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| They are not NATO. Why Ukraine is not Finland and never will be |
| 2023-04-07 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by David Norman [RIA] This week was marked by another expansion of NATO - Finland joined the North Atlantic Alliance . Critics of Russian foreign policy often refer to the fact that the NVO, one of whose goals was to protect against the expansion of a hostile bloc, was unable to achieve this. And in general: "they didn't want NATO near Kursk - they got it near Petersburg." At first glance, this thesis has a rational grain. However, not all so simple. Well, let's decide what is the fallacy of this approach. In other words, why Ukraine is not Finland, and Finland is not Ukraine. Let's go back a few centuries and remember what was the subject of aspirations of Russian sovereigns for a long time? Access to the South Seas. Of course, the vast coast of the Arctic Ocean , to which Russia has long had access, gave its advantages, but the south has always attracted with its year-round navigation, trade routes and opportunities to influence neighbors. With the collapse of the USSR, Russia faced the threat of losing all these benefits: Sevastopol as the base of the Black Sea Fleet is many times more convenient than Novorossiysk . But they risked losing him forever. In this regard, the rush to extend the Kharkov agreements, which gave Russia the right to use the city as a base for its ships, is very indicative. We managed to agree on this seven years before their expiration - in 2010, when Yanukovych was still in power. Obviously, after the coup on the Maidan, the anti-Russian forces in Kiev would have insisted on revising the agreements. Having lost its base in Sevastopol, Russia would have been thrown back a century and a half, to the difficult peace of Paris, which put an end to the Crimean War, one of the most tragic pages in Russian history. But let's leave aside the gloomy historical analogies. There is a much more telling example of the importance of Crimea for Russia: the operation in Syria. The fact is that the supply of Russian troops in the country was carried out by sea - without Sevastopol, the operation would have been virtually impossible. In this case, the situation in Syria would develop according to the Libyan scenario: even if the West managed to somehow cope with ISIS, the country would still remain a hotbed of instability in the region for a long time. What is fraught with such a scenario for Russia? The threat of radical Islamism. What does the threat of radical Islamism mean for Russia? Growth of separatist sentiments in the Caucasus . What does the growth of separatist sentiments in the Caucasus entail? Explosions in Moscow . So, quite simply, a domino called "Maidan," falling, entails threats that are much more serious than it might seem at first glance. But the operation in Syria not only protected Russia from the scenario described above. She ensured our return to the Middle East. And without him, there would be no neutrality of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region under the conditions of a special operation. How long would the Russian economy last in this case is an open question. Of course, Finland's accession to NATO is a painful response for Russia, but the significance of these two areas is incomparable. The accession of Ukraine to the alliance entailed consequences that were much more severe. Moreover, the entry of Helsinki into this anti-Russian bloc has become more of a formality than some kind of serious change. Or did someone optimistically believe that the country, humiliated for five decades, would remain neutral after the collapse of the USSR? "Finlandization" even became a general term for countries that formally retained independence, although their foreign policy was de facto subordinate to the overlord. It was in this form that Finland existed for half a century after the Second World War. So those critics who link the entry of the Finns into NATO with a special operation are mistaken. This scenario became virtually inevitable immediately after the collapse of the USSR. And the West could refuse to implement it only if Russia continued, as in the 1990s, was ready to give up sovereignty. Fortunately for all of us, the current Russian authorities do not. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #1 They in the near future may be, however, both radioactive. |
| Posted by: Anomalous Sources 2023-04-07 19:25 |