War starts as world parties

Zare said:
Neutral means don't sell at all, sell anyone anything they want, or sell the exact quantity to their enemy also. Therefore, Sweden is completely neutral. And i'm not joking.
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No, that does not necessarily mean being neutral. In Sweden's case, it does, but there are many examples in which a third party supported two warring countries to support its own interest. Call it "three-sided conflict" if you like, but it's certainly not neutral.

Besides, selling mid range S2S missiles and light 4th generation fighters is not what you'd call "most modern weapons".
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I was quoting from memory. I remember having seen Swedish weapons given as examples for modern weapons many times, and every time I took notice because I knew of Sweden's allegedly peaceful and neutral foreign policy. Before you ask me for specific examples, I can't give them to you because I don't give a rat's arse about military technology. I don't even know what an S2S missile is and I don't care either.

And their cooperation with Russia is neutral since they have the same cooperation with USA/NATO.
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With a twist: Sweden is part of the EU. Spare me all official statements, by all realistic definitions that is clearly taking a side.
 
This just in: Russia freezes relations with NATO. I'm not sure what that means exactly, but it doesn't sound like good news.
 
Let's hope that what follows is just a cold war...
 
I can't see Russia feeling they have the balls to take on NATO.  They'd get a few days of superiority in Eastern Europe, but it wouldn't take long for the vast majority of Allied air forces to arrive and nullify the Russians.  this isn't going to evolve into a shooting war.
 
 
Sweden is neutral by law. That may seem like a bit of an oddity, since it is part of the EU. But it only became a member in 1995, when it really seemed that the east-west division was something of the past (the same applies to Austria and Finland).

Austria is also neutral by law. This was the condition for the Allied (especially the Soviet) powers to withdraw from the country in 1955, prevent a division like in Germany and make it fully independent (a similar offer, although rejected, was made by Stalin for Germany).

Finland was in danger of becoming a Soviet satellite state after World War 2, because they had fought alongside the Germans (although they later declared war on Germany to drive the troops out of their country). By 1945, it had already suffered through two disastrous wars against Stalin and gladly took any offer that would not involve their country becoming Communist. So in the end, it remained a western democracy, but with ties to the Soviet Union, or better said, without ties to NATO or Western Europe.

Ireland... well, I guess they just want to stay out of shit.

Norway never saw any reason to tie itself with Europe economically. With their oil reserves, they are one of the richest countries in the world and always felt they could do their own thing.

Hope that clears it up a bit :)
 
I guess they didn't want to stay that neutral. There is a good chance the Soviets would have tried to take over hadn't Norway made a clear statement.
 
Forostar said:
By the way, I never realized that the following countries have no desire to become a NATO member:
-Sweden
-Austria
-Finland
-Ireland

And Norway is a NATO member while it's not EU member(!)
Very logical, all this.
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Actually there is some talk going on in Finland about joining NATO, though it remains a very controversial issue.  If it does happen, there'd be a referendum for it, and at least at the moment it would probably be a solid no.  Generally the leftist parties want nothing to do with NATO and the center-right parties say that we "shouldn't count out any options" (meaning join NATO as soon as possible).  Like Perun said, Austria and Sweden are neutral, and Ireland is just freaking far away from Russia and basically protected (at the very least geographically) by Britain, whereas Finland is stuck on the Russian border and shares only 200 km of border with Russia less than Ukraine (1300 vs 1500).  So this whole Georgia business is making me a bit uneasy, and I personally would want Finland to join NATO.

Also, I'd guess part of the reason Norway joining NATO would have been that it was under the occupation of Nazi Germany in WWII so they naturally felt the need for some additional protection after the war.
 
Well, NATO is a continuation of the Western Allies of World War II, so it only makes sense for Norway to join.  Honestly.  Besides, Norway has oil.  If the Soviets came a rollin through, Norway might just be on their list of beefy targets.
 
I think Invader is right, Norway suffered hugely during World War II when it was occupied by Germany so in order to prevent something of the sort again, it joined NATO. Norway isn't in the EU because of economic reasons (a.k.a. oil).
 
Perun said:
Ireland... well, I guess they just want to stay out of shit.
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We're supposedly neutral as well, however we do obviously lean more to the West, for example letting US planes with troops going to Iraq etc. land in Shannon airport to refuel. There were a good few protests about that a few years back, but it seems the hippies learned to get haircuts, real jobs, and stop smoking weed like stupid children, so the protests stopped. ;)
 
Same in Germany, although Germany never had a choice because there's US bases in the country ;)
 
Perun said:
Same in Germany, although Germany never had a choice because there's US bases in the country ;)
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You could have chosen to not lose WW2 :p

But seriously.  I talk to people at Ramstein all the time, and they have nothing but good to say about Germany.
 
Germany could have chosen not to start WW2. I mean seriously, a country has to be fucking stupid to make war with Britain, France, Russia and the US... at the same time... and lose... twice... in a row...
 
Well, that wasn't the plan exactly in WW2.  Just Hitler was...what's the term...stupid when it came to making strategic choices.
 
I can imagine my conversation with Hitler about his war plans...

"We will attack Poland!"
-"That might be risky."
"Then, we will attack France!"
-"That doesn't sound like a very good idea."
"Then, we will attack England!"
-"That could get us into a lot of trouble."
"Then, we will attack Yugoslavia!"
-"Does the term 'fall of Austria-Hungary' mean anything to you?"
"Then, we will attack Russia!"
-"Now that's just plain stupid."
"Then, we will declare war on America!"
-"No."
"Our allies are: Italy, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Finland."
-"I see a bug in this. Can you find it?"
 
I'd like to see Russia recognize the independence of North Ossetia as well as South Ossetia. That would at least make the whole thing a little less hypocritical. Plus, Ossetia could be one whole country again, I'm sure the Ossetians would like that. But it's never going to happen.
 
No, the Ossetians are cool with being part of Russia for the time being.

But what about Chechnya?
 
Chechnya is a godawful mess and they are too busy fighting for Chechen supremacy to try and rebel.  It's amazingly terrible.
 
Russia recognized S.Ossetia's independancy- WHAT ??
as allways the powerfull thinks he can win them all -and as allways he will regret soon

they didn't learn a thing from Iraq -and still Russia is not what US was then
(and in they way that it moves, will never be)
it's too early for such a displays of power ; early, stupid and dangerus
 
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