of the alliance) conducted a couple different (all non-combat, training and capacity development) military missions in Iraq. IIRC one from 2004-2011ish and one starting around 2018, maybe something in between.
Multiple entities need to act with force in non economic ways that render collective bullying impossible.
Game theory says “gang up now instead of letting your strongest get picked off first and your collective force diminished “
The old “first they came for the xyz but I wasn’t an xyz so I didn’t say anything “ story.
Or surely Ukraine will not be the last victim.
Putin has apparently and obviously thrown all caution and concern for domestic approval etc to the wind. What is his rush? He’s moving quickly. Best to act now.
Nuclear war is a multifaceted weapon, hence the ‘M’ in MAD
it’s not automatic or known what the trigger threshold is for this, and engagement has indeed occurred between nuclear powers is recent times…
Yes, sure. But what you're betting on here is that when Sweden says "on three JUMP HIM!", the rest will follow. And when you have multiple countries now refusing to take Russia out of SWIFT, which is a relatively benign measure, compared to an all-out war, how confident are you that they will come in your defense in case of an actual war against a nuclear power?
Not anymore. It takes a little bit to organize independently run republics, but once things get rolling…
Also, there was this 1994 accord called the Budapest Memorandum…
Mr P bit off more than he can chew, this time.
There will be more NATO…
Just when we thought it was all getting rather irrelevant and dated…
Nothing like a “master strategist “ to galvanize the entire world against him suddenly when he had a substantial reserve of social capital in the leadup to this…
> > Game theory says “on three JUMP HIM!” > Yes, sure. But what you're betting on here is that when Sweden says "on three JUMP HIM!", the rest will follow
Which is precisely what NATO provides
Georgia (of which South Ossetia and Abkhazia are part), yes, pretty explicitly. Chechnya is a different and long-running conflict (the Chechen Wars, in terms of their initiation, predate the late 1990s NATO expansion.)
Georgia still wants to join NATO.
IOW, it was attacked because it wasn't yet a NATO member. You seem to interpret that as "Better never try!", whereas a far more reasonable conclusion AFAICS is "Get it done ASAP!" Of all the countries Putler has so far invaded, exactly zero have so far been NATO members. Never trying to join NATO leaves a country indefinitely belonging to the high-risk group.
If the fricking NATO had got off its butt and accepted Ukraine ASAP after the last time it applied (2008 IIRC), then Ukraine -- including Crimea! -- could have been a member well before 2014. You really think they'd be where they are now if they were a NATO member?
The above is Russian goal with or without talk about NATO. The debate about maybe joining NATO sometimes in future might have speed up Russian plans. But Russia objection to Ukraine in NATO is basically "it would made it harder to annex them".