I was interested in the idea that the Prime Minister is looking for a solution through militarization, considering that Finland is one of the most highly militarized societies on earth and can field an army of 280,000 in less than 48 hours.
Check out my posts for a YouTube explaining the situation. It's quite revealing. Especially as Sweden is doing the same, and is also highly militarized, for essentially the same reason. Who'd have thunk?
What is the youtube link? The CIA Factbook lists them as having 21,000 active duty military personnel, though they conscript them for under a year and leave them in the reserves after that, which is relatively common. They spend 2% GDP per capita on the military- a recent increase. I would hardly call that being one of the most militarized societies on earth, however, they tend to be a pretty well organized country, so I wouldn't be surprised if they have the ability call their reserves in a competent fashion.
Still, they just do have a small population. They absolutely should be prepared to defend themselves the best they can, but getting involved in the affairs of the much larger countries is rarely wise. They charted a very successful course of neutrality during the Cold War, when Soviet aggression was still a quite recent memory.
Finland is set up like Switzerland, Israel, Sweden and others, all having the capabilities to quickly mobilize and position in literally hours. Everyone goes into the military for training and then reserves. A long vid but VERY informative as to why Finland and Sweden applied to NATO and the strategies that militaries in the region have in mind. And why the Ukraine war is a complete disaster for Russia in terms of the stated goals. Though getting part of Poland and all of Hungary is on Medvedev's New Year's wish list as stated the other day, neither being defensible on their own.
That video, or at least the transcript, primarily reinforces the idea that Finland put itself in the center of a potential major conflict for no good reason.
Also their described military is nothing unique or impressive, its simply being compared to Western Europe, which as Trump repeatedly said was relying on the US for defense. That is a perfeclty normal military policy for a country that relies on itself for defense.
Also Russia's goal is to pacify Ukraine, and its actually going quite well because Ukraine is a client state relying on the sponsorship of other powers, so PR matters more than what should be normal military concerns, and thus they must keep wasting irreplaceable troops on pointless offensives, whereas Russia can do this essentially indefinitely.
The entire Western leadership class is extremely unwise, and Finland and Sweden will most likely regret abandoming policies that have served them well to folllow them to oblivion.
At best, the Baltics and Finland are offering themselves as battlegrounds between major powers who care nothing for their wellbeing, which is truly insane, given how much they have historically suffered from the exact thing.
But this is what happens when youre ruled by unserious people, which is Finland's main problem, and of course Ukraine's President is literally a TV comedian.
Generalizations based on ideological or class really don't address the situation. Being more objective is needed.
Finland and Sweden have a long history of being neutral and yet quite prepared militarily for their neighborhood. They make their own decisions for their own reasons and I see no reason to think anything has changed. The idea they are ceding control of their destiny by deciding to join NATO is a false argument. They are ultimately realistic in their preparedness for and fear of totalitarian Russia under Putin. The idea Finlandish leaders aren't serious because the young Prime Minister parties rather transparently is very narrow grounds. How else do you party in Finland? It's not like it's the US, France or Germany where it's easy fot the powerful to find private venues.
The idea Russia's goal is to pacify Ukraine by invading it is strange indeed. It woke a tiger - within its limitations. It deliberately provoked Ukraine and tried to destabilize it. After the USSR collapsed Ukraine exchanged its nukes for a nonintervention treaty. The idea there is a split between Ukrainian and Russian speakers has been proven false. The majority of Ukrainians speak Russian and yet the overwhelming majority consider themselves Ukrainians and are fighting the invasion. Many Russian speakers are making the effort to switch to Ukrainian as an act of loyalty though the languages are similar.
It is a democratic Republic and the idea that Zelensky was a comedian has no bearing on his leadership skills (now that's a class sensitive statement) - or maybe it does. A comedian has to be sensitive to the duality of people and the irony and complexity of situations to be successful. Valuable background it seems.
The idea that Ukraine is a 'client' state infers that it is an appendage of the West in some way. It is true that its destiny is tied to advanced weapons it receives but, the creativity and survival skills and the efficiency of the Ukrainian army is purely homegrown. Their artillery can only use 1/10 the strikes of the Russian Army and yet they make it count. And Zelensky is still bold enough to say everywhere that though grateful more help could/should be given. Not exactly a client state behavior. Israel is a client state and yet we can't seem to make them adopt our policies - or maybe it's the other way around. And they basically get what they want.
Neither side can fight indefinitely but at the rate the Ukrainians take out Russian forces and trash their elite formations the Russian army may have less time than the Ukrainians. The corruption and unpreparedness of the Russian army is such that desertion is high, units refuse to fight and commanders are derelict in planning and providing for their men. The bottom ranks know what's going on. It has been said that Russia lost more young men over their borders than they conscripted. That can't continue. Equipment losses are so high that '70s and 80s equipment is being dragged out of fields and warehouses to see what percentage can be renovated enough to run. The equipment given to new conscripts is from nothing to derelict and uniformly old. Body armor with no plates in them and rusty rifles. Lack of winter clothing and communications.
It is true that Ukrainian casualties are high too but in a ground war the Ukrainian army is probably the strongest in Europe at the moment, if it has access to the weapons it needs. The idea of not supporting a functioning democracy against Putin's invasion is unthinkable from a moral POV. It is easily arguable that we are not supporting Ukraine enough given there superior tactics and ingenuity in blunting Russian plans. But I'll leave that to the higher ups. They've done a pretty good job of threading the needle so far. There is no beauty in the process.
As for Medvedev's witty replies to some unimportant organization while attacking Ukraine civilian targets and electrical networks it is obvious that Russia is fighting their clumsy version of total war, only minus major weapons of mass destruction. If they had air superiority, which surprisingly they don't, it would be much worse. Under these circumstances it wouldn't be surprising that Medvedev's 'sarcasm' would be taken for the total cynicism of Russia's leadership, which IS basically Putin himself, Medvedev and some military people. The parliament, such as it is, has seen that even their members are subject to strange fatalities like the run of the mill oligarchs who didn't keep lips sealed.
yeah pretty much none of that is true, it's just nonsensical narratives from Western governments and thinktanks that have been lying the whole time, you've been around far too long to believe such people.
The biggest lie is that the War in Ukraine represents some sort of general aggression or threat to all of Russia's neighbors, when in fact it is only their hostility which is creating that. The war in Ukraine is different for a huge number of reasons, notably that it is unstable, was already in civil war, the part they are fighting over was historically part of Russia proper not an imperial possession, and that it is a vast open plain which any army can easily use to invade Russia. The US policy class spent 30 years openly understanding that Ukraine throwing in with NATO would never be acceptable to Russia, so we can only draw one conclusion from the way they misled Ukraine into this devastating conflict.
As to the US's inability to control their client states- yeah we're ruled by idiots who are completely out of their depth and should learn to mind their own business. The truth is, as much nonsense as people may want to tell you about Belgium, neutral states who mind their own business and maintain stability within their own borders are very rarely harassed or invaded. Even in the case of Belgium their issue was that they didn't properly guard theirselves and represented an easy path for a hostile power, which is in fact similar to way Russia needed to Ukraine to be neutral.
All that clown needed to do was accept a status of armed neutrality, allow basic autonomy for the Russia speaking regions, and accept the reality that Crimea is part of Russia and they are never getting it back. None of that was difficult and he could have prevented his country from going through what it is going through, but instead people just hold onto the moronic lie that Putin is untrustworthy so you can do anything you want and reality doesn't matter. Unfortunately for Zelensky, neo-Nazis said they would lynch him if he made peace, and didn't have the external backing he needed to protect himself- I can't really blame the guy as I am also unwilling to be Gaddafi'd by crazed neo-Nazis.
All of history will show you that minor powers should tend to their own affairs and stay out of the disputes of major powers if at all possible, which in this instance was extremely possible, but instead, Ukraine was gripped by delusion and embraced national destruction (which is relatively historically common.) Thems the breaks I guess.
And by "pacify" I mean in the Roman sense. The West is fighting over territory and Russia is destroying Ukraine's military. Russia can, in fact, do this indefinitely. For the scale of this conflict they have functionally unlimited men, grain, fuel, and steel, which is why Ukraine is flagrantly trying to escalate and make the conflict larger. It's really quite sad that people like yourself and those you believe in are willing to use these actual human beings to bleed an adversary it was perfectly easy to find peace with over hegemony and a bullshit "Rules based international order" that was both due and bound to fail, but those are the breaks, and Ukraine let themselves be led down this primrose path.
Leadership is making the hard, realistic decisions necessary to keep your country safe, but like WWI, it appears that everyone finds it too difficult to not go to war, so we shall all suffer, the Eastern Europeans most of all. To have an incompetent leadership class is a dreadful thing, and ours is so incompetent they are voluntarily ceding their economic dominance to no result while offering up advanced weaponry to be destroyed before being used. It's all quite the scene. Meanwhile, the attrition grind of battles like Bahkmut massively favors the Russians.
Also, "moral POV"? Are you fucking serious? This is geopolitics. Grow up. You know as well as I do that "right" is only a question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
Great piece, and great husband and wife teamwork.
Also-- it's nice to have my humor appreciated. My wife and kids don't know what they're missing out on :D
Lmao 🤣🤣🤣
Alexis hadn't seen you say that and didnt know I was using that title and when she sat down to proof read was like "first off, amazing pun"
I was interested in the idea that the Prime Minister is looking for a solution through militarization, considering that Finland is one of the most highly militarized societies on earth and can field an army of 280,000 in less than 48 hours.
Check out my posts for a YouTube explaining the situation. It's quite revealing. Especially as Sweden is doing the same, and is also highly militarized, for essentially the same reason. Who'd have thunk?
What is the youtube link? The CIA Factbook lists them as having 21,000 active duty military personnel, though they conscript them for under a year and leave them in the reserves after that, which is relatively common. They spend 2% GDP per capita on the military- a recent increase. I would hardly call that being one of the most militarized societies on earth, however, they tend to be a pretty well organized country, so I wouldn't be surprised if they have the ability call their reserves in a competent fashion.
Still, they just do have a small population. They absolutely should be prepared to defend themselves the best they can, but getting involved in the affairs of the much larger countries is rarely wise. They charted a very successful course of neutrality during the Cold War, when Soviet aggression was still a quite recent memory.
https://youtu.be/si9Phc9ArpU
Finland is set up like Switzerland, Israel, Sweden and others, all having the capabilities to quickly mobilize and position in literally hours. Everyone goes into the military for training and then reserves. A long vid but VERY informative as to why Finland and Sweden applied to NATO and the strategies that militaries in the region have in mind. And why the Ukraine war is a complete disaster for Russia in terms of the stated goals. Though getting part of Poland and all of Hungary is on Medvedev's New Year's wish list as stated the other day, neither being defensible on their own.
Medvedev's whole New Years thing was an actual joke mocking Western thinktankers who make preposterous predictions.
That video, or at least the transcript, primarily reinforces the idea that Finland put itself in the center of a potential major conflict for no good reason.
Also their described military is nothing unique or impressive, its simply being compared to Western Europe, which as Trump repeatedly said was relying on the US for defense. That is a perfeclty normal military policy for a country that relies on itself for defense.
Also Russia's goal is to pacify Ukraine, and its actually going quite well because Ukraine is a client state relying on the sponsorship of other powers, so PR matters more than what should be normal military concerns, and thus they must keep wasting irreplaceable troops on pointless offensives, whereas Russia can do this essentially indefinitely.
The entire Western leadership class is extremely unwise, and Finland and Sweden will most likely regret abandoming policies that have served them well to folllow them to oblivion.
At best, the Baltics and Finland are offering themselves as battlegrounds between major powers who care nothing for their wellbeing, which is truly insane, given how much they have historically suffered from the exact thing.
But this is what happens when youre ruled by unserious people, which is Finland's main problem, and of course Ukraine's President is literally a TV comedian.
Generalizations based on ideological or class really don't address the situation. Being more objective is needed.
Finland and Sweden have a long history of being neutral and yet quite prepared militarily for their neighborhood. They make their own decisions for their own reasons and I see no reason to think anything has changed. The idea they are ceding control of their destiny by deciding to join NATO is a false argument. They are ultimately realistic in their preparedness for and fear of totalitarian Russia under Putin. The idea Finlandish leaders aren't serious because the young Prime Minister parties rather transparently is very narrow grounds. How else do you party in Finland? It's not like it's the US, France or Germany where it's easy fot the powerful to find private venues.
The idea Russia's goal is to pacify Ukraine by invading it is strange indeed. It woke a tiger - within its limitations. It deliberately provoked Ukraine and tried to destabilize it. After the USSR collapsed Ukraine exchanged its nukes for a nonintervention treaty. The idea there is a split between Ukrainian and Russian speakers has been proven false. The majority of Ukrainians speak Russian and yet the overwhelming majority consider themselves Ukrainians and are fighting the invasion. Many Russian speakers are making the effort to switch to Ukrainian as an act of loyalty though the languages are similar.
It is a democratic Republic and the idea that Zelensky was a comedian has no bearing on his leadership skills (now that's a class sensitive statement) - or maybe it does. A comedian has to be sensitive to the duality of people and the irony and complexity of situations to be successful. Valuable background it seems.
The idea that Ukraine is a 'client' state infers that it is an appendage of the West in some way. It is true that its destiny is tied to advanced weapons it receives but, the creativity and survival skills and the efficiency of the Ukrainian army is purely homegrown. Their artillery can only use 1/10 the strikes of the Russian Army and yet they make it count. And Zelensky is still bold enough to say everywhere that though grateful more help could/should be given. Not exactly a client state behavior. Israel is a client state and yet we can't seem to make them adopt our policies - or maybe it's the other way around. And they basically get what they want.
Neither side can fight indefinitely but at the rate the Ukrainians take out Russian forces and trash their elite formations the Russian army may have less time than the Ukrainians. The corruption and unpreparedness of the Russian army is such that desertion is high, units refuse to fight and commanders are derelict in planning and providing for their men. The bottom ranks know what's going on. It has been said that Russia lost more young men over their borders than they conscripted. That can't continue. Equipment losses are so high that '70s and 80s equipment is being dragged out of fields and warehouses to see what percentage can be renovated enough to run. The equipment given to new conscripts is from nothing to derelict and uniformly old. Body armor with no plates in them and rusty rifles. Lack of winter clothing and communications.
It is true that Ukrainian casualties are high too but in a ground war the Ukrainian army is probably the strongest in Europe at the moment, if it has access to the weapons it needs. The idea of not supporting a functioning democracy against Putin's invasion is unthinkable from a moral POV. It is easily arguable that we are not supporting Ukraine enough given there superior tactics and ingenuity in blunting Russian plans. But I'll leave that to the higher ups. They've done a pretty good job of threading the needle so far. There is no beauty in the process.
As for Medvedev's witty replies to some unimportant organization while attacking Ukraine civilian targets and electrical networks it is obvious that Russia is fighting their clumsy version of total war, only minus major weapons of mass destruction. If they had air superiority, which surprisingly they don't, it would be much worse. Under these circumstances it wouldn't be surprising that Medvedev's 'sarcasm' would be taken for the total cynicism of Russia's leadership, which IS basically Putin himself, Medvedev and some military people. The parliament, such as it is, has seen that even their members are subject to strange fatalities like the run of the mill oligarchs who didn't keep lips sealed.
yeah pretty much none of that is true, it's just nonsensical narratives from Western governments and thinktanks that have been lying the whole time, you've been around far too long to believe such people.
The biggest lie is that the War in Ukraine represents some sort of general aggression or threat to all of Russia's neighbors, when in fact it is only their hostility which is creating that. The war in Ukraine is different for a huge number of reasons, notably that it is unstable, was already in civil war, the part they are fighting over was historically part of Russia proper not an imperial possession, and that it is a vast open plain which any army can easily use to invade Russia. The US policy class spent 30 years openly understanding that Ukraine throwing in with NATO would never be acceptable to Russia, so we can only draw one conclusion from the way they misled Ukraine into this devastating conflict.
As to the US's inability to control their client states- yeah we're ruled by idiots who are completely out of their depth and should learn to mind their own business. The truth is, as much nonsense as people may want to tell you about Belgium, neutral states who mind their own business and maintain stability within their own borders are very rarely harassed or invaded. Even in the case of Belgium their issue was that they didn't properly guard theirselves and represented an easy path for a hostile power, which is in fact similar to way Russia needed to Ukraine to be neutral.
All that clown needed to do was accept a status of armed neutrality, allow basic autonomy for the Russia speaking regions, and accept the reality that Crimea is part of Russia and they are never getting it back. None of that was difficult and he could have prevented his country from going through what it is going through, but instead people just hold onto the moronic lie that Putin is untrustworthy so you can do anything you want and reality doesn't matter. Unfortunately for Zelensky, neo-Nazis said they would lynch him if he made peace, and didn't have the external backing he needed to protect himself- I can't really blame the guy as I am also unwilling to be Gaddafi'd by crazed neo-Nazis.
All of history will show you that minor powers should tend to their own affairs and stay out of the disputes of major powers if at all possible, which in this instance was extremely possible, but instead, Ukraine was gripped by delusion and embraced national destruction (which is relatively historically common.) Thems the breaks I guess.
And by "pacify" I mean in the Roman sense. The West is fighting over territory and Russia is destroying Ukraine's military. Russia can, in fact, do this indefinitely. For the scale of this conflict they have functionally unlimited men, grain, fuel, and steel, which is why Ukraine is flagrantly trying to escalate and make the conflict larger. It's really quite sad that people like yourself and those you believe in are willing to use these actual human beings to bleed an adversary it was perfectly easy to find peace with over hegemony and a bullshit "Rules based international order" that was both due and bound to fail, but those are the breaks, and Ukraine let themselves be led down this primrose path.
Leadership is making the hard, realistic decisions necessary to keep your country safe, but like WWI, it appears that everyone finds it too difficult to not go to war, so we shall all suffer, the Eastern Europeans most of all. To have an incompetent leadership class is a dreadful thing, and ours is so incompetent they are voluntarily ceding their economic dominance to no result while offering up advanced weaponry to be destroyed before being used. It's all quite the scene. Meanwhile, the attrition grind of battles like Bahkmut massively favors the Russians.
Also, "moral POV"? Are you fucking serious? This is geopolitics. Grow up. You know as well as I do that "right" is only a question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.