NATO Buildup in Finland Puts Hostile Anti-Russia Army on Putin’s Doorstep

MIKE WHITNEY • JULY 8, 2024 www.unz.com

The Biden administration has settled on a plan to expand the war beyond Ukraine by deploying combat troops and lethal weaponry to 15 military bases in Finland. Whether the deployment will include nuclear-armed ballistic missiles is not yet known, but the threat to Russia’s security is serious all the same. One can imagine what Washington would do if Moscow chose to build 15 fully equipped and operational military bases on the US-Mexico border. The US would swiftly eradicate the threat through force-of-arms. No one doubts this. The question is whether Putin will pursue the same course of action as the US or dillydally until the threat becomes too menacing to ignore. This is from an article at The Defense Post:

The Finnish Parliament on Monday unanimously approved a defense pact with the United States, which will allow enhanced US military presence and storage of defense material in Finland…. Aimed to strengthen Finland’s security and defense capabilities, the agreement comes after the Nordic country joined NATO in April 2023….

Finland’s relations with neighboring Russia, with whom it shares a 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) border, have become increasingly tense after Finland joined the alliance last year.

The deal gives the United States access to 15 military bases in Finland and enables the presence and training of US forces, and prepositioning of defense material in Finnish territory. It also strengthens cooperation between the two countries in crisis situations. Russia says it will respond to Finland giving U.S. access to bases, The Defense Post

Washington’s so-called “enhanced US military presence” in Finland does not serve any national interest or provide any material benefit for the American people. It is a clear provocation designed to intimidate Russia and expand the war beyond Ukraine. Not surprisingly, it replicates the same conditions that triggered the conflict in February 2022, that is, it installs NATO’s military infrastructure in locations that pose an existential threat to Russia’s survival. Russia cannot be expected to live with hostile military bases and missiles on its doorstep any more than an ordinary man can live with a gun pointed to his head. Putin must respond in order to defend his country’s national security. On Wednesday, a spokesman for Russia’s foreign ministry issued the following statement:

“I can only confirm that Russia will not leave unanswered the NATO military build-up on our border, which threatens the security of the Russian Federation,” Deputy Spokesman Andrei Nastasin said.

“We will also take the necessary measures, including of a military-technical nature, to counter aggressive decisions by Finland, as well as its NATO allies,” he added. Russian Foreign Ministry: Moscow will respond to Finland giving US access to bases, ibc.group

Clearly, the Biden administration has no interest in Finland other than using it as a forward-operating base in the West’s war on Russia. In effect, Finland’s leaders have put their country in a position where it could face the same catastrophic destruction as their neighbor Ukraine, if Moscow feels sufficiently threatened by the proposed military build-up. Here’s Putin:

“There were no problems, but now there will be, because we will now create the Leningrad military district there and definitely concentrate military units there,” Putin added in the interview …

“They (the West) took Finland and dragged it into NATO! Why, did we have any disputes with Finland? All disputes, including those of a territorial nature in the middle of the 20th Century, have all been resolved long ago,” Putin said in an interview published on Sunday. CNN

NATO’s expansion into Finland shows how the Alliance’s development has dramatically altered the security environment in Europe. In the 33 years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991), Russia has never launched a war of territorial aggression against any of its neighbors. Compare that to NATO’s record of belligerence in Kosovo, Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan. The facts speak for themselves. Now NATO is continuing its inexorable march eastward despite Russia’s modest security demands or the growing threat of a third world war.

By the way, the US routinely insists that sovereign nations (like Finland) have the right to choose whatever security arrangement they want. But that is clearly not the case. The United States and every nation in NATO have signed treaties (Istanbul in 1999, and Astana in 2010) that stipulate they cannot improve their own security at the expense of others.

The principle underlying these agreements is called “the indivisibility of security”, which means that the security of one state can’t be separated from the security of the others. In practical terms, that means that signatories to these treaties are not free to develop their own military capability to the point where it poses a danger to their neighbors. These terms are especially applicable to Ukraine and Finland which seek to join a military alliance that is openly hostile to Russia. NATO membership has always been a “red line” for Putin who has stated repeatedly that he will not allow NATO bases, combat troops and missile sites to be located on his western border where they’d be less than 10 minutes flight-time to Moscow. Continue Reading……