What's your opinion on NATO?

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by DanS
I think NATO is a good insurance policy against a potential resurgence of Russian nationalism.

I think you have the foot on the wrong shoe. A resurgent Russian nationalism would be a great ally to insure us against the American Global Empire.

[Gangerolf]

I would rather live in the american global empire than the russian nationalist emopire

[DanS]

What does Finland think about that?

[Gangerolf]

An expansion of NATO could lead to a resurgence of nationalism in Russia.
But at the same time it would be useful to contain such a hostile nationalistRussia

[uh Clem]

Kissinger said a few years ago that an alliance necessarily has to be against someone or something. It doesn't make sense otherwise.

Pre-1991, Nato was logical. That doesn't mean that I think US policy was always right, just that Nato made sense from the standpoint of the people who created it. The same could be said of the Warsaw Pact.

With the collapse of the USSR, Nato has ceased to have any reason to exist. Duh. And like any other human organization, it's attempted to keep itself alive by creating new reasons.

The current crisis indicates why Nato should be chloroformed. The animosity of the past few weeks is largely due to the fact that the countries involved are in an alliance, and one that no longer reflects their interests.

If the US and France had parted amicably in 1991, the French would still be able to voice their objections to what they see as an extremely reckless policy, without being further pressured to help contribute to that recklessness by aiding Turkey.

And the US could hear French criticisms without necessarily taking them as betrayal.

Pretending that our interests coincide only makes the other party seem duplicitous when (invariably) they make their own interpretaion of what's best for them.

I hate quoting Kissinger.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Gangerolf
I would rather live in the american global empire than the russian nationalist emopire

A resurfaced strong Russia would be an important leg of a Eurasian Confederation.

Germany supplies the economy, Russia the military, France a bit of both and the diplomats...

Kiss the 'One World Power' good-bye. Yummy!

We could call it 'American Nightmare', my favourite scenario for Civilization RL.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by uh Clem
Kissinger said a few years ago that an alliance necessarily has to be against someone or something. It doesn't make sense otherwise.

Yes, that´s the idea.

Originally posted by uh Clem
I hate quoting Kissinger.

I love quoting Kissinger; clever guy.

[Nivek]

Why don't all the Europeans leave NATO and leave the US, Canada and the UK in it. (And no, I don't include the UK with the Europeans.)


I'd love to see how the rest of Europe would manage a Euro defence force. They'd never agree on anything!

[VetLegion]

With the collapse of the USSR, Nato has ceased to have any reason to exist.

No. NATO is useful nowadays as a standardization organization. Recently some Russian weapons got NATO certificates. NATO will help us standardise the equipment with which to kill each other. How cool is that, eh?

[VetLegion]

I'd love to see how the rest of Europe would manage a Euro defence force. They'd never agree on anything

Defence force, they could agree on that. Offence force they could not agree about. Which is probably a very good thing

[Pekka]

DanS, about NATO? Against. But you have to understand the mindset here to really understand the situation. YOu see, we think (not me, but majority) that we are safe (I think this too), and we don't need to put our noses to others business and get into trouble (here is where I disagree). We think why should we fight in others wars. We don't have professional army, so who would we send anyway?! Our laws are for ONLY defending our land and borders. No pre-emptive striking. Only if someone really crosses our borders, then we are there to meat the wrong doers with furious minds and angry thoughts.

However, we don't think Saddam is good, we think he is evil. But we also think that the US and NATO will handle it, and some of us might not agree that pre-emptive striking is the right way, since we believe in defending borders only. We don't have superpower mindset, or knowledge about the threats superpowers have. And even if we think Dubya shoudln't attack, we don't condemn it, as we think it's none of your business. And being part of western world, we keep our thumbs up for our guys, rather than others. So don't get us wrong there. And we will do everything that is possible within our laws to help, we have already promised to help rebuilding Iraq, and sending peace keepers. We think only for ourselves and for our peace here, and not globally, as I think we should think.
We are not easy with the idea of letting our defense to the hands of others, we want to do that 100% ourselves. We don't trust anyone helping us, if kaka hits the fan and we're prepared to fight ourselves against anyone for our existence if it comes to that, and not cry if we don't get others help and compassion. But naturally we would like others to help us, no question there. We just don't believe we will get help.

Actually many finns don't believe NATO would help us if we were attacked, and were members with NATO. We think there's a big chance we'd still have to fight alone.
I know it's weird, but that's the way our minds work.

Also, it would mean even harder taxation, as we'd have to increase our military budget. This one is big contributer in polls that say we're against. We hate taxes. We are absolutely sick of them.

Also we would slowly need to turn ourselves into professional army if in NATO. That is a big problem, it would be a whole new system. And we don't believe pro army could defend, our lands are big compared to population. We believe we need to keep up big army, so we can throw lots of bodies. Army is also something.. it's cultural thing here. It's something every man just does. We have very high will of defending among youth. Last poll I saw was 87% wants to go to army, pay tribute to our grandfathers who defended our country in winter war, and we see that as our responsibility. And if we don't do it, our fathers think we're gay and *****, since they had to do it too.

We also think, that if we joined in NATO, we would have to go fight wars all over the world and not get any benefits, since we're in safe place now. Why go look for troubles, even if we don't like the guys NATO is fighting? They don't need us, they can win without us, it's not like we would be deciding factor here. We don't believe our needs will be heard in NATO, rather we do what we are told and go do some combat for others. That's what we believe the case will be.

Some fear the nuke thing, if we were in danger, we'd have to have nukes in our soils, and we really don't like them. And foreign troops, that attract other enemies too, just for the sake of that. NATO is powerful already, and we wouldn't contribute a lot, so they don't need us, and we don't think we will benefit from joining. We are already in close co-operating with NATO, and in peace programs, and NATO lead peace keeping thingies.

These are the major factors why majority don't want to see our country in there. Many of them are misconceptions in my opinion though, but everyone is entitled to their opinion. So to put it in short, we don't think NATO needs us at all, and we don't think we will benefit from joining. I hope we join though.

[Nivek]

Pekka, that's an interesting comment about a professional army. Since they stopped conscripting (drafting) into the armed forces in the UK, and went for "career" soldiers in the 1950's, armed forces chiefs have repeatedly said that it's a better system.

Is a smaller, professional army better than a bigger conscripted one do you think?

[Pekka]

Nivek, Tough question. In country like UK, I'd say professional army definitely. In our case.. I don't know. I really really don't know. It would be more effective, but I'm not sure if it would be able to defend the whole country if it was invaded from all fronts. It would be able to fight better, but it might have too big area to defend, and it would lose its effectiveness.. So I don't know. It would have to be at least 300 000 men active army in my opinion, and that's too large, there are only 5 million of us. But in longer run, I think we have to change into professional army, fighting has changed, and it's not all about putting million man army to trenches near the border.. I'd say right now we are better with conscript army, but in the future we need pro army.

[Pekka]

I think the best solution would be pro army that would have maybe 80 000 active men, that could be possible if they would actually pay for career soldiers some money.
Then if war is about to happen, start training everyone, like we're doing now. Relieve civilians in peace time, but if war is coming, everyone is drafted and trained hard.
Hmm.. is that the same thing?

[VetLegion]

Is a smaller, professional army better than a bigger conscripted one do you think?

Conscripts, easily!

A good conscript who does not fight for money but for glory of the homeland and also well disciplined and trained, is the most feared soldier!