As somebody who lives in a country that spends over the NATO agreed 2%, and for whom Russia is very threatening, I’m not entirely unhappy about what Trump is saying about European defence. We do need to put in more effort. Another thing is what he’ll actual do.
i dunno about finland, but the baltics seem like they’re a single bad morning’s commute from shelling their russian minorities… just the vibe i’m gettings…
It seems wanting to join NATO is enough for Russia to be threatening, if they consider one’s country to be in Russia’s sphere of influence. See for instance Georgia (2008) and indeed Ukraine (2014/2022).
NATO is a hostile military alliance formed for the sole purpose of destroying the Soviet Union. It did not go away when that purpose was achieved, but continued to creep closer to the USSR’s main successor state despite assurances that it would not. In this post-USSR period it has undertaken multiple purely offensive actions (the former Yugoslavia and Libya come to mind). It also invaded Afghanistan as a response to 9/11, despite none of the hijackers being from Afghanistan, and despite the Afghan government offering to turn over bin Laden. Then you have the puppetmaster of NATO invading Iraq on completely false pretenses, and generally running a wide-ranging assassination program all over the world.
If you think the Russian Federation and the USSR are remotely comparable, you’re smoking crack. NATO won, and the depraved, neoliberal regime it replaced the USSR with is its own God damned fault.
NATO won, and the depraved, neoliberal regime it replaced the USSR with is its own God damned fault.
I don’t think USSR became what anyone in the west wanted it to become. It’s nowhere near neoliberal, for one, more like a mafia state.
If you think the Russian Federation and the USSR are remotely comparable
Oh no, I don’t. The Russian Federation is much worse. Just saying that we didn’t really “destroy” them in the same way as, for instance, Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan was destroyed in WW2.
I don’t think USSR became what anyone in the west wanted it to become.
Who is Yeltsin?
It’s nowhere near neoliberal, for one, more like a mafia state.
Technically it quickly became something closer to classically liberal rather than neoliberal (as the imperial core shunned it) but to claim that liberalism is opposed to mafiosi is hilarious, it has never existed without them. It’s like saying liberalism is opposed to slavery, there is some vacuous sense in which you could use sophistry to push that angle, but when you look at real, historic manifestations of liberal states, they are heavily economically reliant on various forms of slavery, whether domestic or via their dogs in the third world.
What nations are allowed to have their own interests, and act to secure those interests? Is that something only for the U.S. and (when the U.S. allows it) its allies? Or is it possible that some countries have legitimate interests that conflict with the U.S.?
goddamn man it’s actually so fucking stupid to be fearful of Russia in Finland.
Yes, Russia, the state still grinding it out in Ukraine 2 years down the line, is suddenly going to invade Finland and trigger a war with the entire western world so they can uhhhhh steal Finland’s lovely lakes. You piss me off
Finland has been in NATO for less than a year. Before that we had a war in which USSR tried to take over the whole country and after failing at that, hovered over us for 50 years before collapsing.
But if you’re saying that we shouldn’t anymore be afraid of them now that we’re in NATO, perhaps you’re right. We’ll still need to be cognizant of the fact that Russia is our only potential enemy on this planet.
But Russia is in the wrong for thinking NATO existing next to them is a threat.
Why is it OK when you say it but bad when they do? If you’re encouraging others to put themselves in your shoes (“you had to be there”), why can’t you put yourself in Russia’s shoes and see how they could reasonably perceive NATO as a threat?
I’m not actually saying that Russia just existing close to us is a threat. I’m saying that what Russia is doing and how it’s behaving, and how it talks publically is a threat.
But I do understand how NATO might be viewed as a threat to some nations or world leaders. I don’t immediately remember any particurarily good (liberal, free, non-oppressive, democratic) nations that NATO poses a risk to, however. Perhaps you can refresh my memory.
If Libya didn’t want us to drag their popular leader through the streets and humiliate him before assassinating him, completely destabilizing the country and establishing open air slave markets, they should’ve thought twice before supporting a misogynist.
I’m not actually saying that Russia just existing close to us is a threat.
That’s exactly what you said, although you said it about the USSR, which was even more absurd.
I don’t immediately remember any particurarily good (liberal, free, non-oppressive, democratic) nations that NATO poses a risk to, however. Perhaps you can refresh my memory.
So clever to fall back on the “well if I did do it, they deserved it” defense.
Do you think the people of Libya, a country you’d say deserved it, prefer their country after the NATO attack on it? They went from one of the highest (if not the highest) living standards on the continent to a decade of civil war and open-air slave markets.
I don’t think I was being very clever there, but I’ll take it!
Do you think the people of Libya, a country you’d say deserved it, prefer their country after the NATO attack on it? They went from one of the highest (if not the highest) living standards on the continent to a decade of civil war and open-air slave markets.
Gaddafi’s Libya didn’t seem to fit any of liberal, free, non-oppressive or democratic. I think we also have to note that that intervention was based on a UN Security Council resolution, which no member (not even Russia or China) opposed. So not really a NATO operation exclusively.
Libya went from bad to worse as a consequence though, about that you’re not wrong.
I don’t immediately remember any particurarily good (liberal, free, non-oppressive, democratic) nations that NATO poses a risk to, however. Perhaps you can refresh my memory.
Liberal, free, non-oppreasive, democratic nations that oppose Western neocolonial interests tend to get coup’ed by the CIA and replaced with pro-Western fascists. Countries that do survive, like for instance Cuba, have their name dragged through the mud by an enormous propaganda machine - which also whitewashes or conveniently forgets the crushing of the leftist projects that don’t survive.
There are countless examples throughout history, but my go-to is Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran, in the 50’s. No doubt the line will be that “that was a long time ago so it doesn’t count,” but the CIA covered up their involvement for decades, and if I picked a more modern example you’d likely either deny involvement or say that the government deserved it.
Iran suffered under British colonialism for decades. In the 1800’s, the shahs signed all sorts of deals selling out the country at absurdly bad rates and no expiration, to fund their exorbitant lifestyles. A large scale popular movement ousted them, but the agreements remained, and a new dynasty took power with British support, and the exploitation continued. Britain secured enormous profit and wealth through Iranian oil while falsifying records to pay virtually nothing for it while the Iranians lived in abject poverty. For decades the Iranians sought a diplomatic resolution and we’re completely stonewalled.
Finally, another popular movement caused the shah to appoint Mossadegh as PM (a position that had previously been hand-picked by the British). Mossadegh nationalized the oil industry to enormous popular support, but the British responded with a blockade, and offered Eisenhower support in Korea and in forming NATO in exchange for having the CIA oust Mossadegh (an offer Truman had dismissed in disgust, as this was the first case of CIA involvement of regime change).
Mossadegh, like many Iranians at the time, saw their struggle as being only against the British and trusted the US to uphold the values it preached and saw it as a potential friend. The CIA took over every newspaper in the country and started publishing anti-government propaganda nonstop. They hired false flag protesters, who claimed to support the government and then wrecked shit (as well as hiring protesters to march against the government). Politicians, vote counters, religious leaders, journalists, anyone with an ounce of power was getting bribed by the CIA. Mossadegh believed that these were genuine and legitimate expressions of dissent and did nothing to crack down. Finally, a US diplomat told him a made-up sob story about people at the embassy getting death threats from his supporters and threatened to close it, and Mossadegh got on the radio and told his supporters to stand down and stay home - the next day, the CIA launched a coup that ousted him from power.
What followed was the restoration of the shah’s power, which included hunting down leftists with secret police, banning traditional religious garb to make the country appear more Western, and of course the continued exploitation of Iranian oil, the proceeds of which went straight to the king’s bank account. When the Iranian Revolution of 1973 happened, decade of political repression of the left allowed the Islamic fundamentalists to be the ones that took power, and the US allowed the shah to flee there which outraged the Iranians, considering that he had previously been installed by them.
I could tell you the same story over and over again about countries all around the globe. Many nations had resources stolen from them via violence and colonialism and these resources remain in the hands of the people who took them, and anyone who attempts to reassert control over their own resources is putting themselves in the crosshairs of the the US and NATO, whether through sanctions, seizing assets, CIA backed coups, or overt military aggression. But all they have to do is cover up the truth or present a bullshit justification, and by the time it falls apart it’ll be too late to do anything about it, it’ll have faded from the public consciousness, and people will assert, without reason or evidence, that “they don’t do that anymore” dispite having clear means and motive to and never having faced any sort of punishment for it. Meanwhile the historical examples can continue to be used to intimidate countries outside of the imperial core who don’t have goldfish memories, and understand that they could be next. So they either comply with neocolonial exploitation, or they take measures to prevent CIA infiltration, which then gets them derided as “authoritarian” by people like you - and if they do neither of these things, then they get coup’ed and replaced by a fascist.
the USSR beat your ass and STILL didnt want most of your shit country. they could’ve taken it after winning the winter war, but didnt.
The fact that their casualties were 5 times worse (or about 150x worse if we’re counting tanks) than ours might have had something to do with them not wanting our shit country.
Not that it matters. The important thing was they didn’t conquer us.
and you’re still convinced they’re coming for you.
Well, not anymore that much, thanks to our NATO friends.
hah, yes, k/d ratio is how you measure success, right.
As you correctly point out, this is not the only thing that matters. Other issues contributed to USSR failing to conquer Finland as they set out to do. As they indeed did to every other country they had been given the permission to conquer from Hitler.
you’re a child.
I wonder how serious Rule 2 is to lemmy.ml admins, when people keep breaking it everywhere without any consequences. Is this a sort of sandbox that I have entered into, and that’s why so many people are throwing tantrums here?
“The 7th Army, comprising nine divisions, a tank corps and three tank brigades, was located on the Karelian Isthmus. Its objective was to quickly overrun the Finnish defenses on the Karelian Isthmus and conquer Viipuri. From there, the 7th Army was to continue towards Lappeenranta, then turn west towards Lahti, before the final push to the capital Helsinki. The force was later divided into the 7th and 13th Armies.”
That 7th Army was the one that received extremely heavy casualties in their attempts of a breakthrough.
Also, the land concessions before starting this war demanded removal of defensive lines and a military base near Helsinki (the capital). This was just diplomacy as a means to make the war easier.
Finland clearly isn’t the weak spot they’d go for anytime soon. You’ll have plenty of time to decide what to do and which of your 20.000 bombshelters to go to while 🇱🇻 🇪🇪 🇱🇹 is taking a first blow.
I don’t know about propaganda, but sometimes reality can be motivating. Here’s one piece of it: https://yle.fi/a/74-20050548
Not sure if the current government is doing a good job with tackling this, though. Somehow even with the frugality they’re claiming they’re doing (pretty minimal actions really), the loan amounts are still growing. But these things don’t change fast.
We should really have a great firewall to keep all of us inside it, the psychic damage a single fucking finn can inflict on the internet is insane
smol bean finland never done did no wrong uwu, is not like we were sucking the boot of the nazis even before they took over germany no no no, evil commies bad owo
As somebody who lives in a country that spends over the NATO agreed 2%, and for whom Russia is very threatening, I’m not entirely unhappy about what Trump is saying about European defence. We do need to put in more effort. Another thing is what he’ll actual do.
Wow, which region of Russian-speakers is your country’s armed forces bombing? Because that’s what it takes for Russia to be “”“threatening”“”.
i dunno about finland, but the baltics seem like they’re a single bad morning’s commute from shelling their russian minorities… just the vibe i’m gettings…
When arent they one bad morning to reenacting what their grandparents did during ww2?
It seems wanting to join NATO is enough for Russia to be threatening, if they consider one’s country to be in Russia’s sphere of influence. See for instance Georgia (2008) and indeed Ukraine (2014/2022).
NATO is a hostile military alliance formed for the sole purpose of destroying the Soviet Union. It did not go away when that purpose was achieved, but continued to creep closer to the USSR’s main successor state despite assurances that it would not. In this post-USSR period it has undertaken multiple purely offensive actions (the former Yugoslavia and Libya come to mind). It also invaded Afghanistan as a response to 9/11, despite none of the hijackers being from Afghanistan, and despite the Afghan government offering to turn over bin Laden. Then you have the puppetmaster of NATO invading Iraq on completely false pretenses, and generally running a wide-ranging assassination program all over the world.
I wouldn’t want NATO near me, either.
Somehow it doesn’t currently seem like it was achieved.
If you think the Russian Federation and the USSR are remotely comparable, you’re smoking crack. NATO won, and the depraved, neoliberal regime it replaced the USSR with is its own God damned fault.
I don’t think USSR became what anyone in the west wanted it to become. It’s nowhere near neoliberal, for one, more like a mafia state.
Oh no, I don’t. The Russian Federation is much worse. Just saying that we didn’t really “destroy” them in the same way as, for instance, Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan was destroyed in WW2.
Who is Yeltsin?
Technically it quickly became something closer to classically liberal rather than neoliberal (as the imperial core shunned it) but to claim that liberalism is opposed to mafiosi is hilarious, it has never existed without them. It’s like saying liberalism is opposed to slavery, there is some vacuous sense in which you could use sophistry to push that angle, but when you look at real, historic manifestations of liberal states, they are heavily economically reliant on various forms of slavery, whether domestic or via their dogs in the third world.
Lmao what?
What nations are allowed to have their own interests, and act to secure those interests? Is that something only for the U.S. and (when the U.S. allows it) its allies? Or is it possible that some countries have legitimate interests that conflict with the U.S.?
Is Ukraine allowed that?
Legitimate national interests don’t include attacking ethnic minorities, which is a major cause of the current war dating back to the early 2010s.
There’s also a question of what “national interest” means when the U.S. coups your elected government, as it did to Ukraine in 2014.
Does there exist proof that it was a US coup?
Oh also
What is “Abkhazia”?
goddamn man it’s actually so fucking stupid to be fearful of Russia in Finland.
Yes, Russia, the state still grinding it out in Ukraine 2 years down the line, is suddenly going to invade Finland and trigger a war with the entire western world so they can uhhhhh steal Finland’s lovely lakes. You piss me off
Finland has been in NATO for less than a year. Before that we had a war in which USSR tried to take over the whole country and after failing at that, hovered over us for 50 years before collapsing.
But if you’re saying that we shouldn’t anymore be afraid of them now that we’re in NATO, perhaps you’re right. We’ll still need to be cognizant of the fact that Russia is our only potential enemy on this planet.
“Their mere existence is a threat”
I guess you had to be there.
Think about what you’re saying.
Why is it OK when you say it but bad when they do? If you’re encouraging others to put themselves in your shoes (“you had to be there”), why can’t you put yourself in Russia’s shoes and see how they could reasonably perceive NATO as a threat?
I’m not actually saying that Russia just existing close to us is a threat. I’m saying that what Russia is doing and how it’s behaving, and how it talks publically is a threat.
But I do understand how NATO might be viewed as a threat to some nations or world leaders. I don’t immediately remember any particurarily good (liberal, free, non-oppressive, democratic) nations that NATO poses a risk to, however. Perhaps you can refresh my memory.
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If Libya didn’t want us to drag their popular leader through the streets and humiliate him before assassinating him, completely destabilizing the country and establishing open air slave markets, they should’ve thought twice before supporting a misogynist.
That’s exactly what you said, although you said it about the USSR, which was even more absurd.
So clever to fall back on the “well if I did do it, they deserved it” defense.
Do you think the people of Libya, a country you’d say deserved it, prefer their country after the NATO attack on it? They went from one of the highest (if not the highest) living standards on the continent to a decade of civil war and open-air slave markets.
I don’t think I was being very clever there, but I’ll take it!
Gaddafi’s Libya didn’t seem to fit any of liberal, free, non-oppressive or democratic. I think we also have to note that that intervention was based on a UN Security Council resolution, which no member (not even Russia or China) opposed. So not really a NATO operation exclusively.
Libya went from bad to worse as a consequence though, about that you’re not wrong.
Liberal, free, non-oppreasive, democratic nations that oppose Western neocolonial interests tend to get coup’ed by the CIA and replaced with pro-Western fascists. Countries that do survive, like for instance Cuba, have their name dragged through the mud by an enormous propaganda machine - which also whitewashes or conveniently forgets the crushing of the leftist projects that don’t survive.
There are countless examples throughout history, but my go-to is Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran, in the 50’s. No doubt the line will be that “that was a long time ago so it doesn’t count,” but the CIA covered up their involvement for decades, and if I picked a more modern example you’d likely either deny involvement or say that the government deserved it.
Iran suffered under British colonialism for decades. In the 1800’s, the shahs signed all sorts of deals selling out the country at absurdly bad rates and no expiration, to fund their exorbitant lifestyles. A large scale popular movement ousted them, but the agreements remained, and a new dynasty took power with British support, and the exploitation continued. Britain secured enormous profit and wealth through Iranian oil while falsifying records to pay virtually nothing for it while the Iranians lived in abject poverty. For decades the Iranians sought a diplomatic resolution and we’re completely stonewalled.
Finally, another popular movement caused the shah to appoint Mossadegh as PM (a position that had previously been hand-picked by the British). Mossadegh nationalized the oil industry to enormous popular support, but the British responded with a blockade, and offered Eisenhower support in Korea and in forming NATO in exchange for having the CIA oust Mossadegh (an offer Truman had dismissed in disgust, as this was the first case of CIA involvement of regime change).
Mossadegh, like many Iranians at the time, saw their struggle as being only against the British and trusted the US to uphold the values it preached and saw it as a potential friend. The CIA took over every newspaper in the country and started publishing anti-government propaganda nonstop. They hired false flag protesters, who claimed to support the government and then wrecked shit (as well as hiring protesters to march against the government). Politicians, vote counters, religious leaders, journalists, anyone with an ounce of power was getting bribed by the CIA. Mossadegh believed that these were genuine and legitimate expressions of dissent and did nothing to crack down. Finally, a US diplomat told him a made-up sob story about people at the embassy getting death threats from his supporters and threatened to close it, and Mossadegh got on the radio and told his supporters to stand down and stay home - the next day, the CIA launched a coup that ousted him from power.
What followed was the restoration of the shah’s power, which included hunting down leftists with secret police, banning traditional religious garb to make the country appear more Western, and of course the continued exploitation of Iranian oil, the proceeds of which went straight to the king’s bank account. When the Iranian Revolution of 1973 happened, decade of political repression of the left allowed the Islamic fundamentalists to be the ones that took power, and the US allowed the shah to flee there which outraged the Iranians, considering that he had previously been installed by them.
I could tell you the same story over and over again about countries all around the globe. Many nations had resources stolen from them via violence and colonialism and these resources remain in the hands of the people who took them, and anyone who attempts to reassert control over their own resources is putting themselves in the crosshairs of the the US and NATO, whether through sanctions, seizing assets, CIA backed coups, or overt military aggression. But all they have to do is cover up the truth or present a bullshit justification, and by the time it falls apart it’ll be too late to do anything about it, it’ll have faded from the public consciousness, and people will assert, without reason or evidence, that “they don’t do that anymore” dispite having clear means and motive to and never having faced any sort of punishment for it. Meanwhile the historical examples can continue to be used to intimidate countries outside of the imperial core who don’t have goldfish memories, and understand that they could be next. So they either comply with neocolonial exploitation, or they take measures to prevent CIA infiltration, which then gets them derided as “authoritarian” by people like you - and if they do neither of these things, then they get coup’ed and replaced by a fascist.
Man extremely rare Truman W in there
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The fact that their casualties were 5 times worse (or about 150x worse if we’re counting tanks) than ours might have had something to do with them not wanting our shit country.
Not that it matters. The important thing was they didn’t conquer us.
Well, not anymore that much, thanks to our NATO friends.
Removed by mod
As you correctly point out, this is not the only thing that matters. Other issues contributed to USSR failing to conquer Finland as they set out to do. As they indeed did to every other country they had been given the permission to conquer from Hitler.
I wonder how serious Rule 2 is to lemmy.ml admins, when people keep breaking it everywhere without any consequences. Is this a sort of sandbox that I have entered into, and that’s why so many people are throwing tantrums here?
edit Okay they do take it seriously.
Removed by mod
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War#Soviet_order_of_battle
“The 7th Army, comprising nine divisions, a tank corps and three tank brigades, was located on the Karelian Isthmus. Its objective was to quickly overrun the Finnish defenses on the Karelian Isthmus and conquer Viipuri. From there, the 7th Army was to continue towards Lappeenranta, then turn west towards Lahti, before the final push to the capital Helsinki. The force was later divided into the 7th and 13th Armies.”
That 7th Army was the one that received extremely heavy casualties in their attempts of a breakthrough.
Also, the land concessions before starting this war demanded removal of defensive lines and a military base near Helsinki (the capital). This was just diplomacy as a means to make the war easier.
Yea we now who you are.https://duckduckgo.com/?q=mannerheim+hitler&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Finland clearly isn’t the weak spot they’d go for anytime soon. You’ll have plenty of time to decide what to do and which of your 20.000 bombshelters to go to while 🇱🇻 🇪🇪 🇱🇹 is taking a first blow.
yay
I didn’t expect the state propaganda campaign to convince their people to accept welfare cuts and to embrace austerity to work this well.
Oh let 'em go, let 'em tarry
Sink or let 'em swim
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
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Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I don’t know about propaganda, but sometimes reality can be motivating. Here’s one piece of it: https://yle.fi/a/74-20050548
Not sure if the current government is doing a good job with tackling this, though. Somehow even with the frugality they’re claiming they’re doing (pretty minimal actions really), the loan amounts are still growing. But these things don’t change fast.
Agreed
Comrades, I sincerely apologize for any psychic damage taken from being exposed to my fellow countryman’s takes
imagine not knowing that the wrong side won the civil war
We should really have a great firewall to keep all of us inside it, the psychic damage a single fucking finn can inflict on the internet is insane
smol bean finland never done did no wrong uwu, is not like we were sucking the boot of the nazis even before they took over germany no no no, evil commies bad owo
Innocent smol bean pogromists.