How is Finland in NATO sad?, Finland has joined the largest defensive military alliance in the world, and they clearly felt as a country that had been invaded by the USSR in the past that they needed more protections.
Russia won't even breathe in the direction of Finland now, because Russia cannot handle NATO and Russia knows it.
I was talking about Russian perspective.
> the largest defensive military alliance in the world
Putting aside the question of whether large military alliances are a good or a bad thing, NATOs "defensiveness" and peacefulness is nothing more than a marketing slogan: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NATO_operations
One surely doesn't use toxic depleted uranium munitions for defense.
> they clearly felt as a country
What exactly is implied by "as a country"? Cuz I remember how some Fins were upset that there wasn't any specific voting process, but only a decision of politicians.
> invaded by the USSR in the past that they needed more protections.
If you are referring to the Winter war some years after the collapse of the Russian Empire (of which Finland had been part of), this has all been resolved a long time ago, and all the political will for conflict and related frictions had died out before any of us was born.
> Russia won't even breathe in the direction of Finland now
Did it though? There were no frictions up until Finlands decision to join NATO.
> because Russia cannot handle NATO and Russia knows it.
Russia already feels like it's handling NATO in Ukraine with all those NATO instructors and NATO weapons. Besides, I think by now it should be clear that "I dare you, watchagonnado" politics doesn't bring you to good places.
Russia says they are fighting NATO itself in Ukraine as a way to try and justify there armies poor performance in Ukraine, I dont think the Russian military actually think its fighting NATO in Ukraine and knows that NATO itself would wipe the floor with Russia, considering the performance of Ukraine using only some second hand NATO weaponry.
Says who? Cuz this awfully seems like western propaganda talking points, where it's always "we best, they worst"
It is an established fact that Ukraine's army was trained under NATO's instructors and since weapons are not clothing, being second hand doesn't really make it less effective.
(Un)fortunately there isn't really a benchmark against which one can compare Russia's successes or failures, all recent modern conflicts boiled down to hit and run tactics of safely bombing the complete shit out of some far away backwards country, assuming control of the flaming ruins, and then just dropping it for it to deal with the consequences by itself with no fear of repercussions, as it's just too far away.
Take Afghanistan for example: 20 years of campaign undone in like a week and it's not even a real problem for the US, as it all happens to be far away on another continent - they don't even have to deal with Tliban, unlike everyone else around.
Its obvious, if you think the Ukrainian military really represents the might of NATO you are kidding yourself.
> It is an established fact that Ukraine's army was trained under NATO's instructors and since weapons are not clothing, being second hand doesn't really make it less effective.
Yes but Ukraine does not have the numbers, nor the latest weaponry at all. Ukraine is pushing back Russia with a hand full of HIMARS and old Russian and Soviet aircraft that have been jerry rigged with HARM missiles and Russia and Soviet tanks, when Ukraine gets F16's and Ambrams tanks the difference will be even starker.
> (Un)fortunately there isn't really a benchmark against which one can compare Russia's successes or failures, all recent modern conflicts boiled down to hit and run tactics of safely bombing the complete shit out of some far away backwards country, assuming control of the flaming ruins, and then just dropping it for it to deal with the consequences by itself with no fear of repercussions, as it's just too far away.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq is comparable, it latest 26 days and was conducted thousands of kilometres away from the participants.
Russia cannot take a city that is less than 300km from their border in 6 months.
Thats the comparison.
I think it is a representative fraction of NATOs might.
You also probably don't assume that LNR/DNR soldiers with mosins assisted by Russian special operation corps represent Russian Armed Forces might, do you? I am not even considering CSTO here.
We have only fractions, but these fractions seem to be more or less on par.
> Yes but Ukraine does not have the numbers
Ukraine has overwhelming numbers, compared to LNR/DNR forces and Russian operation forces combined.
> when Ukraine gets F16's and Ambrams tanks the difference will be even starker.
And so Russia starts "partial mobilization" to match it, so will have to see how it plays out.
> The 2003 invasion of Iraq is comparable.
I don't know why some think it is comparable as it was yet another "bomb a backwards country" and run kind of war. Completely different goals, completely different methods, completely different repercussions.
The state of Iraq army was a joke compared to modern Ukraines, less in size, extremely poorly equipped virtually no air defense, key Iraqi army officers were surrendering or even declaring that they won't oppose the invading force.
The US had simply leveled the whole of Iraq, purged all the infrastructure and what they caputed was already reduced to a stone-age rubble, what a feat!
And the US couldn't care less what happens next with all the people, the territories, with bandits and other paramilitary groups. They just hit and then they simply ran to a safe haven beyond the ocean.
I was actually mostly keeping Iraq in mind when I said that all the previous modern conflicts were kinda meh. No one had fought an actual real modern army before, no one cared about infrastructure (and likely Russia won't be too, judging by recent Zelensky's speech), no one had to care about really controling, managing and restoring captured territories, didn't have to care about reinforcing own borders against retaliations, didn't matter how loyal or opposing the local population would be in a long term, and there was always an option to just run back to a far away safe haven, which they always ended up using. Zero real opposition from other key global players also seems kinda tengible.
Completely and totally incomparable.
So we agree that a small fraction of NATOs power that represents likely less then most of each seperate country is capable of holding back and likely defeating Russia.
> And so Russia starts "partial mobilization" to match it, so will have to see how it plays out.
Russia started a mobilisation (there’s no word of partial in the actual decree) because they are losing. But I’m sure that a bunch of conscripts in T62s will fare better then the current professional soldiers in T72s and T80s who lost close to a couple months gains in less then a week.
> I don't know why some think it is comparable as it was yet another "bomb a backwards country" and run kind of war. Completely different goals, completely different methods, completely different repercussions.
Iraq was a modern army at the time with dug in defences, they where also half a world away requiring a heavy amount of logistics and planning.
Ukraine is on the border of Russia.
> The state of Iraq army was a joke compared to modern Ukraines, less in size, extremely poorly equipped virtually no air defense, key Iraqi army officers were surrendering or even declaring that they won't oppose the invading force.
Doesn’t look like air defence is doing much for Russia in Ukraine either “what air defence doing” is literally a recent meme that mocks Russias poor air defence.
> The US had simply leveled the whole of Iraq, purged all the infrastructure and what they caputed was already reduced to a stone-age rubble, what a feat!
This is exactly what Russia does except with added rape and torture of civilians
And without the military progress either.
> And the US couldn't care less what happens next with all the people, the territories, with bandits and other paramilitary groups. They just hit and then they simply ran to a safe haven beyond the ocean.
I don’t think that the people digging mass graves for civilians care what’s happening to them either.
> No one had fought an actual real modern army before, no one cared about infrastructure (and likely Russia won't be too, judging by recent Zelensky's speech)
Russia has been bombing infrastructure and civilian targets from day 1, they don’t care about infrastructure either.
> Completely and totally incomparable.
Id still say it’s pretty comparable given it’s distance. But I can understand why others wouldn’t.
It kinda makes Russias army look pathetic, but then again that’s what they are.
Consider that quite a lot of what you hear is a wartime propaganda and everyone is lying. But, one could treat this as kind of a poker game and infer quite a lot from it: e.g. in his last speech Zelensky accused Russia of attacking infrastructure. But why would he do that if that was supposedly true from day 1? Why the sudden change of rhetoric on what is supposed to be non-news and yet-another-day-of-the-same-thing? Maybe cuz this time Russians had actually started doing this on purpose, rather than as random collateral?
Same for all the "evil Russians rape and torture" - Zelensky ended up firing the official who was pushing this narrative. Why? Maybe cuz their latest ramblings became so incoherent, it might have caused suspicion and could have hurt the public image?
> Id still say it’s pretty comparable given it’s distance.
Distance to what? IMO, the most comparable thing to Iraq would be Russian campaign in Syria.
Perfect timing, you can now read the independent UN report that says Russian troops raped and tortured children in Ukraine.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2022/09/update-chair-ind...
ill quote it for you.
"The Commission has documented cases in which children have been raped, tortured, and unlawfully confined. Children have also been killed and injured in indiscriminate attacks with explosive weapons. The exposure to repeated explosions, crimes, forced displacement and separation from family members deeply affected their well-being and mental health.".
> Distance to what? IMO, the most comparable thing to Iraq would be Russian campaign in Syria.
Its distance from the countries fighting the actual war, in Iraq countries where fighting a war thousands of kilometres way from them, in Ukraine Russia is fighting on its doorstep and still failing.
Would be curious to compare it with Ukraine's normal numbers.
> Its distance from the countries fighting the actual war, in Iraq countries where fighting a war thousands of kilometres way from them, in Ukraine Russia is fighting on its doorstep and still failing.
Ok, clearly, you haven't read all the parts where I describes the difference of "hit and run" and fighting near the border. The US can't even secure it's border against civilians and had to build a wall. Even it's border patrol is a branch of customs, rather than a branch of military. I feel like you ignore the difference between simple "hit and run" and complex territorial defense on purpose.
Ehh, "likely". Seems to me like there were quite a lot of much more pressing factors.
> Because, if its really over NATO, why isn't Russia invading Finland?.
Why would it? Russia had warned Finland of repercussions of deploying NATOs military infrastructure.
NATO does not exist in a vacuum and we are not playing magical alchemy here:
Finland is a stable country with solid governmental and social institutions, that cares for the long-term prosperity of its citizens and generally doesn't base its identity on anti-russian rhetorics.
Ukraine, on the other hand, recently had a revolution, collapsed all the stability institutions that it had managed to grow after the SU dissolution, has a government relying on populist anti-russian militant rhetorics and has a president dumb enough to seriously and openly discuss deploying foreign nukes or making their own (Ukraine's atomic industry could produce dirty bombs).
Finland in NATO is sad, but at least it's not immediately dangerous, as Fins are unlikely to be willing to pose as human shields for the US military infrastructure.
Nowadays Ukraine in NATO is a total disaster and at its best would be a repetition of Turkey-Cuba missile crisis, except this time there would be no Cuba and no deterrent.