Comment by nl
6 hours ago
Countries have always had arms supplied from countries not involved in the conflict.
It's a significant step to escalate to attacking those countries.
> Russia views it as NATOs proxy war against them now
It is an interesting argument to choose to invade a country, act with faux outrage when they find allies willing to supply them with arms and then call it a proxy war.
Russia got themselves into this mess. They have an easy way to get out of it.
> Countries have always had arms supplied from countries not involved in the conflict.
My country, Norway, had a long-standing policy of not selling weapons to countries at war - yes even to the attacked party - because of the common understanding that would be tantamount to joining the war, and make us the target of reprisals. This prohibition also was a good shield against accusations of war profiteering or proxy warfare.
That policy which had been standing for 60+ years, was dropped for Ukraine.
Even if you are the most pacifist leader imaginable, at some point you have to draw a line with policies like that if you dont want to fold and hand over control to expansionist neighbors.
I figure a majority in Norway would have been willing to support Finland with more than just arms deliveries had they been the victim (would you agree with that?), so sending some cash + weapons to Ukraine seems consistent policy to me.
The point was not that you should never support a country that was attacked. The point was that you should be 100% above the table if you did that. If you weren't willing to fight yourself (and take the expected consequences, such as reprisals and sabotage), then you shouldn't sell weapons either.
And I'm sure statesmen like the Stoltenbergs would have defended this policy very eloquently, better than me, back when it was official policy...
And sure, it was broadly popular to get rid of this policy for Ukraine's benefit. It wasn't a hard sell to the public majority. Saying "let's take a step back and think principled about this" was the hard sell, as usual.
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That’s simply not true and a gross misreprestation of the policy, which is still in place.
And it not dropped to cater to Ukraine, as it specifically has a carve-out for legal defensive war, which the Russian war of aggression towards Ukraine is.
Check snl.no/våpeneksport_fra_Norge, which is more reliable than Wikipedia on this.
It gives a list of the changes (or "clarifications") to the policy over the years. To the degree there ever was a carve-out for legal defensive war, it was certainly added after Ukraine.
Actually there were two phases: in 2022 they defend giving weapons to Ukraine in that it was a donation, not a commercial endeavor (that suggests to me that they implicitly admitted, commercial sales would have been against the policy). Then in 2024, they allowed direct commercial sales as well. Of course their defense lawyers will say the policy is still in place, but "realism" again: you can't blame Russia for not being convinced by that.
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This is well beyond arms supplies, NATO is running their entire ISR and targeting show and quite vocal about it. Plantar, Starlink on drones etc. and that’s ignoring financing and production. If anything, the Russian response has been quite flaccid.
Yes, there is no doubt that NATO countries (except maybe the US/Trump some days) wants Ukraine to win. They train troops, help with intelligence etc.
There is no argument that they are neutral.
But there's a big distance between being an adviser and being at war.
North Korea is supplying actual troops to Russia, and that doesn't mean Ukraine is at war with North Korea. Belarus and Iran have both supplied arms to Russia and Ukraine isn't at war with either.
Palintir and Starlink are both private companies, not NATO.
> But there's a big distance between being an adviser and being at war.
> Palintir and Starlink are both private companies, not NATO.
Is it so hard to see why Russia doesn't see things that way?
"Realism" is a much abused word in international relations, but for once I think the "realists" have a point: That Russia is dismissing these distinctions is entirely unsurprising, and other big powers don't have a leg to stand on complaining about it.
> Yes, there is no doubt that NATO countries (except maybe the US/Trump some days) wants Ukraine to win. They train troops, help with intelligence etc.
There is actually much doubt about that. It rather seems they are content with Ukraine not loosing and draining Russia in the progress with little care what happens to Ukrain except that they keep up the fight.
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