You can never have too much insurance. No doubt, the Russians proved to be untrustworthy. If I lived in Finland, I would have wanted them to join NATO too. But that doesn’t mean Russia would actually go through with it. What would their justification be and what would they do when the entire continent of Europe meets them in Finland? They can barely hold a few hundred squares miles in ethnic Russian areas in Ukraine. Be realistic in your assessment of probabilities.
I’ll agree it seems highly improbable, but when you are dealing with irrational actors, or ones who have unpredictable motivations, you can never really tell. While it is obvious now that Russia probably couldn’t occupy and defend Grenada, it wasn’t obvious to the world, or even Putin, that they were so incredibly inept.
Actually, it was. We’ve known Russia has been incredibly inept for a some time. Ask anyone who’s had business dealings in Russia. They are about 30 years behind us. The financial crisis in 1998 left them at rock bottom. They’ve made some progress since, but have been and still are a 2nd world country at best. For a good while there, they were close to 3rd world status. Problem is Ukraine is even further behind. Putin is plenty happy with being a multi-billionaire while he dupes his people with visions of grandeur from years past. Russia is a far cry from their glory days of the 1950s. Nobody who knows Russia is surprised by their ineptness. Nor are they ignorant of Ukraine’s corruption and subsequent incompetence.
Do you have knowledge the rest of us don't? Cause the prevailing wisdom is that the world was 100% suprised by the level of their ineptitude. Yeah - we get it now, but 14 months ago we didn't. It's part of the reason for the sluggish response as the West just assumed Russia would roll. It wasn't until Ukraine showed an incredible backbone and Russia showed incredible incompetence that the West (too slowly) went into action. And if Putin is so happy being a billionaire and duping his people, why didn't he just keep doing that? Why is he risking burning it all down, spindoctor?
There are lots of ways to attack a country short of rolling in tanks. I agree that it would not be a very smart thing to do, but Russia has been doing a lot of things that are not very smart lately. I was only pointing out that just because Sweden has not formally joined the alliance yet does not mean Russia will be able to pull off a frozen-conflict scheme, as they did with Georgia in 2008. Whatever Turkey hopes to gain by delaying Sweden’s entry is going to do just that: delay.
Long discussion, but their “justification” is easy: Finland used to be part of the Russian Empire, just like Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltics, etc. Their justification would be: That used to mine, and I want it back.
I say it here, and it comes out there: Russian TV suggests Finland, Poland, Baltics want back to "Mother Russia"
What’s more, China is building itself as the better option to the US. It has money that it is throwing around. Other than Taiwan, it is not threatening other regimes, regardless of their human rights. It gets to tell the World that the US is bad, and it is a better business partner. Aligning with Russia, and then telling the World it has tried to broker peace, reaffirms the public image it wishes to showcase to the World.
Maybe it pays off decades from now as those economies grow, but right now our alliance is where the wealth is.
Putin may infer it publicly and via state media to boost his presence at home, but he has no delusions that he would actually be successful in trying to take Finland and the Baltics. This is a man who waited 8 years to move a few kilometers in Ukraine. I think DeSantis has it right. The areas currently under siege and in dispute are majority ethnic Russian areas of Ukraine. That justification (immoral as it is), along with the fact annexing parts of, if not all of Ukraine are much more a possibility due to the limitations of the Ukrainians in fighting back, allowed an opening for Putin. Going into Finland or the Baltics would be a suicide mission and he knows that. Probably more so today than ever before, due to the struggles in Ukraine. As I said, Putin would rather keep his cushy lifestyle as a multibillionaire than to risk annihilation for a pipedream, which would almost definitely happen if he was to go into Finland or the Baltics.
There may be ZERO chance TODAY that Russia rolls tanks into Finland, but there is definitely a greater than zero chance of that in the future. If Russia wins this war, takes over Ukraine, and rebuilds both its economy and its military (and learns how to make better military equipment and how to properly train troops), they certainly might consider invading Finland some day. Especially if Europe becomes weaker financially and militarily, and the U.S. pulls some of its troops out of European bases (like Trump wanted to). Russia already proved that they are more than willing to invade neighbors for no valid reason except a need to conquer and subjugate their neighbors. They will have to persuade Europe to resume doing business with them, but that is certainly conceivable. I would say that France is almost ready to sell out the rest of Europe today. Once one major country starts doing business with Russia, they all will. And all it will take is Putin's retirement, followed by his successor telling Europe that he is going to re-build Ukraine into a peaceful country and make it better than before, and take care of the country so that Ukrainians don't have to worry about elections, news reporting, and other useless things (besides, they'll be too busy getting re-educated). And Russia has a head start on upgrading its military equipment, because they already have a few examples of captured U.S. military hardware. Just because you cannot conceive of something, does not mean that it is impossible. If we had asked you over two years ago if Russia was going to invade Ukraine in 2022, I believe you would have told us that it was impossible.
I wouldn’t say it’s impossible, but if I counted it right, there are 6 necessary conditions in your post for it to happen. That’s a lot of things that would need to go wrong. I think with them joining nato odds go down to near zero for the foreseeable future. Finland isn’t worth a world war for Russia.
One group of foreign fighters in Ukraine is a bit unexpected: Chechens. They know what Ukraine is going through because they went through something similar, albeit on a smaller scale. Chechen volunteer fighters back up Ukraine's Russian resistance This history might also explain the Chechen Army's unwillingness to fight in Ukraine (they are mostly just occupying houses in various cities).
I think he missed the part where I said Finland can never have enough insurance, which was the much abridged version of what he posted. But yes, Putin will be long gone before Russia gets back to pre-war status economically and their pre-war status wasn’t too superb to begin with. As far as becoming an economic superpower, Putin has set Russia back decades with this invasion. It would take a leader or leaders with real vision to get Russia to that point from here and even then, we’re talking 30, 40 years from now minimum. They will also need to completely transform their economy as the developing world is moving away from fossil fuels.
Gee, I wonder what would make Russia think that they could just grab an American journalist and those stupid Americans would be willing to trade for something Russia wants. Russia might discuss swap for jailed U.S. reporter, a diplomat for that country says
