Kikapu wrote:Actually, Russia does not need to post any more soldiers to it’s border with newly NATO member Finland than what there is already there now. All Russia will do, is to point 10 nukes towards Finland, which Russia can spare from the few thousand they have. All of a sudden, Finland has become a nuclear target by their own desire since there were never any threat to Finland from Russia to begin with. Now there is, created by the stupid Fins!
A quiet night.
Forgive the flippancy. You're turn.
One of the principle reasons Putin ordered the Russian invasion of Ukraine was of course his well publicised concern at NATO's expansion. I take it that's accepted?
Due to invading Ukraine Russia now finds itself with over 800 more miles of its border directly facing the organisation though. A doubling from pre-Feb 2022. St Petersburgh is now about 450Kms from NATO. Kaliningrad 1000. Not only that, but the Baltic has in essence just become a NATO lake. The law of unintended consequences? Actually I would suggest, more the case of a historic miscalculation. One which makes nonsense of the supposed motivation for going to war against Ukraine in order to prevent their becoming a member of the organisation (which wasn't going to happen anytime soon regardless).
Wrt your above. I'm sure a man like yourself appreciates it isn't simply a case of Russian nuclear forces checking Finland's membership of the organisation. Problem solved. If that were so why invade Ukraine? Nuclear weapons are a last resort. Well, in the absence of GR, the ex-resident forum loon, I imagine all rational people believe so. Russia will now have to deploy conventional forces to counter the "threat" from an ex-neutral, now NATO, Finland. Hard to see where from though. Given they have had to call up 300,000 to deal with Ukraine.
As far as nuclear weapons go. You don't "point" them. Re-targetting nowadays is a relatively quick process. In fact, since the advent of mobile ICBMs in the 90s the US land-based variant can have their targets updated in mid-flight. Submarine ICBM targeting is less easy, for a number of reasons. As a NATO member now Finland comes under the protection of the nuclear umbrella. So....................... Russia better be sure. Would they be willing to trade Helsinki for Moscow?
More importantly, what it means of course is that any idea of overt hostilities against Finland has now become significantly more problematic. Moreover, even the - more likely - intimidating threat of such has also been negated by Article 5.
Anyway, happy (Orthodox) Easter to all you people. Peace on Earth, etc. And let's hope that (perhaps?) this time next year we're arguing - bitterly of course
- about less draconian things. 
