A little spin on the Finland and Sweden's NATO membership
Let's use rubber pokers when prodding the Russian bear
I wrote about the escalatory nature of the surprise Finnish, Swedish leadership’s desire to join NATO and US’s encouragement of this. To summarize, I basically felt this would escalate the current Ukraine crisis towards a more dangerous regional confrontation and metastasizes into WWIII.
Today I read an article which at first seem to be de-escalatory in nature. The part that is germane to this note is the following comment from Putin:
"Russia has no problem with those states. So there is no direct threat from expansion (of NATO) to those countries. But deploying military infrastructure will provoke a response [...] based on the threats they create for us"
The Finnish president made the observation, after his call to Putin, of how calmly Putin responded to his announcement of his intent for Finland, to his surprise. To me, its not the calmness of Putin that is surprising. He is probably aware that if push comes to shove, regardless of what was the motivating factors, Finland and Sweden are unlikely to be on the side of Russia. He has probably thought through the pressure, these less than sovereign countries, must be under to pay homage to their imperial masters. He is aware, they would not even allow a referendum, for the voice of their own people to be heard, so he knows, his voice is not going to be heard. Unlike the US political landscape where politicians are in general herd creatures that love to show their pseudo-sincerity by theatrical outbursts of emotions, the Russian president’s statements tends to contain much less, rending of garments, for the cameras.
So, it is my read that the Russian response is just a statement of fact. The lack of emotion is not unusual or a surprise, it is what I would expect from a mature statesman in most situations, and, specially in the case of Putin. The statement is clear, let me paraphrase, you are not a threat, go join whatever club you wish, we know you have always been partial to their games, just don’t create a situation to threaten Russia; otherwise, we will end your games. This seems clear enough to me.
The surprise, that was felt by the Finnish president, is a little more telling. I think there was genuine surprise on his part. His betters probably informed him this is a provocation, they probably rewarded him for his part in this or threatened him if he does not participate or more likely both. This knowledge of being a part of a provocative gesture, being met with calm resolve, must really surprise if not unsettle this pawn.
At first, I thought this was some form of de-escalation and maybe seen as a weakness on the side of Russia. After, thinking about it, there was no show of weakness, rather a demonstration of understanding. I think this gesture of acceptance might even provoke the mad empire and in turn cause escalation. The assurance that they will not put bases and nukes there is probably as good as NATO’s promise to not expand towards Russia in the past. The sad thing is you cannot count on the crazy man in the room to behave rationally. The results may not be good for the rest of us, if my musing turns out to be true.