#Turkiye leader Erdogan signals approval of #Finland joining #NATO ... still hesitant on #Sweden's application
After the fall of the USSR, I was in favor of abolishing NATO. Frankly, I was too idealistic. I imagined Europe becoming a sort of demilitarized zone but without conflicting armies on each side of said zone. But clearly, I was wrong.
People grumble about additional countries joining, and I say that those countries must have felt the danger growing. They could have steered a course that did not put them in union with either the "Western nations" nor the "former Soviet bloc" ... but instead, many sought to join the European Union ... an imperfect democracy, but still more democratic than what they saw on their Eastern borders. And even the EU, a non-military nation of nations, wasn't always enough.
So when #Poland and #Slovakia, both former Eastern Bloc / CENTO members, joined NATO, I don't see it as them being under the sway of Washington and Brussels, but them seeing something menacing to the East of them and wanting to join with a force large enough to meet and exceed that menace's force.
That's also why #Ukraine (which *twice* forced out governments because their leaders wanted to remain in #Russia's orbit) also applied to join both the #European_Union and #NATO ... despite NATO's clear intention never to admit them to its membership. So when Finland and Sweden finally decided that the threat of invasion was greater than their longstanding neutral stances could overcome, they too applied to join NATO.
Not because they want to lengthen the war, but because they clearly see that war is coming their way whether they want it or not, and that they need to prepare for it. And I think this is something anti-war folks need to understand. You're too late to stop the war. The war is here and Mr Putin and his cronies intend to expand it until people in Berlin and Paris have to either fight or beg for mercy. He's already trying to find excuses to engulf #Moldova in the fighting.
Whether Russia's leaders are motivated by empire or paranoia, they're looking to expand the war to other nations, not to end it. And thus, any negotiated settlement that doesn't flow from kicking their forces entirely out of Ukraine will be a temporary pause while they rebuild their forces and try to integrate what they've learned from the current war.
Tatu Ylönen - Linux using inventor of SSH (or openSHH) changed the IT-world.
Mr. Ylönen solved the password sniffing trouble of internet to start with.
Tatu Ylönen (Lic.Sc.) is another Finnish inventor, next to the likes of Jarkko Oikarinen (IRC), Linus Torvalds (Linux), Matti Makkonen (SMS), Monty Widenius (MariaDB, MySQL), etc.
For todays #FollowFriday I'm going to do something a bit different. We have a lot of new users, one of the biggest surges we have seen in a while. As such a lot of new users are looking for high quality, long-standing, accounts to follow. Similarly many of the new users need some help getting attention and making new friends.
As such I am going to do this #FF in a few parts. One for old users I have mentioned in previous posts, as well as some of the new users who have been making quality posts and been active for at least a week now. Hopefully this will be more helpful.
Also a section for some bots might be useful.
I will use a persons profile description here as I dont want to misrepresent anyone.
:awesome_slide_r: New Mentions :awesome_slide_l:
@design_RG - Books, Bicycles & Cats, Life is Good. Books, #hardcover. Bikes, #Classic sport ones. Cats, any colour or size. #Aquarius with Virgo rising. House of Ravenclaw.
@Karthikdeva - Always a Student, Nano-Technologist, Bookworm?, and basically I don't know anything, so I might be asking some agonizing questions.
@_lunawinters - Just a human , living on a rock called Earth, floating in a giant space.
@Full_marx - I am a मस्त डॉन on Mastadon. I wish to build something that can be of good use to as many people as possible. Social Sciences: Propaganda Science, Social Engineering, Behavioural Science, Advertising STEM: Human-Computer Interaction Design, Web Dev, Cyber Security Noob. Multimedia: Motion Graphics, Video Production, Electronic Music Production, Abstract Film, Writing Politics: Left, Right and Center. Whichever ideology leaves the people with the most amount of Dignity, sign me up for that one.
@raining_night - I love women, food, thriller/sci-fi/slasher movies and series, astro physics, superbikes, nature and animals ❤️ not in any specific order Trying out Veganism.
@ppmanik - Believe in free speech and data privacy. Interested in physics and science in general and future of Semiconductors and related devices in particular.
@chris - Developer focusing on #WordPress, #Privacy and the #OpenWeb. Also a speaker, teacher, blogger, and pilot doing my best to make the world a better place.
@SecondJon - I'm interested in being just not civil, but excellent in interacting with others of different viewpoints in an online world where we can so viciously defend our echo chambers and be so dismissive of other perspectives. I rarely log onto the bird site of FB anymore because the interactions are unproductive about anything meaningful. I'm a #Dad, #Husband, #Christian, #Anglican, Unaffiliated #conservatarian, Software #Developer, #Coloradan, Reader of paper #books, Card and BoardGamer, #tea drinker, solving problems for co-workers and partners primarily with and integrating with the #Salesforce/SFDC platform.
@metapsyche - I am a cloud of vapor. Fragmenting into ever smaller pieces to explore ever widening spaces. Web Developer by day, Pattern Hunter at night. Thinker and Tinkerer on weekends. :)
@imvectech - RESEARCH ° COOPERATE ° MONITOR ° ADAPT. Developing and teaching to implement DITO techniques for human survival between knowledge and fate.
@david - Value people over code. I manage tech.lgbt. WordPress Maintenance fixupfox.com. On the Internet, everyone knows I'm a dog. Follows are open both ways for me if you're nice and cool!