I won’t even touch the 1994
Its a lot more direct and relevant than a coerced pledge after WWII (which wasn't violated anyway, again Finnish territory isn't being used for aggression against Russia).
NATO was not supposed to expand all the way east to Russian borders. There was no treaty to that effect (the only thing that would have been binding going forward), there was no unratified treaty or other written agreement to that effect, there was no executive agreement to that effect, there was no open promise to that effect, there may or may not have been a secret promise to that effect, the claim is disputed.
Countries want to join NATO so much because of the threat from Russia, and not just a general theoretical threat of having a powerful and not so friendly country nearby but the action of Russia (and the Russian dominated USSR before that) to grab pieces of territory of its neighbors either annexing them or creating breakaway mostly unrecognized mini-states. Russia didn't want Finland (and probably if slightly less likely Sweden) in NATO? It shouldn't have invaded Ukraine and that NATO expansion wouldn't be likely to happen. Didn't want Ukraine? Before Russia's 2014 attacks you didn't have a Ukrainian majority that wanted to join NATO. And after there was no real movement towards NATO membership, so it just could have done nothing and Ukraine probably would still have not been in NATO.
Going back to the subject of the conversation - Finland - how exactly are they planning to become members of NATO in good standing without joining Russias most likely potential adversaries? Russia gets to control that. If they don't attack any NATO country then Finland won't be at war with them. Neither Finland, nor any other country has any support from the current government or leading opposition parties, or a majority of the population to attack Russia. This after Russia's aggression in Ukraine, it was even further from such a situation before. Most of Europe just wanted buy Russian energy and gradually let their militaries shrink. The US had pulled most of its forces out of Europe decades before and was shifting to focus more on China. Even in the cold war NATO had no plans of aggression to the east, by the 2020s Russia's reasonable cause for worry was much less (and was mostly from nuclear weapons at sea or in the US which Ukraine, Finland etc. have little to nothing to do with).
NATO membership basically is a way to insure against Russian bullying and attacks. They like to bully their neighbors so they don't like countries near them in NATO. |
