Meanwhile In The Baltic Republics And Poland...

[old_goat]

18 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Behold, a 'dissident right', scared of its own shadow and unwilling to honor alliances.

NATO, and to be honest, whole western world is rotting from the core. Overthrowing governments to export "democracy", supporting literal nazis in one country, tolerating a genocide in another. What kind of alliance is it? Not a "defensive" one, thats for sure...

And the worst: completely and utterly failing to defend own territory from literal invasion by millions of immigrants. NATO hit the rock bottom morally. 

Edited October 13, 2024 by old_goat

[Josh]

12 hours ago, Markus Becker said:

Unless Poland has forces in Estonia or some MRBM the threat is going to be hard to follow up on because Poland is about 600km away from Russia. 

Not if you count Kaliningrad. Or Belarus, if it is hosting Russian forces.

[seahawk]

20 hours ago, Markus Becker said:

🥱 I presume you do know what Nato is, who's a member and what all of them are supposed to do when one - say Lithuania - is attacked.  

Lithuania does not feel that threatened if you look at the lastest election. In fact it seems like quite a sizeable portion of the people would not be opposed to a reunification with Russia.

[Mighty_Zuk]

On 10/13/2024 at 12:59 PM, Markus Becker said:

Unless Poland has forces in Estonia or some MRBM the threat is going to be hard to follow up on because Poland is about 600km away from Russia. 

I think he meant 300km radius from Lithuania. Lots of Russian targets there.

[R011]

On 10/13/2024 at 5:59 AM, Markus Becker said:

Unless Poland has forces in Estonia or some MRBM the threat is going to be hard to follow up on because Poland is about 600km away from Russia. 

Kaliningrad Oblast is a bit closer to Poland than that.

 

Edit: And if I had read the next page, I'd have seen I'm not the first to think of that!

Edited October 14, 2024 by R011

[Stuart Galbraith]

On 10/13/2024 at 10:27 PM, glenn239 said:

We used to have long discussions here about NATO's inalienable right to expand eastwards.  Now the narrative has switched to the impression that things are marching westwards.  NATO stronger than ever, and all that.

No we didnt. We had a discussion about the inalienable right of anyone to join NATO if they chose, yes, even Russia. They set themselves outside the camp, then determined nobody else had a right to camp there.

I dont think they are marching Westwards. I think they probably will when they have rebuilt their army, which I suspect with an alliance with China and India could happen far quicker than we want to believe. After all, the Chinese and Indians are still buying their oil.

The Russians are not 4 foot 3, nor 10 foot tall. Ill settle for a threatening 5 foot 10.

[JWB]

Following several Incidents recently of Russian and Chinese linked Ships damaging Submarine Cables in the Baltic Sea; the Prime Minister of Latvia, Evika Siliņa has stated that they may soon begin seizing Ships of the Russian “Shadow Fleet” in order to defend Critical Infrastructure.

https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1873502193808203925

 

[JWB]

What will Putin do about this?

[urbanoid]

4 minutes ago, JWB said:

What will Putin do about this?

Attack Ukraine in retali... oh, wait 

Edited December 30, 2024 by urbanoid

[sunday]

I find remarkable how fast this power cable cutting is being investigated and measures taken.

In the meanwhile, Nord Stream...

[Pavel Novak]

36 minutes ago, sunday said:

I find remarkable how fast this power cable cutting is being investigated and measures taken.

In the meanwhile, Nord Stream...

Considering time from first cut cable to this first ship seizure the investigation is as slow as with Nord Stream.

[ink]

On 10/16/2024 at 11:19 AM, Stuart Galbraith said:

No we didnt. We had a discussion about the inalienable right of anyone to join NATO if they chose, yes, even Russia. 

I'm curious, how should "if they chose" work in practice, d'you think?

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 hour ago, ink said:

I'm curious, how should "if they chose" work in practice, d'you think?

 

Is Austria and Switzerland in NATO? Then yes, there is a choice. Even Russia could have joined, if they had a President that didnt expect to be invited.

[ink]

41 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Is Austria and Switzerland in NATO? Then yes, there is a choice. Even Russia could have joined, if they had a President that didnt expect to be invited.

No sorry, perhaps I could have phrased my question more carefully. I meant: how do you imagine the mechanism of a country choosing something, essentially for good, works. Who actually makes the decision? Is it like Brexit? Non-binding referendum?

[Mighty_Zuk]

12 hours ago, sunday said:

I find remarkable how fast this power cable cutting is being investigated and measures taken.

In the meanwhile, Nord Stream...

If something had already happened, you can deploy surveillance equipment and personnel to monitor and find culprits quickly. But if your eyes were closed until an attack occurred, then investigations become so much more difficult and long.

[urbanoid]

1 hour ago, ink said:

No sorry, perhaps I could have phrased my question more carefully. I meant: how do you imagine the mechanism of a country choosing something, essentially for good, works. Who actually makes the decision? Is it like Brexit? Non-binding referendum?

Sometimes there is a referendum involved, sometimes it's just a parliamentary majority. In case of Poland it was all major political forces supporting it and working on it despite the changing governments. It was such a no-brainer that making a referendum was considered to be a waste of time and money and it was a correct assessment. 90%+ support for NATO membership 25 years after speaks for itself.

[ink]

34 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Sometimes there is a referendum involved, sometimes it's just a parliamentary majority. In case of Poland it was all major political forces supporting it and working on it despite the changing governments. It was such a no-brainer that making a referendum was considered to be a waste of time and money and it was a correct assessment. 90%+ support for NATO membership 25 years after speaks for itself.

Yeah, but Poland is totally uninteresting in this regard. Everyone and his dog can see it made sense and continues to make sense that Poland is in NATO. I don't think the Russians care even.

It's the fringe cases that are interesting. Where NATO membership is pushed for and lobbied for, regardless of the "will of the people" of that country.

[urbanoid]

42 minutes ago, ink said:

Yeah, but Poland is totally uninteresting in this regard. Everyone and his dog can see it made sense and continues to make sense that Poland is in NATO. I don't think the Russians care even.

It's the fringe cases that are interesting. Where NATO membership is pushed for and lobbied for, regardless of the "will of the people" of that country.

Gee, thanks!

[ink]

34 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Gee, thanks!

I was careful to specify "in this regard" 😄

Anyway, my overall point is simply that a citizen or Montenegro, for example, who was bombed by NATO, could very reasonably not want his country to join the alliance, and could feel assured in his opinion because most of his countrymen are probably also opposed to this... And yet, through a very murky and not even nearly democratic process, he now finds himself to be a citizen of a NATO member state - a state Montenegro is unlikely ever to have the clout to reverse.

 

[seahawk]

But that is a problem of Montenegro and not NATO. Obviously joining NATO is a mistake, but if the political class is able to push it through without democratic confirmation, it is a problem of the country trying (or being forced) to join.

[ink]

26 minutes ago, seahawk said:

But that is a problem of Montenegro and not NATO. Obviously joining NATO is a mistake, but if the political class is able to push it through without democratic confirmation, it is a problem of the country trying (or being forced) to join.

The problem isn't that countries are undemocratic*, the problem is that NATO pushes. Therefore, it can't be said to be a process where countries willingly want to join and NATO just lets them in**.

 

* Of course, that's a problem in its own right, just not one worth discussing here.

** Though, obviously, that's what happened in most cases. Slovakia, Montenegro, Georgia, and Ukraine are the outliers (and, so too is Serbia, to a lesser extent). But just because they're outliers, that doesn't mean they aren't worth discussing.

Edited December 31, 2024 by ink
to add Slovakia to the above list

[Stuart Galbraith]

Switzerland, Austria....

It wasnt NATO that pushed Sweden and Finland to join. It was Putin's own clueless actions, and a mistake to characterise it any other way.

[urbanoid]

3 minutes ago, ink said:

I was careful to specify "in this regard" 😄

Anyway, my overall point is simply that a citizen or Montenegro, for example, who was bombed by NATO, could very reasonably not want his country to join the alliance, and could feel assured in his opinion because most of his countrymen are probably also opposed to this... And yet, through a very murky and not even nearly democratic process, he now finds himself to be a citizen of a NATO member state - a state Montenegro is unlikely ever to have the clout to reverse.

 

Ok, an example helps. Truthfully from the quick google-fu it looks like the parliamentary coalition didn't want to risk the referendum as the society was roughly ~equally divided judging by the polls. Due to that they opted to have it done only with a parliamentary vote instead, which the constitution allows them. Maybe you can enlighten me, but I don't see any great gain from their membership for either NATO or Montenegro.

Out of my head the other outliers are Slovakia and Bulgaria.

The former first applied to join together with the rest of V4 but later flunked out because Meciar (a sort of Fico before Fico, but even worse, corrupt to the core, using secret services to intimidate opposition, destroying the freedom of the press etc.) happened, ultimately they joined in 2004 with the next enlargement phase.

As for Bulgaria, they seem deeply divided even today:

Quote

Were a referendum to be held in Bulgaria immediately on Nato membership, 50 per cent would vote to remain in the Alliance and 38 per cent to leave, according to a poll done for the Globsec Trends annual report.

The poll found that support in Bulgaria for Nato membership had dropped in the past year.

In 2021, in a hypothetical referendum, 54 per cent of Bulgarians would have voted to remain in Nato and 25 per cent to leave.

https://sofiaglobe.com/2022/06/04/poll-finds-bulgarians-evenly-divided-on-nato-membership-as-support-drops/

Most of the others are no-brainers, like, why wouldn't Croatia want to join? Or Romania? Hungary was in the first enlargement wave and I don't think there were any major doubts at the time, 25+ years ago. Obviously today is another matter, NATO would likely want to get rid of them if it could.

[ink]

1 minute ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Switzerland, Austria....

It wasnt NATO that pushed Sweden and Finland to join. It was Putin's own clueless actions, and a mistake to characterise it any other way.

Your argument appears to be that if some countries can choose to not join, then all countries can.

My argument is that some countries could not choose to not join, in order to show that the same rules don't apply across the board.

 

[ink]

1 minute ago, urbanoid said:

Ok, an example helps. Truthfully from the quick google-fu it looks like the parliamentary coalition didn't want to risk the referendum as the society was roughly ~equally divided judging by the polls. Due to that they opted to have it done only with a parliamentary vote instead, which the constitution allows them. Maybe you can enlighten me, but I don't see any great gain from their membership for either NATO or Montenegro.

My best guess is that someone is just colouring in shapes on a map.

1 minute ago, urbanoid said:

Out of my head the other outliers are Slovakia and Bulgaria.

The former first applied to join together with the rest of V4 but later flunked out because Meciar (a sort of Fico before Fico, but even worse, corrupt to the core, using secret services to intimidate opposition, destroying the freedom of the press etc.) happened, ultimately they joined in 2004 with the next enlargement phase.

Yeah, the government in Slovakia has often been dodgy... But public opinion at the time of joining was deeply divided. Could Slovakia be said to have leapt into the arms of NATO? Could it even be said that Slovakia decided to join NATO?

1 minute ago, urbanoid said:

As for Bulgaria, they seem deeply divided even today:

https://sofiaglobe.com/2022/06/04/poll-finds-bulgarians-evenly-divided-on-nato-membership-as-support-drops/

 

Yup, I forgot Bulgaria. 

 

1 minute ago, urbanoid said:

 

Most of the others are no-brainers, like, why wouldn't Croatia want to join? Or Romania? Hungary was in the first enlargement wave and I don't think there were any major doubts at the time, 25+ years ago. Obviously today is another matter, NATO would likely want to get rid of them if it could.

Croatia is weird. I think they broadly want to join but there was a bit of hoo-ha around the referendum because the concern was most of those who were pro wouldn't want to turn out to vote, whilst those who were against would, resulting in an embarrassingly close result.

The government there was pretty darn corrupt at the time. Probably Slovak-level corrupt.

In any case, all I was saying is that NATO pushes. Sometimes the door is open, sometimes it's ajar, and sometimes it's closed but not locked...* But it still pushes.

 

 

* In Serbia, the door's locked but various governments have left the window open.