Finnish President Sauli Niinisto on Monday said that Finland has no plans to host nuclear weapons if it joins NATO, although other Finnish officials have said they won’t rule out the idea.
Niinisto said that nuclear weapons are important for NATO’s deterrence but said there are “no signs” that a country will offer to deploy them to Finland. Currently, there are no nuclear weapons deployed in countries that joined NATO after the Cold War.
But the policy could always change, and Polish President Andrzej Duda said that he had discussions with the US about hosting nuclear weapons. The US, France, and Britain are NATO’s only nuclear-armed states, and US nuclear weapons are also deployed in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Turkey, and Italy.
While Niinisto said that Finland has no plans to host nukes, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin and her Swedish counterpart, Ulf Kristersson, both said last week that they wouldn’t set preconditions for joining NATO when asked about nuclear weapons.
When asked if Finland would allow nuclear weapons, Marin said she didn’t want to “close any doors,” and Kristersson said the two Nordic nations will “act jointly” on the issue. Both Sweden and Finland are still awaiting approval from Turkey and Hungary to join the alliance.
Complete madness far beyond MAD. This was predictable after the US unilaterally pulled out of both the ABM and short range nuclear missile treaties. Why is the world bent on destroying the trade is better than war 70 years of peace between major powers and avoidance of nuclear confrontation. Why is the deterrence of MAD, mad as that was and is, now considered pointless?
NATO has not stationed nukes in any of the new NATO members that joined it since 1991 – the very sound reason being that it does not improve on NATO security. Ballistic missiles are quite enough to deter the Russians from striking first.
NATO has not up to now focused on developing hypersonic missiles for the same reason – i.e. that these weapons make war by accident more likely – as they give Moscow less time to determine if an attack is on the way.
So though the US has a terrible record on sticking to treaties it has not actually developed weapons (before now) which would increase the chance of nuclear war by accident, nor stationed weapons in locations that would do the same.
In Europe we tried to engage with Russia through trade – that did not work – so now we have moved away from that, trade would be better, but when the profit from trade is used by Putin to annex territories and gain increasing strangle hold on the energy flow to the west – it makes us less safe not more.
But we stationed abms in those countries—which I would argue is worse—giving the farcical reason that they were to protect Europe from Iran.
How was that worse – they are not nukes and as such not a much of a threat to the Russians.
There are missiles which easily can be turned into first strike nuclear weapons.
Germany and Russia were trading already for decades but Anglo-Saxons stopped that, or what do you think the explosion of the pipelines is all about? Why do the Americans impose sanctions on Europeans if they work with Russia or Iran before Ukraine?
The German economic power was the real reason for the first WW, the second was the same, now this is the third time the Anglo-Saxon will break the back of the German economy, and including the EU.
The ABM deployed are typically systems like the Patriot – it has a range of tops 160 Km and a payload/warhead of 90 Kg – that is not going to be a significant nuke – so the first assertion is just uninformed.
As for the second, yes Germany had increased its dependence on trade with Russia, but they had by September invested heavily in ending this trade – building up their regassification and Putin had ended the gas deliveries – through the EU agreements trade with Russia was set to basically end by 2023 – and there was and is little chance of it being restarted while Russia is governed by autocrats like Putin – so there was no need for the pipeline to be blown.
Finally no the sanctions will not break the German economy they will break the Russian one – the German economy is not preconditioned on cheap Russian gas – while it is nice it is not impossible to do without.
Just get one thing straight, the USA has become Europe’s enemy. The USA treats its allies like enemies, they killed the gas pipelines, the US sees Germany as an economic competitor, as they see China and Russia, so therefore they must get annihilated, it will be the third time to attempt to eliminate Germany. The USA can not be trusted, it is nothing but a lawless hegemon. Sanctions makes enemies out of allies. Can’t you see that? Biden and his neocons should understand that by now, but they act like they graduated from Kindergarten. How else can one explain the stupidity of a senile Biden/Blinken/Austin to provoke China, Russia, destroy NATO and provoke NK? Forget your political spinning, call the child by its name. The US has become Europe’s enemy and is using Zelensky style NATO puppet copies to annihilate Europe. Look at the quality of shyster government officials in the NATO alliance. They are traitors, throwing their nations under the bus, it takes extremely corrupt people to do that.
Very few in Germany sees this as the truth even fewer would see the US advantage in blowing up a pipeline that was not in use and not going to be in use.
More like EU, but sure we in EU also see the US as a competitor we see all nations as competitors – that is how market economies work.
No China and Russia are viewed as entirely different economic actors, Russia is practically a non entity and China is a difficult and dangerous threat to the world economy because they do not act as a market economy.
We do not trust other countries as such we make treaties with them which when broken prescribes the penalties involved – if you knew about economics you would know that EU and the US has been in trade conflicts repeatedly – your choice of words seem to suggest a very childish view on international relations – we do not have friends or trust each other to any large extend. Just as we do not have enemies (not before we are at war anyway) – we do not trust the US but we in EU would have ended our trade with Putin even if the US had not.
They have not between the US and EU – and we have had several rounds of trade sanctions. So no not only can’t I see that, but it is factually untrue. Sanctions are one of the last step before before entering into conflict – they thus serve the purpose of showing that we are willing to end trade on some levels with a nation if they do not change behavior – this has worked between US and EU on several occasions to change behavior.
I’m afraid that you are the one in Kindergarten – as stated EU would without US encouragement have gone down the sanctions path – we do not see allowing wars of territorial conquest as compatible with our goals in any way whatsoever.
Well one could try to understand the consequences of not applying sanctions? Have you ever even tried to imagine what it would do?
I’m not spinning anything at all here just telling you the facts as they unfold – the Russian attack on Ukraine made defense spending grow very fast in Germany and a lot of other European countries and that decision was taken before there was any pressure from the US – you seem to be living in a bubble where wars do not have the effect that can be observed IRL.
The public sentiment suggests that they are very much doing what the public wants – when a German politician from ‘die Linke’ tried to suggest something similar to what you say here at one of their party rallies – she was shouted at by an angry crowd of their voters!
Obviously Germany is still an occupied nation, they can’t even get their energy from the best supplier. The USA is about as unreliable as it gets, bad for business.
The USA is not Germany’s friend.
China and Russia and Germany have been reliable business partners with equal interests.
Germany was and is free to get their energy from whom ever they wanted as Trump found out – for the rest of us this unfortunately was one of few cases where Trump was right. It is still not the US that dictates where Germany buys its energy – as in Germany is still buying e.g. gas from Russia.
So the US has nothing to do with this – the Germans do not feel that the Russians have ‘equal’ interests with Germany nor that their interests are aligned – Germany decided prodded by the green party to end their dependence on Russian gas over a fairly short timeframe this was cut short by Putin when he decided to end the deliveries.
Germany has already bought regassification facilities to cover a very large shar of their gas needs and would have been ready to replace the Russian gas altogether by 2023 – Putin pushed this plan forward.
You have really no idea, all you know is what MSM tells you.
Why on earth do you think you know where I get my information from – regarding the EU sanctions and the German decisions on defense spending and sourcing of energy I get my information from the places where those decisions are taken – regarding public sentiment I get my info from several polling sites and peoples own reporting form the political meetings.
Much of this was backed up in e.g. elections or referenda. I do not subscribe to any news papers nor do I watch TV so unless you have a very alternative definition of the MSM then you are (now I guess as usual) wrong.
Is that you Mr. Bolton, or is it Mr. Abrams?
Is that you Mr. Lavrov?
Too bad we don’t have a Lavrov, he is a statesman, compare thugs like Blinken and Pompeo, Nuland, Sullivan and others. Biden could not even appoint a competent press secretary.
Don’t want to be sissy, … authentic testosterone is the full suicide vest.
Come on, strap it in the form of underwear. More symbolic.
Yes, MIRV’d ICBM’s, the cosmic phallus, besting God.
President George W. Bush pulled out of the ABM Treaty. President Donald J. Trump pulled out of the INF Treaty. For good measure, President Trump pulled out of the JCPOA.
I have yet to hear a reasonable, coherent political explanation why they destroyed their neutrality. What do they fear and what is it they expect? How do they convince their voters that it is a justifiable policy. What do they expect to gain? What has Biden and his neocons and the nation gained so far? What has any NATO member to gain? Only the war profiteers can gain, all others will be losers.
She doesn’t have a choice.
“Finland’s President Says No Plans to Host NATO Nuclear Weapons Finnish
officials have said they won’t rule out hosting nukes, but the
president says there are ‘no signs’ that NATO will want to deploy them”
Silly politician from Finland. Once you give up your national sovereignty to NATO al bets are off. NATO may even put nukes on aircraft in your country on a temporary basis as they refuel.
Well said CT, well said.
The forked tongue speaks. What self-serving toxic weaseling. “They’ll never make me actually DO anything I don’t think is RIGHT.”
No Nukes?… Sounds like a song, from the eighties…
I think that the PM is just saying that the plans have not been worked on yet
I would have thought, by now, NUKES would be deployed in Space?…
“whatever happened to my Space Force?”
……. Orange Lightyear
the money went to Ukraine.
i think that biden’s “build back better” money is what has really been sent to ukraine
/s true.
They probably have been.
They are working on it, a bit short on $$$$ can’t even fund the space station.
Classic.
To nuke or not to nuke, that is the question…? Flexibility is key…
I wonder who pays how much to these politicians. They could only have American nuclear weapons on their soil over which they would have no control. They would have nothing to say about the use of them. Russian nuclear weapons could destroy them in minutes. They are selling their country, are they put in office with American money? They are ready to sell their nation, how else would they even consider that? Don’t they get what a demented American president like Biden could do to their nation?
Americans control NATO, they will use NATO for their own interests, they are ready to destroy Europe eliminating and economic competition. If they can’t compete, they will destroy the competitor.
All these NATO governments act as if they are the results of CIA accomplished regime changes. Europeans used to have real statesmen, lots of money must have changed hands to get such corrupt governments. There is Orban and Erdogan and maybe Meloni might make a difference. It remains to be seen.
Scholz and people like Annalena and Habeck and the rest are disaster, they sold out, they are treasonous.