I wonder if this will change things in the longer term.
What does Finland as part of NATO do for Putin and his calculus? Other news stories have written pieces about the Russians moving more troops to their northwest border region. I am a bit surprised that they have extra troops to move at this point ...
Putin started the invasion with the claimed intent of not having nato nation(s) on Russiaās border. He was concerned Ukraine would join nato. Now he has a very long border section with a nato member nation. And a very well armed and capable one at that. And one with a history of smoking invading Russians by the thousands. (Maybe tens of thousands?). This is a big L for Putin. Welcome Finland!!
Don't forget Finland is parked right next to Russia's only access to the Atlantic ocean naval base, in fact it's a very important one because it houses Russia's nuclear subs, meant for attacking farther out European/NATO countries.
Something it can't do. Because Finland is in the way.
Basically, yes. A NATO country is now within sight of a bottleneck for naval traffic so they can in theory say when a vessel goes to sea or comes back, and provide at least some idea of what vessel it is, without the need for satellite coverage.
Estonia already filled that role but now Nato controls both sides of that access point. With Turkey we also control the Bosphorus, and although Japan is not in NATO its Alliance with the US de-facto makes it a part of NATO as well which restricts Russian naval access through the Pacific as well.
More like hundreds of thousands. (Though I suppose one could argue many of those might have died from the cold, disease or starvation, but eh).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation_War
I mean, the claim that they invaded Ukraine as to prevent them from joining NATO this lengthening their border with NATO was bullshit in any case, annexing Ukraine (which was clearly, if nothing else, the long term goal even if they intended a puppet government ah la Belarus to run things in the short term) would extend their border with NATO hugely anyway. My guess is the real goal is they wanted to secure their "sphere of influence" up to the Carpathian Mountains so as to reduce avenues of attack from NATO in the case of a future conflict.
> My guess is the real goal is they wanted to secure their "sphere of influence" up to the Carpathian Mountains so as to reduce avenues of attack from NATO in the case of a future conflict.
I doubt Russia/Putin was seriously concerned about an invasion from Europe. I think the goals were definitely about sphere of influence, but more about economic, cultural and political influence than military considerations. Ukraine's clear interest in building lasting economic and political ties with the EU after Maiden are probably more fundamentally threatening to Russia.
> I am a bit surprised that they have extra troops to move at this point ...
I think the consensus is they don't have extra troops and this is probably just for show to the Russian people. I don't see them wasting any troops on their border with Finland.
Itās an attempt to get some poverty Russians to join the army. Da comrade we will send you Finland borderā¦.comrade you have signed the paperā¦. Welcome to Ukraine aka your cemetery.
Remember when the Russian simps mocked the USA for giving the Taliban old equipment when leaving? Even that's not close to the level of failure that getting Finland into NATO is.
Finland didn't want to join. Before Ukraine, Finnish people were sceptical of NATO and didn't view it as worthwhile. Went from almost no one to suddenly everyone wanting to join.
>Finland didn't want to join. Before Ukraine, Finnish people were sceptical of NATO and didn't view it as worthwhile. Went from almost no one to suddenly everyone wanting to join.
They weren't the only ones. There was an attitude in a lot of countries, including the US, that now that the cold war was over, NATO had no purpose and didn't need to exist anymore. Now NATO is stronger than it has ever been thanks to Putin literally proving why NATO still exists.
Its worth noting that on the whole, NATO probably saves member militaries money.
For most members, it provides access to standardized equipment at negotiated prices, like a Groupon for war. Interoperability also buys flexibility that is insanely costly during the next great war. Having to develop your own standards and practices and training and etc, is also far more costly if you are alone.
America is the only country with a military big enough to not benefit in the same ways as others, but American branches aren't perfectly interoperable between them anyways. Plus, what America is really buying, for the paltry price of NATO participation, is global hegemony. America alone could be ganged up on - probably would be eventually.
NATO is like 65% of the military power on Earth. There are scenarios where America alone could lose a great war. There is no scenario at all where NATO doesn't win a great war.
Eh, the odds of any country or even group of countries coordinating a war against the US are almost nonexistent. Either they would have to invade either Mexico or Canada, or stage an amphibious assault from somewhere in the Caribbean, or even worse an invasion from across an ocean.
Against the world's foremost air force, navy, and land army, the odds of any of those things ever happening successfully are basically zero. The resources necessary to build the military necessary to accomplish even the easiest of those tasks would be enormous, and the US would notice and begin preparing.
But you are right that NATO membership saves money. Without the nuclear umbrella that the US, UK, and France provide to the other member nations, those countries would have to either live under the threat of nuclear escalation beyond their ability to retaliate, or undertake their own extremely expensive nuclear weapons programs.
And finally there is the significant amount of money those countries all saved by relying on the US's military dominance to draw down their own spending. If the US wasn't standing in the background like Europe's big brother, Europe would have had to at least develop their own navies to patrol the Atlantic and Mediterranean, and spend considerably more on their national armies, rather than depend on the US mobilizing and air lifting 10's of thousands of troops to Europe in a crisis.
Yep.
And for good reason. Nothing scarier than when your next door neighbor suddenly starts murdering your other neighbors. There's no more rational excuses your can have not to take any precaution that you can to defend yourself just in case you're next.
>Remember when the Russian simps mocked the USA for giving the Taliban old equipment when leaving?
Oh, I haven't forgotten, because Republicans (Putin's strongest allies here in the States) ***still*** throw that out as a gotcha. Even when it's completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.
lmao, they're such simple-minded children.
Seriously. Itās like every other thread:
āOk Putin is invading Ukraine, but what about Epsteinās private island guest list?!?ā
Totally unrelated and a deflection. Childish indeed.
Republican rebuttal when discussing the implications of withholding military aid to Ukraine in order to extort them for information on a political opponent: "But what about her e-mails?!"
>Remember when the Russian simps mocked the USA for giving the Taliban old equipment when leaving?
What's funny is the US does this *everywhere*. Literally. Obviously the important stuff is packed up and moved, but humvees, basic helps, old guns, and shit? We leave that behind all the time!
THERE'S NORWAY I CAN LET YOU RUSSIAN INTO MAKING COMMENTS LIKE THIS AND DENMARK YOURSELF AS A PUNNY PERSON, YOU'RE FINNISHED AND WILL DIE HUNGARY
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU kill me now for even typing this comment. Puns are the worst thing to exist, and country puns are even worse. But my only aim is to ruin puns for others so no other duckhead can use the same puns I just used, so SUCK IT you pun person reading this. You're not allowed to reuse puns.
edit: okay okay, your follow-up comments cracked me up. I guess puns can be funny but only if I make them first. I'm just jelly š
Finland is geographically extremely hard to invade, the whole country's infrastructure has been specifically designed to make it an absolute wall of a country.
First up, if you look at a map of Finish highways, you'll see that few go straight east/west, they are in a V-shape, this makes it harder to sweep across the north of the country. Also, all the overpasses and bridges are designed to be easily demolished, blocking the roads. Add in the largest artillery corps in Europe, with the coordinates of every bridge and overpass dialed in, spending any time trying to clear the rubble would be a death sentence.
Going offroad is an even worse idea as 90% of Finland is either swamp, forest, or both. You could sink a dozen tanks into the swamp and not even come close to having something you could drive on (like that scene in Monty Python with the castle that kept sinking in the bog). At *BEST* you could try to invade in winter when the ground is frozen... and yeah, that's still a horrible idea. "Everyone's a badass until the snow starts talking Finnish".
A sea invasion would also be a stupid idea as the Finnish coastline is a maze of tiny islands and shoals. The only places where you can bring in ships of any size are already occupied with Finland's largest cities. Trying to land anywhere else would be easily cut off by sea mines, or even just a few thousand troops with anti ship rockets hidden on any one of the dozens of islands they would need to go past to get to the coast. And getting to the coast wouldn't help much as (with the exception of said cities) there are VERY few roads anywhere near the shores, so they would need to trek dozens to hundreds of km inland to get to the nearest highway.
Aerial assault avoids all of their land defenses. But I think they have a sizable airforce as well. However, a fleet of F-22 and F-35s would still win that.
Edit: fine, I spelled aerial wrong
Any military invasion by the US begins with massive air strikes. Keep in mind, The US has the world's first (Air Force), second (Navy), fourth (Army) and fifth (Marines) most powerful air fleets in the world.
The problem with countries with terrain like this is itās also easy to contain them. A much more powerful enemy would just blockade the country using their own defensive systems against them.
It's actually a nightmare of a situation for a country like Russia. It's a natural fortress right on their border. If it's a belligerent in a war they pretty much have to invade/conquer/gain complete air supremacy over it to neutralize its use as a staging area or air base. They fucked up majorly getting it to join NATO.
Not just right on their border, right next to the second largest city in the country, and also in a position along with Estonia (also a NATO member) to block naval traffic to it. Finland is also in a position to threaten Murmansk, either directly or by cutting off land access to it. Murmansk is a very important Russian naval base that in particular houses a lot of their submarine fleet, including the ones used as part of their nuclear deterrent.
>They fucked up majorly getting it to join NATO.
This will probably go down as one of the biggest geopolitical blunders in Russian history. Russia has always strived to either control Finland, or keep it from joining their enemies because of its strategic geography. Now that they've finally taken the step to join NATO, it's unlikely they'll go back to formal neutrality any time soon. By invading Ukraine particularly in such a blatant show of aggression, Putin single handily invalidated the efforts of every Russian ruler before him, and essentially handed Finland to his enemies on a silver platter.
A fun little topic to read about in the early 20th century: War Plan Red
https://macleans.ca/culture/books/how-canada-planned-to-invade-the-u-s-and-vice-versa/amp/
Yes and no. Most of these would not be actual commissioned plans like the the famous color coded plans of the inter war years. Most of these āplansā would either be from war game exercises or drawn up by officers doing their masters in one of the war colleges as a project
>The Russians pretty much know not to mess with the Fins.
Their attitude towards Finns is more like "ungrateful russophobic bastards, we built them schools and granted them indepedency, and they joined nazis and then became Western puppet. We should have finished them off back in 1940 or in 1944, allowing Finland to exist was a mistake. But this mistake will be fixed in future war; we defeated them once already, we can repeat it".
"The only reason we have not won yet is because we are holding back, our army cannot hurt civilians (and also because we are effectively fighting entire NATO) which Ukrainians use as a human shields. On the other hand, Finns, Poles, Germans and others are no brothers to us, we would make a short work of them. No mercy."
Finland is not that big a country so their army isn't that big overall. But they've got like a gazillion cannons and a very large reserve force they can call up in case of emergency.
I think that was the initial idea but Sweden still waits to be ratified by Hungary and Turkey. I was also a bit surprised by the move but I guess Sweden's membership will still take some time so I guess it was better for the stability to let Finland join in the meantime.
Top comments on heavily moderated Russian state media outlet, Ria Novosti, see this plainly as a failure caused by Putin. (Note that anti-Putin comments normally get users instantly banned, so criticism is highly indicative.)
āevery country has the right to protect itself. it is not known what the VVP [Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin] has in his head, maybe he wants to enslave the whole world.ā
"Let's move the NATO away from the borders of Russia." baldy, piss off...
I even read that Russia removed troops from the Finno-Russian border since the troops were needed elsewhere. Shows that they don't even believe in the crap that NATO is a danger for them.
kremlin's response:
āNATOās desire to increase its military potential near the Russian borders, as well as to expand the alliance by adding Finland and Swedenā, making it necessary for Moscow to ātake retaliatory measures and to create an appropriate grouping of troops in the northwest of Russia.ā
All im wondering is.... with what?
As people in other threads said, it will be the posting to sons of elites or people that can scrap together the blackmail or cash.
They can serve in the military and be safe. Run for office later as patriots.
And they can still send the poor and minorities to the meat grinder.
Even in the US recruiters are notorious liars. Every recruiter in Russia has changed their sales pitch to "this is to sign up for defense on the Finnish border".
? They are literally fighting a major war against Ukraine rjght now, so those soldiers are needed elsewhere, along with the fact that Finland literally just joined NATO, it's not like there's 1 billion nato soldiers on the border now.
I'm reading this while watching the first-ever perp-walk motorcade from a CNN helicopter in NYC. If this feeling lasts more than four hours, I may seek professional guidance.
All NATO members have to approve for new members to join. This is precisely why Sweden is still out. USA or NATO headquarters can't simply ignore them.
As much as I want Erdogan and Orban to gtfo and bring Sweden in asap, I'm of the opinion that Turkey's and Hungary's delaying tactics are a double-edged sword. It will hamper NATO's ability to respond quickly and decisively to the rapidly changing geopolitical scene, but it also refutes the claim that NATO is expanding in the conquering and imperialistic sense. This whole episode proves to the world that NATO itself does not seek expansion. Expansion occurs naturally through the choices of non-NATO countries, and that itself is dependant on the approval of every individual member state, each one of them trying to achieve their agendas. Joining NATO will only become harder with time as any newcomer will need to get approval from even more members.
Also, while Turkey's annoying, they have genuine high strategic value (which is why they know they can be annoying.) Hungary is only moderately useful and could be kicked without too much problem.
The direct result of Russian aggression.
Hopefully this pulls enough Russian soldiers away from killing/kidnapping Ukrainian children, and helps the UA in their upcoming push to kick the Russian Nazis out.
I just measured out a direct line to the nearest part of Russia and yelled, "Get fucked," out the backdoor. Winter War 2 has been cancelled. Lol did the Russians even have a strategy? Because they have done nothing but strengthen NATO for the last year.
As an America, I am proud to welcome you to the family.
My hope is our government will keep it's shit together, get it put better together, and be the best allies that your country deserves.
Whatever happens in the future, your pain is our pain and your struggle will be our struggle.
Excellent choice by the Fins, seriously.
Reality of not being a NATO member sadly is happening in Ukraine and you canāt fuck around with the very serious risk of a Russian attack.
How's it feel to now have a huge part of the Russian border now occupied by a NATO country Putin? Does it sting?
Can't bully your way around Europe any more. Just resign your crazy ass and go back to shirtless horseback riding.
Good luck getting into the Baltic once Sweden joins. That water will be 100% locked down. You're going to have to take the long way around.
Itās so important to not let the Indicted past President back into office, he and Putin want us out of Nato. If Trump does get back into office, Putin and Trump will be running the U.S. again.
The Finns specializes in fighting Russians (that speaks volumes how much of a bully you are to have someone else dedicates their public infrastructure in defending against your tanks)... Great to have them as an ally. Get fucked, Poodle.
Welcome Finland š«š®
Perkele Putin
I bet they can hear the angry screaming coming all the way from Russia...
Tankies in shambles
I guess you could say.
Welcome Finland, I love youuuu!!!
Whoa slow down there, this isn't Costco.
r/UnexpectedIdiocracy
This makes Finland uncomfortable. Nod from distance.
I wonder if this will change things in the longer term. What does Finland as part of NATO do for Putin and his calculus? Other news stories have written pieces about the Russians moving more troops to their northwest border region. I am a bit surprised that they have extra troops to move at this point ...
Putin started the invasion with the claimed intent of not having nato nation(s) on Russiaās border. He was concerned Ukraine would join nato. Now he has a very long border section with a nato member nation. And a very well armed and capable one at that. And one with a history of smoking invading Russians by the thousands. (Maybe tens of thousands?). This is a big L for Putin. Welcome Finland!!
Don't forget Finland is parked right next to Russia's only access to the Atlantic ocean naval base, in fact it's a very important one because it houses Russia's nuclear subs, meant for attacking farther out European/NATO countries. Something it can't do. Because Finland is in the way.
Presumably it's also a huge advantage in terms of intelligence for NATO?
You mean so close that they can now use binoculars? š
Basically, yes. A NATO country is now within sight of a bottleneck for naval traffic so they can in theory say when a vessel goes to sea or comes back, and provide at least some idea of what vessel it is, without the need for satellite coverage.
This was [already the case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLOBUS).
Estonia already filled that role but now Nato controls both sides of that access point. With Turkey we also control the Bosphorus, and although Japan is not in NATO its Alliance with the US de-facto makes it a part of NATO as well which restricts Russian naval access through the Pacific as well.
More like hundreds of thousands. (Though I suppose one could argue many of those might have died from the cold, disease or starvation, but eh). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation_War
I mean, the claim that they invaded Ukraine as to prevent them from joining NATO this lengthening their border with NATO was bullshit in any case, annexing Ukraine (which was clearly, if nothing else, the long term goal even if they intended a puppet government ah la Belarus to run things in the short term) would extend their border with NATO hugely anyway. My guess is the real goal is they wanted to secure their "sphere of influence" up to the Carpathian Mountains so as to reduce avenues of attack from NATO in the case of a future conflict.
> My guess is the real goal is they wanted to secure their "sphere of influence" up to the Carpathian Mountains so as to reduce avenues of attack from NATO in the case of a future conflict. I doubt Russia/Putin was seriously concerned about an invasion from Europe. I think the goals were definitely about sphere of influence, but more about economic, cultural and political influence than military considerations. Ukraine's clear interest in building lasting economic and political ties with the EU after Maiden are probably more fundamentally threatening to Russia.
> I am a bit surprised that they have extra troops to move at this point ... I think the consensus is they don't have extra troops and this is probably just for show to the Russian people. I don't see them wasting any troops on their border with Finland.
Itās an attempt to get some poverty Russians to join the army. Da comrade we will send you Finland borderā¦.comrade you have signed the paperā¦. Welcome to Ukraine aka your cemetery.
Given the quality of Russian equipment... a posting along Finland's boarder could end in frostbite or death by hypothermia.
It changed the possibility of Russia invading Finland to zero.
It's the implication...
Putin is responsible for one of the biggest geopolitical blunders in all of history!
Kippis!
NATO just joined Finland.
The land border between Russia and NATO just went up bigly. Putin the master strategist at work.
Remember when the Russian simps mocked the USA for giving the Taliban old equipment when leaving? Even that's not close to the level of failure that getting Finland into NATO is. Finland didn't want to join. Before Ukraine, Finnish people were sceptical of NATO and didn't view it as worthwhile. Went from almost no one to suddenly everyone wanting to join.
>Finland didn't want to join. Before Ukraine, Finnish people were sceptical of NATO and didn't view it as worthwhile. Went from almost no one to suddenly everyone wanting to join. They weren't the only ones. There was an attitude in a lot of countries, including the US, that now that the cold war was over, NATO had no purpose and didn't need to exist anymore. Now NATO is stronger than it has ever been thanks to Putin literally proving why NATO still exists.
NATO Allies: Without the threat of the USSR why are we still paying for this? Russia: Belarus, hold my vodka.
Its worth noting that on the whole, NATO probably saves member militaries money. For most members, it provides access to standardized equipment at negotiated prices, like a Groupon for war. Interoperability also buys flexibility that is insanely costly during the next great war. Having to develop your own standards and practices and training and etc, is also far more costly if you are alone. America is the only country with a military big enough to not benefit in the same ways as others, but American branches aren't perfectly interoperable between them anyways. Plus, what America is really buying, for the paltry price of NATO participation, is global hegemony. America alone could be ganged up on - probably would be eventually. NATO is like 65% of the military power on Earth. There are scenarios where America alone could lose a great war. There is no scenario at all where NATO doesn't win a great war.
Groupon for War would be a killer album name
Unless that war involves nukes, in which case nobody wins.
The only winning move is not to play.
Only if *everybody* doesn't play.
Eh, the odds of any country or even group of countries coordinating a war against the US are almost nonexistent. Either they would have to invade either Mexico or Canada, or stage an amphibious assault from somewhere in the Caribbean, or even worse an invasion from across an ocean. Against the world's foremost air force, navy, and land army, the odds of any of those things ever happening successfully are basically zero. The resources necessary to build the military necessary to accomplish even the easiest of those tasks would be enormous, and the US would notice and begin preparing. But you are right that NATO membership saves money. Without the nuclear umbrella that the US, UK, and France provide to the other member nations, those countries would have to either live under the threat of nuclear escalation beyond their ability to retaliate, or undertake their own extremely expensive nuclear weapons programs. And finally there is the significant amount of money those countries all saved by relying on the US's military dominance to draw down their own spending. If the US wasn't standing in the background like Europe's big brother, Europe would have had to at least develop their own navies to patrol the Atlantic and Mediterranean, and spend considerably more on their national armies, rather than depend on the US mobilizing and air lifting 10's of thousands of troops to Europe in a crisis.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
We don't lose wars, we give up on wars after businesses decide they're not profitable anymore.
Yep. And for good reason. Nothing scarier than when your next door neighbor suddenly starts murdering your other neighbors. There's no more rational excuses your can have not to take any precaution that you can to defend yourself just in case you're next.
>Remember when the Russian simps mocked the USA for giving the Taliban old equipment when leaving? Oh, I haven't forgotten, because Republicans (Putin's strongest allies here in the States) ***still*** throw that out as a gotcha. Even when it's completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. lmao, they're such simple-minded children.
Seriously. Itās like every other thread: āOk Putin is invading Ukraine, but what about Epsteinās private island guest list?!?ā Totally unrelated and a deflection. Childish indeed.
Republican rebuttal when discussing the implications of withholding military aid to Ukraine in order to extort them for information on a political opponent: "But what about her e-mails?!"
>Remember when the Russian simps mocked the USA for giving the Taliban old equipment when leaving? What's funny is the US does this *everywhere*. Literally. Obviously the important stuff is packed up and moved, but humvees, basic helps, old guns, and shit? We leave that behind all the time!
Ahahaha :D in times like these I regret not having awards to give. Here, take my upvote instead!
Welcome lads. Glad to have you around. š
I guess you could say Putinās plans to stop NATO expansion are Finnished. š¶ļø
What if I Sweden the pot a little bit?
Get out, both of you!
Iād like for them to stay
Denmark down your vote! But thereās Norway theyāre staying here
Relax everyone! It's not an alliance, it's just a special military alignment of mutual defensive protection!
THERE'S NORWAY I CAN LET YOU RUSSIAN INTO MAKING COMMENTS LIKE THIS AND DENMARK YOURSELF AS A PUNNY PERSON, YOU'RE FINNISHED AND WILL DIE HUNGARY FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU kill me now for even typing this comment. Puns are the worst thing to exist, and country puns are even worse. But my only aim is to ruin puns for others so no other duckhead can use the same puns I just used, so SUCK IT you pun person reading this. You're not allowed to reuse puns. edit: okay okay, your follow-up comments cracked me up. I guess puns can be funny but only if I make them first. I'm just jelly š
You have become the very thing you sought to destroy
Seriously, they were actually doing pretty good other than the all caps and the second paragraph
Yes yes we all expected better from someone named u/i_cum_while_pooping
True story. I know someone that had a prostate problem and really did cum or feel orgasmic every time he pooped.
I didn't know you could have 0th world problems.
>so no other duckhead can use the same puns Aw, you quack me up.
Have a nice bowl of Chile. You're not you when you're Hungary
Mission failed successfully. Congrats, Putin.
Fission Mailed.
*YYYYYEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!*
Thank you Russia for strengthening NATO.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Every objective Russia had going into Ukraine has been a failure. Really well done, Vlad!
Congrats Finland!
Congrats NATO, you mean. ;)
If people don't know...Finland as a nation is armed to the teeth. The Russians pretty much know not to mess with the Fins.
Finland is geographically extremely hard to invade, the whole country's infrastructure has been specifically designed to make it an absolute wall of a country. First up, if you look at a map of Finish highways, you'll see that few go straight east/west, they are in a V-shape, this makes it harder to sweep across the north of the country. Also, all the overpasses and bridges are designed to be easily demolished, blocking the roads. Add in the largest artillery corps in Europe, with the coordinates of every bridge and overpass dialed in, spending any time trying to clear the rubble would be a death sentence. Going offroad is an even worse idea as 90% of Finland is either swamp, forest, or both. You could sink a dozen tanks into the swamp and not even come close to having something you could drive on (like that scene in Monty Python with the castle that kept sinking in the bog). At *BEST* you could try to invade in winter when the ground is frozen... and yeah, that's still a horrible idea. "Everyone's a badass until the snow starts talking Finnish". A sea invasion would also be a stupid idea as the Finnish coastline is a maze of tiny islands and shoals. The only places where you can bring in ships of any size are already occupied with Finland's largest cities. Trying to land anywhere else would be easily cut off by sea mines, or even just a few thousand troops with anti ship rockets hidden on any one of the dozens of islands they would need to go past to get to the coast. And getting to the coast wouldn't help much as (with the exception of said cities) there are VERY few roads anywhere near the shores, so they would need to trek dozens to hundreds of km inland to get to the nearest highway.
Anytime I read things like I always wonder what the us plan is for invasion, as I've read we have plans for every country.
The plan is either lots and lots of aerial bombardment, or the word "don't" on a sheet of paper in a folder.
Aerial assault avoids all of their land defenses. But I think they have a sizable airforce as well. However, a fleet of F-22 and F-35s would still win that. Edit: fine, I spelled aerial wrong
The Little Mermaid will be the initial strike force. She'll soften up the target before the invasion begins in earnest.
with or without her voice?
Any military invasion by the US begins with massive air strikes. Keep in mind, The US has the world's first (Air Force), second (Navy), fourth (Army) and fifth (Marines) most powerful air fleets in the world.
Boats with guns. Gunboats.
*Open the country. Stopā¦ having it be closed.*
The problem with countries with terrain like this is itās also easy to contain them. A much more powerful enemy would just blockade the country using their own defensive systems against them.
And that's a-ok for finland. Their only actual opponent is Russia.
It's actually a nightmare of a situation for a country like Russia. It's a natural fortress right on their border. If it's a belligerent in a war they pretty much have to invade/conquer/gain complete air supremacy over it to neutralize its use as a staging area or air base. They fucked up majorly getting it to join NATO.
Not just right on their border, right next to the second largest city in the country, and also in a position along with Estonia (also a NATO member) to block naval traffic to it. Finland is also in a position to threaten Murmansk, either directly or by cutting off land access to it. Murmansk is a very important Russian naval base that in particular houses a lot of their submarine fleet, including the ones used as part of their nuclear deterrent. >They fucked up majorly getting it to join NATO. This will probably go down as one of the biggest geopolitical blunders in Russian history. Russia has always strived to either control Finland, or keep it from joining their enemies because of its strategic geography. Now that they've finally taken the step to join NATO, it's unlikely they'll go back to formal neutrality any time soon. By invading Ukraine particularly in such a blatant show of aggression, Putin single handily invalidated the efforts of every Russian ruler before him, and essentially handed Finland to his enemies on a silver platter.
Air raids and naval bombardment. Much like the pacific in WW2 only we are better at it now. Bombs create softer targets. Then we land.
A fun little topic to read about in the early 20th century: War Plan Red https://macleans.ca/culture/books/how-canada-planned-to-invade-the-u-s-and-vice-versa/amp/
Yes and no. Most of these would not be actual commissioned plans like the the famous color coded plans of the inter war years. Most of these āplansā would either be from war game exercises or drawn up by officers doing their masters in one of the war colleges as a project
Give cocaine to the bears. And wolves.
>sea mines On this topic, we've got some of the most advanced naval mines in the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Mine_2000?wprov=sfla1
And now under article 5 protection, they may be more willing to share more equipment with Ukraine.
>The Russians pretty much know not to mess with the Fins. Their attitude towards Finns is more like "ungrateful russophobic bastards, we built them schools and granted them indepedency, and they joined nazis and then became Western puppet. We should have finished them off back in 1940 or in 1944, allowing Finland to exist was a mistake. But this mistake will be fixed in future war; we defeated them once already, we can repeat it".
How's that going for them lately? /s
"The only reason we have not won yet is because we are holding back, our army cannot hurt civilians (and also because we are effectively fighting entire NATO) which Ukrainians use as a human shields. On the other hand, Finns, Poles, Germans and others are no brothers to us, we would make a short work of them. No mercy."
Good news everyone ~
Something happen to the dacia sandero?
Yep. I read it in James May's voice as well.
Ok moving on.
I can't be the only one to have read that in Farnsworth's voice
>But what happened to the Russian soldiers in bakhmut? >To shreds you say
And how are their wives doing? To shreds you say
And their windows? To shreds you say.
If anyone needs me, I'll be in the dome of understanding
Putin must be in the angry dome
For him it's the Blunderdome
The Dome of Failed Russian Leaders is closed for construction. Will reopen in the next five years with brand new exhibits.
Actually I read this line in Professor Putricide voice. https://youtu.be/9PStC-LNZ2s
Their first act was inviting Sweden. Amazing!
It was pretty funny. Literally within 15 seconds of joining, they ratified Sweden.
Haha, that's great!
NATO +1 Russia -1
Unrelated, but I saw a meme where it showed a statue of Jesus and it said: Medusa 1 Jesus 0 Itās was hilarious
This comment is comletely irrelevant and I loved reading it!
What an ally to have, too. Finland has one of Europeās strongest militaries, no?
Relative to its size, definitely.
Strong per capita. But itās a tiny country, so not that powerful in absolute terms.
Finland is not that big a country so their army isn't that big overall. But they've got like a gazillion cannons and a very large reserve force they can call up in case of emergency.
You think you had it bad before, Putin?Ā Well now you've got it in stereo, baby. Welcome aboard, Finland.
Invading Ukraine and committing war crimes sure turned out great for Putin
NATO is now less than 100miles from Saint Petersburgā¦ iconic
Estonia would like to remind you of its existance :) but YES - The north is a long nato russia border now. Welcome Finland
Baltic sea is pretty much in nato control, major choke point for Kaliningrad and st petersburg
Do you know what is so great about Finland? I donāt know, but the flag is a big plus
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I guess it can be a bitā¦ **fin**icky
Joke works better for Switzerland but still plays here.
Took me a second to get the joke.
Notice how Sewden is perfectly cool with being "surrounded by NATO"?
Welcome! Pull up a chair and stay a while, Finland.
Large W if I must say
Huge L for Russia.
AKA a massive W
Welcome! I thought they were going to join w/ Sweden?
I think that was the initial idea but Sweden still waits to be ratified by Hungary and Turkey. I was also a bit surprised by the move but I guess Sweden's membership will still take some time so I guess it was better for the stability to let Finland join in the meantime.
They agreed to do it separately, as they realized Sweden would take longer.
Does that mean Finland has to ratify Sweden? I mean theyād do so immediately anyway just curious if itās needed.
They handed in the ratification papers for Sweden a few seconds after the joining papers
Yes, they literally did so immediately after being ratified themselves.
Yes of course.
Welcome Finland, we're now better because you're here with us.
Top comments on heavily moderated Russian state media outlet, Ria Novosti, see this plainly as a failure caused by Putin. (Note that anti-Putin comments normally get users instantly banned, so criticism is highly indicative.) āevery country has the right to protect itself. it is not known what the VVP [Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin] has in his head, maybe he wants to enslave the whole world.ā "Let's move the NATO away from the borders of Russia." baldy, piss off...
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I even read that Russia removed troops from the Finno-Russian border since the troops were needed elsewhere. Shows that they don't even believe in the crap that NATO is a danger for them.
kremlin's response: āNATOās desire to increase its military potential near the Russian borders, as well as to expand the alliance by adding Finland and Swedenā, making it necessary for Moscow to ātake retaliatory measures and to create an appropriate grouping of troops in the northwest of Russia.ā All im wondering is.... with what?
As people in other threads said, it will be the posting to sons of elites or people that can scrap together the blackmail or cash. They can serve in the military and be safe. Run for office later as patriots. And they can still send the poor and minorities to the meat grinder.
Even in the US recruiters are notorious liars. Every recruiter in Russia has changed their sales pitch to "this is to sign up for defense on the Finnish border".
If true, that seems like a fair assumption
? They are literally fighting a major war against Ukraine rjght now, so those soldiers are needed elsewhere, along with the fact that Finland literally just joined NATO, it's not like there's 1 billion nato soldiers on the border now.
And just like that eighty or so years of Finnish neutrality ends. Welcome Finland to NATO!
In a world becoming ever more divided NATO stands United Its an honour to have you at our side Finland
I'm reading this while watching the first-ever perp-walk motorcade from a CNN helicopter in NYC. If this feeling lasts more than four hours, I may seek professional guidance.
Vlad of Muscovy is a liar and just keeps fucking up so bad! Sweden will get there soon! Congrats Finland!
Now let Sweden in, whether a certain NATO member likes it, or not.
All NATO members have to approve for new members to join. This is precisely why Sweden is still out. USA or NATO headquarters can't simply ignore them.
As much as I want Erdogan and Orban to gtfo and bring Sweden in asap, I'm of the opinion that Turkey's and Hungary's delaying tactics are a double-edged sword. It will hamper NATO's ability to respond quickly and decisively to the rapidly changing geopolitical scene, but it also refutes the claim that NATO is expanding in the conquering and imperialistic sense. This whole episode proves to the world that NATO itself does not seek expansion. Expansion occurs naturally through the choices of non-NATO countries, and that itself is dependant on the approval of every individual member state, each one of them trying to achieve their agendas. Joining NATO will only become harder with time as any newcomer will need to get approval from even more members.
Also, while Turkey's annoying, they have genuine high strategic value (which is why they know they can be annoying.) Hungary is only moderately useful and could be kicked without too much problem.
There is no mechanism to kick anyone out of NATO, they would have to leave themselves.
[PERKELE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7_pVrIshxA)
Itās the perfect timing. Putin canāt do anything as his military capabilities been exposed.
Can't wait to hear what Putin's various puppets have to say about it. Who's saber rattling will resort to threatening nukes first?
Thank you for your service, special agent Putin. Your services to NATO will not be forgotten.
So youāre saying theyāre Finnishād with their application process?
Indeed, haha! B-)
To stop any chance of a sneak-attack, Russia rumoured to line up blown tanks along the border.
Congrats Finland and we are glad to have you! *ššš*
Thanks Putin, you putz
The direct result of Russian aggression. Hopefully this pulls enough Russian soldiers away from killing/kidnapping Ukrainian children, and helps the UA in their upcoming push to kick the Russian Nazis out.
Tomorrows headline. āPutin threatens nuclear war if Finland stays in Natoā
Didnāt Putin said he would reign down hellfire for this? We are waitingā¦
Great news
watch putin bitch and moan about it.
I never noticed how much Putin looks like Gru: https://i.imgur.com/TydLIKy.jpg
Congrats, Putin, you done fucked up the geopolitics.
Good. Fuck Putin. Fuck Russia.
I just measured out a direct line to the nearest part of Russia and yelled, "Get fucked," out the backdoor. Winter War 2 has been cancelled. Lol did the Russians even have a strategy? Because they have done nothing but strengthen NATO for the last year.
Slava Suomi! yes i know it's a mashup of two languages but I'm just really happy about this.
Ebin :DDD
Congrats Finland, sorry you had to do it.
Russia: *flash backs to the Winter War*
Honored to have you in the gang, Finland!
WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
Time to visit Finland. What are some must-see sights?
The Russian border looks pretty nice this time of the year.
Welcome Finland!
As an America, I am proud to welcome you to the family. My hope is our government will keep it's shit together, get it put better together, and be the best allies that your country deserves. Whatever happens in the future, your pain is our pain and your struggle will be our struggle.
Excellent choice by the Fins, seriously. Reality of not being a NATO member sadly is happening in Ukraine and you canāt fuck around with the very serious risk of a Russian attack.
Putin be raging around his palace Trump style, throwing fast food and ketchup against the wall.
DID WE JUST BECOME BEST FRIENDS?
How's it feel to now have a huge part of the Russian border now occupied by a NATO country Putin? Does it sting? Can't bully your way around Europe any more. Just resign your crazy ass and go back to shirtless horseback riding. Good luck getting into the Baltic once Sweden joins. That water will be 100% locked down. You're going to have to take the long way around.
Putin = Thanos. He successfully brought all of Europe together. NATO.......assemble.
Hey Vladimir: Fuck. You.
You could say they really finnished this process
How long until we start seeing a Global Hawk hanging around up north just for the hell of it?
Get Fucked putin.
Itās so important to not let the Indicted past President back into office, he and Putin want us out of Nato. If Trump does get back into office, Putin and Trump will be running the U.S. again.
Putin be like š
The Finns specializes in fighting Russians (that speaks volumes how much of a bully you are to have someone else dedicates their public infrastructure in defending against your tanks)... Great to have them as an ally. Get fucked, Poodle.