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Ohtori Akio posted:More general than that, but yes thank you. Maybe it is just gas pipelines, if nothing else would have a comparable impact if interrupted or damaged. Finland and Russia have the same rail gauge (roughly), but those links getting severed for whatever reason wouldn't be super-impactful.
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Oct 11, 2022 21:02
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Antigravitas posted:There is, and it's DW. It is directly state funded. Just to add to this for our American friends: A lot of European nations, like Germany, Sweden, Finland, etc., have state-funded television/media networks. They're supposed to be outside political control (I think this is a thing everywhere in Europe? Correct me if I'm being naive), but as one can imagine, it's not always a... Perfect system. That said, this is very different from a Russian-style state-organized and content-directed media apparatus, which is more akin to Goebbels's ministry of propaganda poo poo-show.
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Oct 15, 2022 19:02
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Orban doesn't really have anything to gain (as far as I can see?) from blocking Sweden and Finland, he's more occupied with his tight-rope act between anti-EU / "traditional values" strong-man bluster and not pissing off the EU any further, which could compromise his EU funding streams. Turkey has made slightly more credible noises about their reluctance, and hilariously Erdogan has stressed that he "doesn't really have a problem with Finland, but Sweden is too terrorist friendly" or whatever due to Sweden's larger Kurdish minority population. Finland has stated that ours is a joint application process with Sweden and would prefer to keep it so, I obviously can't know what has been said behind closed doors but presumably everyone involved, especially the US, has been trying their best to get Erdogan to play ball.
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Oct 17, 2022 10:08
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Nenonen posted:It would be a wonderful title too, as the forum software does not support special characters in thread titles! Maybe Astral could spare a couple load-bearing umlauts for the Ukraine war posting effort  ^efb 
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Oct 24, 2022 07:36
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Feliday Melody posted:The Swedish PM is going to visit Erdrogan to negotiate this. The Finnish-Turkish argument (such as it is) seems to begin and end with our judicial system being independent, i.e. the president or the parliament can't just willy-nilly go around saying extradition verdicts should all favour mister Erdogan because he has a tummy-ache. Of course Turkey has been less, erm, persistent with us than they have been with Sweden, but surely even Ulf can manage a little vinegar in the defense of mamma Svärje.
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Oct 24, 2022 09:16
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Small White Dragon posted:Aren't we assuming that Ukraine will probably eventually join the EU? Is their common defense pact not worth much? Slashrat posted:Sweden and Finland are both in the EU already and still felt it was high time to get into NATO asap when this kicked off. To elaborate: Finland's official EU/foreign policy stance for a long time was attempting to strengthen (politically) the EU's common defense policies and practices, because for let's say historical reasons we were shy about NATO membership. This didn't really work out, because most of the EU was already in NATO and had very little interest in creating a parallel structure within the EU. And there's a whole host of historical and practical reasons why a EU-wide unified armed forces wouldn't really work out; for starters, what language would everybody use? English is... Awkward, from a purely EU perspective, and there's the French with their chauvinism, etc. And this is one of the more trivial political issues around the EU joint defense strengthening idea. But as Slashrat said, once Russia went full colonialist warfare on a neighbouring state, Finland (and Sweden) figured it was time to either poop or get off the pot. You can pick which one of those represents joining NATO, but that's the new geo-political reality.
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Dec 5, 2022 11:09
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Rinkles posted:Could you or Rappaport elaborate on the “historical reasons we were shy about NATO membership”? After WW2, Finland was an axis satellite that lost the war but didn't become a part of the Warsaw pact, or have a communist take-over. We did, however, sign an "Agreement of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance" with the Soviet Union, which essentially said that we'd fight to keep anyone from attacking the Soviets through our land or airspace (how this would've happened in practice, especially in the era of the ICBM, is left as an exercise to the reader), and that the Soviets would "assist" us in this when "mutually agreed upon". There were also clauses about having political consultations whenever the threat of Germany made the Soviets antsy (yes this was a real thing during the Cold War), and needless to say all of our foreign policy and some of our domestic policy dramas revolved around this pact with our super-power neighbour. Then the Soviet Union collapsed, history ended (until 2001), and according to free market enthusiasts and fukuyamaists etc. it was an inevitability that Russia would sooner or later integrate into the market-driven, democratic style Europe and Finland would be able to have more normalized relations with Russia. The aforementioned agreement of friendship etc. was disbanded as soon as the Soviet Union collapsed, and we had other, more normal diplomatic relations with the new Russia, and Finland's economic ties to Russia continued, if at a lesser magnitude than with the Soviet empire. Now, together with all this was the idea that we could've joined NATO around the same time as we joined the EU, but even joining the EU was domestically dicey for awhile, and it wasn't clear in the nineties that a majority of the people would have wanted to join NATO as well. And then in the 00's and onwards Russia seemed scary again, and no one really wanted to poke that particular bear with too much NATO enthusiasm. (Finland has the second-longest land border with Russia after Ukraine in Europe, so somewhat understandably geo-politically minded people considered Finland an "interest" of Russia.) This is why Finland was so enthusiastic about EU security policy deepening, since we are already in the EU and it'd be nice if some of the big boys would say out loud that they'd help us, with France's nukes if need be! But as the Kyhe points out, the big boys were not interested in this for their own reasons, and this never went anywhere. Then Russia/Putin decided to start his horrible war, and both political will and public sentiment in Finland rapidly shifted towards wanting to be under Uncle Sam's nuclear umbrella, and now we're here, waiting to see how much Erdögan wants to humiliate Sweden before letting them and us into NATO. Meanwhile, Russia's outwards propaganda has shifted from "Russia will destroy Finland if they join NATO" to "well it's unfortunate that the stupid Finns are joining the homonazis, such a shame really, mother Russia has always been kind to Finland", so I guess Vova has other priorities right now.
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Dec 5, 2022 14:56
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Thanks for all the work keeping this thread readable and informative, cinci 
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Jan 29, 2023 03:11
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An article in Finnish, and I apologize, but it seems Russia is doing the same poo poo the Nazis did when it came to "Aryanizing" children by kidnapping them and placing them in "proper" Russian homes.Translated by robot posted:Russia has abducted an estimated several thousand Ukrainian children from the territories it has occupied and given the children to Russian families. The systematic operation is led by the presidential administration of Vladimir Putin. Forced transfers from occupied territories are war crimes and flagrantly violate children's rights.
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Feb 12, 2023 10:18
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Saladman posted:That doesn't seem like the same thing? It looks like the Nazis kidnapped children to make them into slaves and literal goddamn laboratory guinea pigs. The Russians kidnap children to raise them in their own culture. What a delightful way of propagandizing this to Russia's benefit. It was, after all, the Aryanization of the Polish children that the Nazis were concerned with, and raising children in a proper, Russian way, well that is different because Russia is defending Christendom against the homonazis of the West. It all makes sense, thank you!
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Feb 12, 2023 11:09
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Discendo Vox posted:On China and Russia, let’s not forget the article posted about a month ago that the two countries are in an agreement to coordinate their domestic and foreign-facing propaganda messaging. That’s pretty heavy alignment. For general media literacy purposes, it might be helpful if you, or indeed anyone posting things such as this, linked to the article they wished remembered, since this thread even among the furor of D&D has a lot of links posted. Just as a reminder. Thank you!
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Feb 13, 2023 16:37
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cinci zoo sniper posted:They did speak against the war, so yeah, leaving was the move to go for. Most recently, they've been declared “foreign agents” by the Russian government, which is irrelevant now, but may complicate their return in the future. Aw man  They did have a very critical view of Russia way before Putin's awful war, so I assume they must have been on some lists for awhile. I hope they manage okay, their take on the general Russian existential angst was very on-point.
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Feb 16, 2023 14:01
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cinci zoo sniper posted:According to Bloomberg, Austin has said that the U.S. wants Sweden and Finland both in NATO by July. That said, going by Stoltenberg and motions from Turkish officials, Finland may very well see an individual ratification from Turkey already, leaving then just the Swedish membership for later. We have a few Finnish goons here – what are the local conversations like about joining NATO separately from Sweden? Finland has had a bit of a derail in the public conversation with a political researcher, who has an unfortunate following in the yellow press, making noises about NATO and us joining separately from Sweden. That said, our parliament seems (a link in Finnish, sorry) determined to vote on joining NATO before our parliamentary elections this spring.
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Feb 16, 2023 15:12
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cinci zoo sniper posted:That's fairly interesting, cheers. Smells like Finland will just go if Turkey wraps the paperwork soon. It would be some egg on the face of our president and prime minister if we didn't join NATO. Of course there are reasons why our stated intention of "going with Sweden" are meaningful, but the political climate and the will of our glorious leaders has shifted so far into the pro-NATO-sphere that maybe our cousins next door are not as important.
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Feb 17, 2023 14:17
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I hope this isn't too bothersome for the rest of the thread, but the Finnish Yleisradio had an interview with the head of our parliamentary committee on foreign affairs and he said that (my translation) "the furtherance of the membership processes of both Finland and Sweden are what is important", and more tellingly that "Finland could more effectively aid Sweden in their application process by being within NATO". No one is saying the quiet part out loud just yet, but perhaps we (Finland) will apply ahead of our cousins?
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Feb 18, 2023 13:49
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The Finnish president opined earlier today, "our position is crystal-clear. [...] The situation is that our applications are on the table at Ankara. If Turkey decided to say yes to to Finland but not yet to Sweden, that would be a troublesome situation for us. Our hands are tied, and we have applied for membership. Should we say we withdraw our application? We simply cannot do that."
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Feb 18, 2023 14:18
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Freudian slippers posted:Jesus Christ. Russia has been extremely well informed that Biden is in Kyiev today and they will not under any circumstances do anything that can be remotely construed as trying to kill the U.S. president. It's this. Russia knows very well that doing anything even remotely near Biden would be catastrophic, and not even Vova is insane enough to want to intentionally trigger a potential nuclear war. Uh, apologies about Clancychat, but, you know, it seems to be Biden's fault in this case
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Feb 20, 2023 13:28
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Nenonen posted:Where are you coming from to this estimate (or guesstimate)? It seems hard to assess the real figure because some of the people who left have already returned. Some also left early, then returned, then left again when the mobilisation began. Leaving Russia is relatively easy, but staying abroad is more difficult unless you are made of money or immediately find work. It's not nearly in the wowza million people category, but apparently roughly a thousand (Finnish YLE link, sorry folks!) Russians get a student visa to Finland annually.  Sadly I'm not sure how strict comparatively Finnish visa policies in this area are, but I'm assuming Russian young people would attempt similar moves to other nearby countries. Russian isn't that widely spoken in Finland, so the people coming here would be rather motivated. The Russian dude interviewed in that article states that he thinks "interest in studies abroad among Russian people have increased", and that "very few people want to return to Russia". Of course that's anecdotal.
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Feb 25, 2023 18:45
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I am an idiot who does not understand how modern currency works, but isn't Russia's internal economy hosed either way since they, as posted a bit earlier, have no access to basic industrial and manufacturing goods from abroad, let alone consumer goods?
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Feb 26, 2023 03:07
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cinci zoo sniper posted:I'm not sure what “a bit earlier” refers to here, but you need to double-check it. They have access to quite a bit of basic goods – anything that China can sell them, for instance. Problems are with stuff that is made in western countries, or under a western licence, that happens to also be under sanctions. Their economy doesn't have a healthy medium-long term outlook, but it's not for the reasons of Russia purportedly running out of air fryers or some such. Yeah I forgot to add in a European / western qualifier in my post, I'm sorry. I'm not saying their economy is collapsing in the near future, air fryers or not, just that with the systemic decay of production chains having issues, they'll have major head-aches in the less near future of a few years.
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Feb 26, 2023 03:19
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The Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin had an unannounced visit to Ukraine where she sat down with president Zelenskyy and voiced her strong views on Russia committing war crimes.
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Mar 10, 2023 16:22
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It is a war, and gross poo poo happens, but no one needs to post videos about it.
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Mar 18, 2023 02:01
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Chalks posted:I think a lot will depend on this next offensive from Ukraine. If they succeed in taking back some significant territory Western support will be fine imo. If they are repulsed, the calls for a ceasefire will become very loud very fast. For what it's worth, Finland is having a parliamentary election right about now, and the public conversation has been mostly on domestic issues. Of course this includes things like spending, but Finland is, for geographical reasons if nothing else, fairly committed to seeing Russia fail in their attempt to wage a war of conquest. In the broader European view, of course, things aren't this straightforward, but within the EU there's member states other than Finland who also have similar motivations to keep the organization in general favourable to the Ukrainian war effort.
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Mar 20, 2023 17:29
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mobby_6kl posted:As I wrote above, my immediate concern was about how the rhetoric translates into actual urgency of action, but this is probably the root cause of that. If the population that matters doesn't really care, neither will the governments. Inflation, costs of living, etc, will easily overshadow thousands dying and being displaced over there, let alone abstract concepts like sovereignty. The French are mad about the retirement reforms, not so much that Putin is doing ethnic cleansing. I know I'm the resident ridiculous EU critic in Dungeons and Debate, but I'm not sure this is how it would play out. I don't know how it goes in big countries like France who theoretically could wage a war of aggression, but it feels like the voting populace doesn't really factor foreign policy into their voting decisions that much. Unless it's for explicit protest vote type stuff, like the various neo-nazi parties all over Europe (whoo boy). But while the EU doesn't always have a unified view on foreign policy, all the technocrats in central Europe probably understand that Putin's Russia is a problem, and the Ukraine war support from the rest of Europe is kind of a foreign policy essential feature right now. So in my view, the chain of logic kind of goes in reverse of what you suggest; even if the voting populace becomes (or already is) apathetic to the war, all the political parties can still just focus on pension reform or whatever domestic stuff in their election propaganda, while the support for Ukraine can just kind of be left to the back-ground as a thing that will happen either way. I'm sure there will be populists who will say that it's awful that money is spent on "those people over there", but I'm skeptical that this'd transform into the EU / Europe changing course unless, as you say, the chuds get into power. I don't think most European election systems are as fragile as the US, where a single Trump can just (try to) make sweeping changes.
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Mar 21, 2023 17:56
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I mean, all I know is that I've been getting things wrong, I'm no more an expert than any other dumbass American, and anything we "know" is being filtered through rumor and propaganda. I'm just quoting Hieronymous but as a general note to this whole conversation, if anyone wants to get a "feel" for how Putin's Russia operated circa twenty years ago, Anna Politkovskaya's stuff is illustrative of some of it. She was also murdered under shady circumstances, so she was probably upsetting a lot of folks in high places.
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Mar 29, 2023 02:44
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I don't post a whole lot in this thread, but I try to read all of it (especially now that it's not 10 pages of posts per hour like a year ago!), so I'll just throw my two feedback cents in. In general, I like the way this thread is run. I think I "get" cinci a little bit better than some (American?) posters, and his moderation does read a little blunt sometimes to Anglo sensibilities but I don't think he's as actively scornful as some people seem to think he is. Of course on SA a majority of the audience is Anglo so I dunno how cinci himself feels about his customer service face (as it were), but generally to me it seems pretty clear when he's telling the thread to knock some derail off, or whatever. That said, I too am sometimes a bit wary about posting in this thread. I'm a (political) history nerd who doesn't know a god drat thing about military technology aside from boom bad, tree pretty level basics  This thread occasionally veers off into discussing parallels to (the somewhat tiresome) Hitler, WW1+2 and their interim, the collapse of the Third Reich as it pertains to Putin's trajectory going forward, Soviet cultural legacy, etc., which I personally find very interesting!, but it's also a mine-field of clancychat type stuff. Which is fair, this thread is meant to be about current events and not wild speculation! And I don't think there's a really easy, clear line to be drawn with historical references inside current geo-politics chat, which IMO is within the purview of this thread, so I post at my own risk I suppose.I also participate in the conversation around Finnish matters since I live here, but there it seems more obvious what is relevant to the thread and what isn't. All the news articles, and in particular the more analytical ones, posted here are a great resource IMO, and I very shamelessly share them around elsewhere as soon as I read something interesting here. I don't really understand the criticism posted earlier that news article posting in this thread is risky posting, as long as one does the barest minimum of reflection on the credibility of the source they're posting. This seems more of an issue with posting tweets, since twitter randos have all sorts of hot takes and tweets are very much a caveat emptor situation. Humour is subjective, but I too don't really feel Simpsons memes add anything needed to the thread, and I've seen some Simpsons. The post where someone suggested Ukraine was getting a TIE fighter for their air forces did seem funny to me though 
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Mar 31, 2023 02:19
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