Seeing Russia invade Ukraine, historically neutral Finland has undergone a late conversion and decided to join NATO immediately.

Why? Because NATO membership means the world’s strongest power, the United States, under Article 5 of NATO, would go to war against Russia, should it cross Finland’s border.

Nervous about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions, Finland wants America legally and morally bound to fight Russia on its behalf, should Putin invade Finland as he invaded Ukraine.

From the Finnish point of view, this is perfectly understandable.

But why would the United States consent to go to war with Russia, the largest nuclear power on earth, for violating Finland’s frontiers?

Finland is not Alaska; it is not Canada; it is 5,000 miles away. And no one ever asserted during the Cold War, or for the decades since, that Finland was a U.S. vital interest.

Why, then, would we consent, in advance, to go to war with Russia over Finland?

President Joe Biden said last week that NATO has an “open door” policy and Finland and Sweden are welcome, and he looks forward to their joining.

Consider what Biden is actually saying and doing here.

He is ceding to Finland, a country of 5.5 million people with an 830-mile border with Putin’s Russia, the right to obligate the United States of America to go to war with Russia, if Russia attacks Finland.

What patriot would commit his own country, in perpetuity, to go to war on behalf of another country not his own?

Why would America surrender to the Finns our freedom of action in deciding whether or not to fight a nuclear-armed Russia?

NATO is not a country club; it is a military alliance Putin regards as an enemy. Every member of that alliance is obliged to treat an attack on any one of its 30 members as an attack on all, and all are obligated to come to the defense of the nation attacked.

By welcoming Finland into NATO, Biden is offering Helsinki the kind of war guarantee Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain gave to Poland in the spring of 1939, which led to Britain’s having to declare war on Sept. 3, 1939, two days after Germany invaded Poland.

How did that work out for Britain and the empire?

In his farewell address, President George Washington warned his countrymen against “permanent alliances.” In conscious echo of our first president, Thomas Jefferson warned against “entangling alliances.”

NATO is a military alliance that has been in existence since 1949. While it began with the U.S., Canada and 10 European nations, it ended the Cold War with 16. We have since added 14 more.

Six of the nations NATO added since the Cold War — Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania — were members of the USSR’s Warsaw Pact. Three of the newest NATO members — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania — are former republics of the Soviet Union.

The last quarter-century of NATO’s encroachment into Russia’s space and onto Russia’s front porch has been a leading cause of the worsening relationship between the world’s two great nuclear powers.

The repeated refusal of Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to rule out NATO membership for Ukraine was a primary cause of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

READ MORE:

https://www.unz.com/pbuchanan/why-would-us-give-a-war-guarantee-to-finland/

READ FROM TOP.

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW...

GusNote: Finland joining NATO has nothing to do with protecting Finland... It has to do with providing a platform for the US/NATO alliance to attack Russia.... See:

BY Vladimir Odintsov

NATO has been struggling to sweep under the carpet the rift between its individual members, especially one of its most noticeable “cracks” in relations with Turkey. US and European media feature a lot of articles disparaging Ankara’s independent policies, a push that has especially picked up steam after Turkey refused to fast-track NATO ascension for Sweden and Finland. At least, until these two Nordic countries publicly backtrack on supporting Kurdish organizations that Turkey has designated as terrorist.

Increased tensions between NATO and Turkey has been especially conspicuous in the Eastern Mediterranean, a region where Turkey and Greece has been locking horns for several decades over a territorial dispute. In 2020, this conflict was compounded by the confrontation between two southern NATO members over oil and gas deposit exploration in the region when the two nation engaged in a naval stand-off after Ankara, Athens and Cyprus all claimed that these areas are their exclusive economic zone. To show that it is adamant in this economic and territorial face-off, Ankara dispatched its seismic survey vessels to the Greek islands and in Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone, a move that triggered Athens’ retaliation, including the deployment of additional forces on the Greek islands adjacent directly to the Turkish territory in September 2020.

As of today, these two Mediterranean nations are at odds over a range of issues, including competing claims to jurisdiction in the Eastern Mediterranean, airspace in this region, division of Cyprus along ethnic lines and the status of islands in the Aegean Sea. Turkey has demanded that Greece demilitarizes its Eastern islands as per the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne and 1947 Paris Treaty. As for the Greek authorities, they have dismissed the demand as a “deliberate misinterpretation” of international legal norms accusing their in-name-only NATO ally in ramping up hostile activities in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Armed confrontation between Greece and Turkey has been gaining momentum ever since as President Joe Biden has showcased US rapprochement with Athens. In doing so, US President tried to crack down on Ankara for not taking into account Washington’s stance and pursuing independent policies, including on forging closer ties with Russia.

Athens has got the message clearly. In an effort to secure US backing within an intensifying conflict with Turkey, on May 12, the Greek Parliament ratified a defense cooperation agreement with the United States that provides for the creation of four new American military facilities in addition to the four US military bases already operating in Greece. Greece’s kowtowing didn’t go unnoticed by the US, which arranged in May a “demonstratively friendly” visit of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to Washington during which the determination to make Greece “a key ally of the US on the southeastern flank of NATO” was touted. At that, Mitsotakis jumped at the opportunity and mounted a diplomatic offensive against Turkey accusing Ankara of “creating issues for the North Atlantic Alliance and major security threats in the Eastern Mediterranean”.

Turkey has been trying to get Washington, an arbiter chosen by NATO members, to address the concerns regarding the escalation in relations with Greece more than once, but no significant shifts on this matter ensued.

Against this backdrop, on 26 May, according to Turkish Hürriyet newspaper, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Turkish Foreign Minister, lashed out at Greece and even launched threats against it over Athens’s refusal to demilitarize the islands in the Aegean Sea. “We have said openly to the US: they have a policy of balance in Cyprus as well as in Turkey and Greece and the Aegean islands. We see a deviation from this balance, we warned the US. While people said that bases in one NATO country are not a threat to another NATO country, this increase has not escaped our attention, of course”, he said. “What are the conditions, that it will not equip these islands? Greece has been militarizing them since 1960. “We are extremely serious, we are not bluffing because these islands are under conditions. “If Greece, which speaks of international law in every speech, does not comply with it, we will go further. Greece’s steps are aimed at posing a threat to Turkey”, the minister argued.

On May 29, tensions in relations with Greece were further fueled by Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan who warned Athens that its animosity towards Ankara cannot be tolerated. “We are friends with those who are friends with us, but they should know well that we do what is necessary with those who see us as enemies,” he said.

French President Emmanuel Macron who has been at odds with Turkey since 2020, has taken a critical stance towards Ankara. According to Greek newspaper Ekathimerini, speaking as he left a European Council meeting in Brussels a few day ago, the French leader did not pull punches when he castigated Turkish officials for questioning Greek sovereignty over many of its islands in the Eastern Mediterranean. As it cited Macron, the outlet highlighted his support “of all Europeans, and especially of France” for Greece as well as his statement that “no one can endanger the sovereignty of some member states today.”

Growing public outcry in Turkey over the US and NATO stance was reflected on 2 June by a Turkish outlet Haber7 that published its readers’ comments. The latter not only lambasted the Greek decision to hand over another four bases located on its territory to the US military, but also, as a reader nicknamed Muammer, pointed out: “The US is trying to ignite a war between Turkey and Greece.”

As for Greece’s response, according to The Greek Herald report on June 2, it announced a plan to triple the extension of the steel wall along the country’s border with Turkey up to 120 km while seeking EU financial support to implement this project.

It seems that the EU along with NATO, at the apparent behest of Washington, defiantly do nothing to mend ties between Greece and Turkey as the conflict between them drifts toward violence. Instead of solving their own issues, these two formations opted to stay under Washington’s thumb supporting its military ambitions in Ukraine and in the Asia-Pacific region that offer the US and European military and industrial circles prospects of additional profits from inciting new armed conflicts.

Vladimir Odintsov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

READ MORE:

READ FROM TOP.

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW////////////////////////////