If I were living in Finland, I'd feel safer (against external aggression) if the country was in NATO than if it wasn't.

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.

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957 (conversation transcript published on 7 feb 2014)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych#cite_note-2 (forced out by protesters on 21-22 feb 2014)

[2] https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/ukraine-h...

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.

That was the leading thought before we were shown how ineffective Russian conventional military is.

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.

They've claimed to be doing those heavy changes for the last ten years and this is what they have to show for it.

Being cut off from nearly all advanced technology and with a terrible economy doesn't sound like a recipe for improving much in that sense either.

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.

> No, it diminishes. NATO is a defensive alliance. The more members it has [..]

A similar line of argument about alliances and treaties preventing war was used before the First World War. We all know how that ended.

> similar line of argument about alliances and treaties preventing war was used before the First World War

NATO was formed with that in mind. A single treaty document publicly ratified. No secret pacts. No back-alley alliances.

It's also a bad concept. Defensive alliance is a loaded term, but people use it in arguments as if it was a well defined mathematical object.

> Defensive alliance is a loaded term

It also doesn't appear to be a very accurate description of the things NATO has been getting up to since the end of the Cold War.

"[NATO] has been involved in military operations in the Balkans, the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa"[0]

You don't have to be a spin doctor to realise that what seems like "defence" to one person is another's war of aggression.

German defence minister Peter Struck memorably said in 2004 that "Germany was also [being] defended on the Hindu Kush".[1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO [1] https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/service/bulletin/rede...

> Defensive alliance is a loaded term, but people use it in arguments as if it was a well defined mathematical object.

Almost like "defensive weapons". Almost, because that's even worse.

How has appeasement worked out in Chechnya, the invasion of Ukraine and seizure of Crimea, Georgia, shooting down a civilian airliner?

What shall we give Russia this time? Then when they come for Poland or Romania, who do you suggest we offer to rape and murder?

Given that Russia couldn't even cleanly occupy Ukraine, it's laughable to suggest they could attack NATO countries such as Poland and Romania.

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.

Russia wouldn’t be able to hurt Ukrainian population if the latter had proper Air Force.

Very few countries in the world have "proper" air force.

Only if you assume the risk of conflict in any member country being the same as when they weren't a member.

> 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?

if everyone followed that logic France would still be under nazi rule

Timing is important - this is maybe not the best time to join.

> give Putin an offramp

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.

I'm afraid it looks pretty bad.

He's racking up war crimes at alarming speed. How many mass murders can we forgive him?

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.

> Nobody wants war.

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.

I'm not convinced of this. One of his leads seems to have trouble getting the 'Da' out: https://youtu.be/MsfUiTJv2lE?t=123

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.

> Putin can de-escalate this anytime

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.

How about giving off-ramp in the shape of proper prize for Putin’s head?

The exact same arguments used by Chamberlain, etc. Putin has the off-ramp he needs - move out of Ukraine, return all of cupped territories.

Anything less is appeasement.

> 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.