What do you get when you merge Norway/Sweden with Russia? Finland. You can hear it in the spoken language, and unfortunately, the Fins sound more Russian than Scandinavian.
Finland is a good catch for Nato. They are not weasels or warmongers and are highly civilized- having extensive experience in honestly trying to avoid war and maintain relations with Russia the best they could, until they couldn't. Yes they have Russians in their population and some shared history there - but so do the whole pantload of former Warsaw Pact countries that are now Nato members. Also, they are not freeloaders who avoided joining Nato just to save some bucks and then suddenly want to sign up when they feel threatened. Nope, they have maintained mllitary training and funding within their own country and have been sort of "associate members" of Nato in the sense that they train regularly with Nato forces even though they have remained non-members. Putin went too far in threatening them. That was another big mistake on his part. He has ranted on about how he could not tolerate having Ukraine become a Nato member because he does not want another Nato member right on his border. Then Finland decides to join which -NO LIE- doubles the length of Nato border on Russia. Idiot. The Finns don't bother anyone. They just do not want Russia rolling into their country again. The last time they did that the Finns fought them off in the Winter War. Nevertheless they lost a little chunk of Finland too. Yeh, they are not naive, they are well trained, and just want to be left alone. Nothing wrong with that.
Finland was never a Warsaw Pact country, never a Soviet satellite and so, yeah, is basically a good candidate for NATO as opposed to trying to bring Ukraine in. The only thing though is that Finland is so small that its 2% of GDP isn't going do much. Its really just another country NATO must defend. No offense to Finland or Europe but I don't feel like being dragged into another war by Europe and her treaties.
Yep. In spite of all the hoopla about how Ukraine has proven itself in this way and that I do not support bringing them into Nato. Of course that has always been the crazy thing anyway, lots of countries do not support it so Putin just uses that as excuse to take Ukraine . Ukraine has a major, major corruption problem which will not go away anytime soon. Out of the multi-billions being sent there- maybe 30% at best will reach its intended purpose. Americans don't seem to care though. It has been that way in all our conflicts of late. Zelensky probably already a mutl-millionaire. I see all that. I still want to see Putin take as large a beating as he can get short of sending in American troops. But I see all that about Ukraine and the gravy train shaping up post-war. And the other thing in regard to Nato, is that "already being at war" has traditionally been a deal-killer for joining Nato. Indeed Finland's contribution would be small. Whe viewed from another angle though, it is large in the sense that it would be a pisser to have them move closer to Camp Russia than the west. So just keeping them out of Russia's sphere of influence is a big benefit.
And of course a great love of Trump if you recall https://www.elitetrader.com/et/thre...-on-meeting-donald-trump.336672/#post-4940524 I can see Pinky singing "Finland, Finland, Finland..." I liked my trip to Finland.