Sweden and Denmark has a VERY violent history. Hundreds of years of wars. It is said to be the worst conflict in all of human history. Now we are allied and committed to defend each other. That's a huge thing for peace.

And fun facts: Of the 15 wars Denmark started 11 of them and Sweden won 11 of them. Sug på den danskjävlar ;) Sweden is a peaceful coutry and that contry that have lived longest in the world without war, over 200 years.

All nordic countries are very similar in so many ways and our language are almost the same so we can understand, "almost" each (except the Danish people (rest of the nordic countries understand what I mean :), maybe that why there have been conflicts ;) We, the nordic countries see ourself more like a family, like siblings that love each outer but also love to tease each other :D

And about "Hundreds of years of wars." I counted for fun how many years in total Sweden and Danmark was in war with each other between 1207 when the first war started to 1814 when the last one ended, and it was around 54 years in total, over a period of 4 centuries. (54 years are dependent how you count, if a war started 1207 and ended 1208 it could have been both 1 and 2 years long, so I counted 1,5 for all wars. So at best it was 47 years or at worst 64 with a mean time of 3,6 year per war).

I feel a new war brewing and just started stacking cannon balls at Bohus fästning [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohus_Fortress

So maybe, in 50 years from now, Russia will join NATO, too?

Sometimes I wonder what a unified world look like, for example what would it look for Palestine and Israel becoming a single nation? For South Korea and North Korea to merge again in brother hood? For China and Taiwan ? etc.

Like how boring would the news be in complete peace? what we wound be doing instead if we weren't busy killing each other?

Just some questions I ponder sometimes..

if NATO wants America in then they need to do something about an angry orange political candidate...

On top of that, there's inflation and the value-added tax, which mean that, once all the extra costs have been covered, only about €50 to €70 billion will be left over to spend on actual hardware. "The longer you have this money sit around somewhere, the longer factors like inflation and interest payments have to eat away at this pile," Loss said.[0]

There has been some criticism from European allies, and within Germany, that so many big orders have been placed in the United States.

Depriving local industry. And of what use is this anyway. Why on earth would Germany need ballistic missile defense etc.

>quickly

Two years in, the entire West still cannot outproduce Russia. Let alone Russia plus friends. For the most part, dependable large orders—necessary for expansion—aren’t coming. Overall, deindustrialization is only accelerating.

Italy just ordered 132 L2s for 2027–2037. Pathetic timeframe. These tanks will be obsolete by then.

>NATO wants America in

There is no NATO without the US. Something could conceivably carry the same name but it would not be the same thing. NATO is and has always been an instrument of American control over Europe.

>angry orange political candidate

Remember when Trump ordered a reduction of the occupation force in Germany (35k then)? Well, Serious People got Very Nervous and the military stalled the order. In fact, the generals were in a state of barely concealed mutiny then. And now there’s 50k.

So, rest assured: Germany will be Kept Down for the foreseeable future.

[0]: https://www.dw.com/en/what-happened-to-the-german-militarys-...

Apparently he wanted to fast-track, so it might have hurt his ego somehow, when he was told that Russia is no special.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240228155601/https://www.thegu...

George Robertson, a former Labour defence secretary who led Nato between 1999 and 2003, said Putin made it clear at their first meeting that he wanted Russia to be part of western Europe. “They wanted to be part of that secure, stable prosperous west that Russia was out of at the time,” he said.

The Labour peer recalled an early meeting with Putin, who became Russian president in 2000. “Putin said: ‘When are you going to invite us to join Nato?’ And [Robertson] said: ‘Well, we don’t invite people to join Nato, they apply to join Nato.’ And he said: ‘Well, we’re not standing in line with a lot of countries that don’t matter.’”

Putins views on Russia may have been more widely broadcasted recently because of Carlsons interview, but don’t be fooled; they were no different 24 years ago.

On the other hand, I have witnessed how the Putin's rhetoric made a U-turn over those dozens of years — from "Fukuyama-level" liberal and pro-Western (early Putin), to "geopolitical realist" and pretty much anti-Western (as of today).

I don't know how much this reflects his actual worldview transformation (if there was any), but I have reasons to believe that there is no smoke without fire.

While not technically impossible, practically this is very hard to see. Unless Russia becomes a market liberal, well functioning democracy, it will not happen -- and what are the odds of that?

Russia had the chance after the collapse of the Soviet Union, instead it devolved into a plutocracy and what is essentially a one-party state in anything but name.

Regardless of what some people might think, in no small part due to many people seeing Russia as the spiritual successor to the SU combined with its vast geographical size, Russia is not a superpower, and will not become one in our lifetime.

Yes, they have nukes. So does the UK, and the UK economy is 20% larger than Russia despite is essentially being an island off Europe. How about France? They have nukes too, and their economy is 30% larger.

Russia is a failed state at the tail end of a century long brain drain, crippled by corruption and authoritarian rule, but none of these things are the most deciding factor in why they will never be part of NATO; the primary reason is that Russia quite simply has an empire complex.

What do you get if you combine economical stagnation and a dead empire inferiority complex? You get Hitler, or in this case Putin, and I very much doubt any of us will see a "rehabilitation" of the Russian people like we saw in Germany in our lifetime.

Probably not. Russian history for the last several hundred years is a series of kings, emperors, and dictators. Massacres and purges.

The entire peasantry was only freed from slavery 150 years ago. Being ruled by hereditary monarchs and dictators for so long has fundamentally changed Russian culture to be vastly different from the West.

IMO it would take a radical culture shift for Russia to join the West.

I get the impression Russians would like a more modern system but have a job shifting Putin. But he won't be around for ever.

By who?

Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavism

Nuclear states can and HAVE gone to wars - but no one wants to mess with the devastating conventional power of NATO.

After the recent gutting, Russia has a few dozen SU-34s that can fly. NATO has thousands of planes.

And Ukraine is about to receive their F-16s

You mean US has. And someone like Trump may decide to not engage in conflict as part of NATO.

Of all the takes I've heard in my life, that is certainly one of them.

Sweden has been using Nato standards and running occasional exercises with Nato for a while now. They didn’t want to be officially part of it because of their unique perspective on War and Peace (see Olof Palme, sending Blue helmets in Cyprus), but there wasn’t a lack of desire to join. I’d compare it to Switzerland and the EU: the de-facto alliance is obviously beneficial, but principles have kept things separated on paper.

Finland, that’s more complicated: unlike Baltic countries and the Kaliningrad exclave, they were not in the Soviet Union. That meant a lot of pressure to remain neutral, translated until last year into “Finlandization”: a refusal to take either side. That pressure ended with the Fall of the Berlin Wall, but Finland (like Sweden) saw no reason to change their official neutral position.

When Russia started to mess with Estonia, the need to ally with Nato, in particular on cyber-defense questions, became a lot more present for everyone nearby. I suspect that Finland wanted to be ready, adopt Nato standards, training, methods, etc., and pick the right moment to join officially. Like the Baltic trio, the Russian presence looms high in the East, and I’d be surprised if there were not regular overtures and unofficial promises of support. The USA and Canada care a lot about the Arctic, and it’s not hard to count the allies there.

So, I don’t think it was a major shift—like Italy changing sides at the end of WW2. It’s more a gradual rapprochement, matching Putin’s increasingly concerning policies, that hit a very good reason to accelerate. The process has been mostly political and official. Neither Sweden nor Finland had to change guns, tactics, or radio signals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden%E2%80%93NATO_relations#...

Maybe compare it to a couple who live together but aren’t married and are opposed to it because one of them sees it as an encroachment of religion.

The biggest issue is that the majority of the media is controlled by the government. Also they own jurisdiction and have been gradually rewritten the constitution. Most people who support this regime do that because they believe the propaganda. Many people I know have been bitterly trying to tell their family members that they are watching / listening propaganda (unsuccessfully, for years). Most of Orban's supporters don't know much about politics, they just want to live their lives, so they believe whatever is on TV, radio, online media, posters, etc. For many it is very hard to see what is true and what is lie.

But there are many, many people here who don't like this and want a change. The country is in a state where positive change towards democracy is really hard at the moment, many of us still want to believe it is possible.

By the way, we could see this madness around the world in the past years: Brexit, Trump, Bolsonaro… many people can be led by their nose. Not just in Hungary. I really whish if people would learn from Hungary's mistakes, and don't let the same thing to happen in their countries.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_regime

Many people actually do that, because in their minds alternative is "left" that will do the same but with added bonus of supporting LGBT, fight against climate change, unrestricted immigration and such. And getting traditional true patriot of country X rich is preferred to fattening this dirty commies traitors on the "left".

https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/how-viktor-orban...

Nonetheless, in 2014, five center-left parties formed the Unity Alliance. One center-left party (LMP) refused to join, splitting the center-left opposition vote. This cut in half the number of constituencies that the opposition would have won that year, allowing Fidesz to capture 91 percent of the constituencies with just 45 percent of the vote. Still plagued by infighting, the opposition remained fragmented in 2018, even as it gained strength in Budapest. With 49 percent of the vote in 2018, Orbán won 86 percent of the constituencies, losing in Budapest but winning almost everywhere else. The 2014 and 2018 results showed that only a unified opposition that spanned the political spectrum could defeat Orbán’s system.

And one point generally - please lets stop calling whats happening in Ukraine in any other way than War. putin's war - its a perfect name I'll keep repeating till it sticks around, or I'll die trying.

Its relatively personal to me, my home country (former Czechoslovakia) was basically enslaved by russian cough cough soviet forces for decades, people shot or electrocuted when trying to escape (around 500 recorded officially), tens of thousands murdered in other indirect ways (gulags or uranium mines with no ticket back, or just beaten to death in some cold dungeon). I see basically 0 change from that russia to modern one and how it values things like human life, freedom etc.

It looked briefly better, much better, but those times are over for good and russia is firmly back at cold/not so cold war with whole western world. Currently trying to subvert quite a few places in Africa. I hope western 3-letter agencies are few steps ahead.

And yes, I understand Turkey's geographical position giving it power over sea routes, and why that was desirable to NATO. But choosing to include a fickle ruler in a unanimous-decisions-only organization is just asking for trouble.

(The Baltics wanted in on NATO, and it's good that they got in. They're largely decently run small countries in a tough spot, not world stage bullies.)

It's better for Turkey and NATO, that Turkey is in NATO. I would say it's far more important than Sweden or Finland being in NATO.

edit: note if you're trying to find Turkey by searching on that site, it uses the endonym Türkiye

In the US, only wingnuts and "useful idiots" (really the same group) are repeating this talking point.

Even people pretty forgiving of his essays acknowledge he's habitually at odds with basic facts and history.

Not a wingnut, per se, but on the same spectrum of people divorced from reality. It's too bad as well, because US foreign policy is deserving of more scrutiny than it gets, and it gets a fair amount.

There are good meticulously researched articles about their businesses here (one of the few remaining independent, reliable sources in Hungary): https://www.direkt36.hu/en/

It is clear from listening to the podcast that Russia has always been nightmare to live in (unless you perhaps belonged to a tiny elite) or have as a neighbour. Serfdom wasn't abolished until 1861.

Regarding change from "that Russia" to the modern one, I'm afraid there has been change, to the worse. The Soviet incarnation of the empire was at least nominally bound to the progressive ideas of socialism (which is completely orthogonal to wether those ideas are workable or not), whereas the current incarnation is openly worshipping the fascist ideas of strength and domination, and the struggle to get there.

When Russians claim that they don't understand why someone would willingly ally with others who don't prove worthy by actively coercing them, chances are it's genuine, they really don't understand. Sometimes I wonder if their language even has a word for friendship based on equality that is separate from an asymmetric allegiance based on status gradient. Perhaps all the non-gradient terminology was gobbled up by socialist ideology and now the very idea of peers is out, except where seeing it through the socialist lense still fits?

Ukraine is giving us (or at least the collective west) the best deal we've possibly ever given - dealing a mighty blow, hopefully the final one, to what used to be Soviet Union and its imperial ambitions. Without a single western soldier having to enter the battlefield. Indeed Ukraine may be the first ally in the long history of regimes that US has supported in their struggles since the end of WW2 that has a will and a skill to take the weapons of war that were developed to battle the commies in the first place and put them now into their intended use in killing russian invaders[nsfw] and destroying their machines of war[losses].

Now, if Ukraine were to fall, especially because US should decide that it is not in it's best interests to support them, this has a high likelihood to result in a world where Europeans now have to alone face the wounded and angry bear living next to them, and starting to arm themselves to the teeth. Historically nothing good has come from Europeans arming up, but this will also limit European countries ability, and willingness to support an ally that was, in other parts of the world. With US influence waning, this will lead to increasingly difficult situations in the middle east and Africa. Soon the willingness of US to support its other allies in Asia would be put to test in Korea. Failing to fight the good fight there, but this time with American skin in the game, then the Taiwan is likely to fall to China like a domino piece, putting an end to pax americana, and post world war 2 world order. And at least in the west, to one of the most peaceful periods in [modern] history.

If instead we will help Ukraine deal a decisive and lethal blow to a country that has terrorized its neighbors since the times immemorial, this will send a strong message to every dictator wanna-be, that the rules based world order is the one where we the free people of this planet choose to live in. In democracy, with all its flaws.

[nsfw] https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1b8f... [losses] https://lookerstudio.google.com/reporting/dfbcec47-7b01-400e...

Note that “Ukraine” is now preferred to “the Ukraine”; the latter term was used in Soviet times to diminish its autonomy by implying it was just a region of the USSR.

Source ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Ukraine#English_defini...

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/tg00js/ukrai...

Examples: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_JAS_39_Gripen https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stridsvagn_103 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_Launched_Small_Diamet...

PS: Not sure why parent is getting down voted for asking a neutral question. Curiosity!

Phrasing of that question is a classic bait for flame wars.

At some point {subject} {verb} is just {subject} {verb}.

And given the abnormally terse formulation, I'd expect GP was explicitly trying to decolor their interrogative.

It completely neutralizes the Russian Baltic Fleet.

The only railway line supporting Murmansk is less than 200km beyond the finnish border, which means the Nordic Fleet is also compromised.

Potential disadvantages of additional members are added political instability as can be seen with Hungary and Turkey. There is little chance of this with both countries.

Basically you dont defend members, you defend borders and adding Finland and Sweden to the pact makes for a far easier and better developed front. The Finns have been building bunkers and training their population for the next Russian invasion since WW2.

Having Finland as a member strengthens the position of the Baltics, who are threatened by the Suwalki corridor.

Basically it strengthens and stabilizes the northern border to Russia/Belarus.

Of course, Sweden was already a member of the EU and a NATO partner, so it's not a huge difference in practice.

As opposed to countries that do not design and manufacture such things themselves.

A defense pact, in case shit hits the fan.

A deterrence, to make war too difficult to undertake.

Adding additional countries around the edge of NATO does two things for the countries currently in the pact, even if they aren't economic or military powerhouses. First, those countries are less likely to be attacked, and not having your neighbors be embroiled in war is good. Germany is much happier if there is no land war going on next door in Poland, bombs occasionally falling on the wrong side of the border, civilian refugees looking to them for safety.

Second, adding someone else to the pact puts someone else on the front lines to test the defense provided by the pact, if shit hits the fan. Sure, if Russia wanted to, they could try to bypass Poland on the way to Germany, but practically speaking with Poland in NATO, Germany will get to see how NATO responds to an invasion of Poland, rather than finding out how they respond to an invasion of Germany. Poland, likewise, would be much happier seeing how NATO responded to the invasion of Ukraine-the-NATO-member, rather than watching the invasion of Ukraine and wondering how NATO will respond to the invasion of Poland if Ukraine falls.

It also means NATO controls the Baltic Sea completely.

Tidal flows. Hull detection. Passage protocols.

Also, a bigger alliance requires each member to contribute fewer troops to manage a common defense.

Sweden is a fairly wealthy country that can contribute the required amount to NATO.

Sweden's ports are beneficial in a potential Arctic conflict.

Finally, Sweden does not bring any new potential conflicts/enemies with it.

How? Norway (long a member) has Arctic ports, Sweden does not touch the Arctic.

Not since the 1940s.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Armistice

Except the part where Trump said he'd pull the US out of NATO if elected.

Congress blocked his ability to do that without their approval: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/12/16/...

EDIT: since other commenters don't know, yes it was signed into law, Sec 1250A of the 2024 NDAA:

>The President shall not suspend, terminate, denounce, or withdraw the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty, done at Washington, DC, April 4, 1949, except by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, provided that two-thirds of the Senators present concur, or pursuant to an Act of Congress.

But who knows, maybe he can sabotage the alliance in other ways, or find some other way out.

https://www.uso.org/stories/3518-one-year-later-how-the-uso-...

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_136388.htm

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...

But in same time European allies has also increased their NATO soldiers.

The fact that Ukraine hasn't been easy for him makes it less likely that Putin will attempt that, but it's clearly been on his mind.

There is a reason forces of core NATO states farther from the Eastern flank are deployed to Poland and the Baltic states; it is practically impossible for Russia to attack them without attacking the forces of core NATO states, not just in a "legally, under Article 5, we must treat this as an attack" way, but in a "Russian troops are killing troops of those states" way.

Even the good relations between EU and Russia pre-2014 were just theater on Russia's part. Here in Finland during those years shady Russian businessmen kept buying properties that made no financial sense, but were located close to critical infrastructure or military locations. They have never acted in good faith.

AFAICT this topic has been mostly avoided by the Finnish media. I guess everyone just kinda trusts that the government is on top of the situation.

Baltics have always been the biggest risk. They are very small population-wise and can be "easily" cut off (Suwalki gap). But the addition of Sweden and Finland to the alliance will significantly improve the defense posture (airfields, maritime logistics).

NATO membership also means NATO equipment, which the US's military-industrial complex disproportionate benefits from, but also serves as lock-in: those extremely expensive aircraft are basically scrap without the appropriate service contracts and part availability, meaning any military that aligns itself with the US's tech is far less likely to be able to wage wars we don't approve of.

NATO also brings stability: nuclear red-line borders are unlikely to be invaded, reducing the chances of conflicts that are bad for business. A peaceful world is a profitable world, and those profits disproportionately go to the US.

NATO also provides soft power projection: NATO membership is a huge boon to its members, which grants the US leverage politically to encourage member states to adopt pro-US policies.

In other words, there has been a strong streak of national self-interest (correctly calculated IMHO -- at least until the end of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union) in the US's contributions to NATO.

NATO is the only reason why the EU buys so much US weapons in the first place, the benefit to the US is enormous.

So far Europeans died in USA conflicts around the world , how many conflicts did Europe start and USA had to get involved so far ?

From me a Romanian, feels very shitty that our soldiers died in Iraq and Afghanistan for America but now if we will need help Trumpists will not help back.

Setting aside for a moment the rather large conflict that ended in 1945 - if you're in your late 20s or older, both Libya and Kosovo happened within your lifetime and meet your criteria.

1 That was not an Article 5 thing,

2 how many USA soldiers gave their life in Kosovoa?

3 1945/ww2 I think USA was attacked by Japan, americans did not enter the world to protect Europe, they were forced in the war so they had no choice then to fight their enemies wherever they are.

The American strategy in WWII was "Germany First" despite it having been the Japanese that attacked us.

Anyway we talking about NATO, USA used Art5 and Europeans died for USA, but now Trumpists complain that we are not doing enough and USA will not return the favor

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declarations_of_war_during_W...

Based on a quick wiki scan looks like two. This accounts for all NATO casualties. No Romanians were killed in Kosovo.

A combined total of 30 Romanians were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yes, I'm fun at parties.

and boy howdy do those NLAWs work.

I know. I'm always in pain when my NLAWS come to visit.

Also a very interesting distributed defense doctrine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bas_90

And it's a lot easier to justify military spending than it is research.

Same reason NASA is the way it is, but we still have a space program.

There's nothing inherently wrong with an administration exercising soft power to help a favoured politician in another country – even if they sometimes turn out to be dictators – but in this instance I think it's disingenuous to suggest that the United States "put [Putin into power]", assuming you're referring to the United States' inaction after the FSB apartment bombings?

> Wait. Putin got voted person of the year 2007?

Time's Person of the Year Award is specifically scoped to not be an endorsement or celebration of the winner. Think of it more as a measure of outsized impact on the world in a given year.

I was Time's Person of the Year in 2006, all i did was get in arguments with people i didn't even know.

You know. It would be fine if it was a few times thing. But US has a long history of putting dictators into power, calling them allies, then turning against them and invading/killing them. Which only seems to benefit the military and cause chaos everywhere else.

> That the United States "put [Putin into power]" assuming you're referring to the United States' inaction after the FSB apartment bombings?

No. The economic shock therapy.

Other notable winners include Hitler, Stalin (twice!), Khrushchev and Trump.

I don't think it's an indication that the west likes them. Even in recent times, I'm not sure it's even an indication that time magazine likes them (see Trump)

2. If it does, it will do that regardless of whether or not NATO enters the war or not. Russia has signalled it has no intentions of stopping its war of conquest

Regarding #1, do you think this is the case if Ukraine, for example, gains enough traction to attack Russian border cities as a means of preventing a Russian regrouping and counter-attack? Or is the word "commit" doing a lot of heavy lifting here?

Regarding #2, I've heard two scenarios that would counter this. If Russia wins in Ukraine, they likely have an interest in further expansion. If they think NATO isn't really as committed as they claim, a nuclear exchange into someplace like Poland would prove that, as well as giving the US a plausible way to back out of NATO commitments. That's a huge win for Russia. The previous statement about Ukrainian success provides the other example. Both cases are conditional on NATO activities.

Too much in Russia depends on the West. I'm not even talking about its industrial capacity which can't even produce military equipment without foreign components.

Their children study and live in Europe and the US. Their families live in Europe. Their business interests are in Europe.

I really doubt any of them will risk a nuclear war.

> Regarding #2

They've been quite vocal about this for a long time: they will continue war until stopped. At least until they claim all/most of the former USSR territories. Some of those territories (the Baltic states) are in NATO.

That has already happened.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-drones-a9fc4dd...

So, the question is: what do you do? Sit back and let it take whatever it wants?

Also, they signaled wish to expand beyond Ukraine multiple times last year.

I wouldn't say it doesn't exist. To me, it's always more of that "we'll let you guys muck about until it's totally obvious you're not going to fix it, then we'll ride in to save the day" attitude. Not saying that's accurate, but that's how it's portrayed by Hollywood

The flip side of this is watching European shows, and they all feel like US law enforcement is just a bunch of gung ho gun toting cowboys. Neither view is entirely accurate, nor are they inaccurate as they are just stereotypes

It's fairly accurate

Speaking as a Canadian, whose country doesn't.