[klawcode]

I trust Finland and Sweden's analysis. That more than anything else solidified my trust in the NATO position on Ukraine.

If Finland and Sweden remained neutral throughout the entire cold war and yet now are openly considering NATO membership, it means something.

[fsloth]

Well, Finland was basically Sweden's shield, and Finland was yielding to Kremlin, so there was very little risk of conflict.

Now Russia has more or less proclaimed it's "back to the empire" agenda which implies subjugation of all of the former states of the russian empire.

Which includes Finland.

The weird thing is, even though Russians lie constantly, when they declare foreign policy targets, they are surprisingly honest and consistent about that.

This implies 1) Finland needs to join NATO asap.

2) After that sweden would be the only weak target left. Gotland is an obvious, concrete military goal that would be feasible target for a RU invasion from Kaliningrad.

[gerikson]

Sweden is not a "weak" target just because it's not part of NATO.

Invading, defending, and holding Gotland is not an easy task, especially as the Ukraine invasion has exposed the glaring deficiencies of the Russian armed forces. And Sweden's defense, attenuated as it might be from decades of budget cuts, is focused on defending Gotland.

[klawcode]

I'm pretty sure Finland and Sweden are basically inseparable in terms of foreign policy... where one goes the other will go, and they'll discuss with each other in depth prior to any decision.

They may still forgo NATO, its absolutely their choice, and every NATO member respects that, being the primary difference between NATO and Russia. They can leave at any time too.

What disturbs me is that there is a lot of appeasement rhetoric floating around in the comment sections.

If people want to let Russia get away with wrecking Ukraine because Russia has nukes, then we may as well drop the bombs now - once you legitimize that strategy you are going to have massive nuclear proliferation, and even if appeasement worked (it simply doesn't), every other aggressor is going to view nukes as an easy win.

[crateless]

As long as they go into it fully informed, that is the best one could hope for.