alt Hacker NewsDoesn't matter how intelligent or educated or homogenous culturally the Finns are...if Russia were to decide to invade.
Domestic political antifragility means nothing if you're not anti-fragile in terms of the outside world.
It's called the anarchic global system for a reason. The only thing enforcing norms is power and the fear of it.
Antifragility would be the EU finally forming a real union. As someone living in Finland, I'm not holding my breath that happens in our lifetimes. If you take a sample of average, non-cosmopolitan Europeans, they can barely even communicate with each other in the same language. Let alone come to agreements on who's going to pay for each others bloated social welfare expectations.
The EU is the very definition of Fragility. While Finland has made far more rational decisions than its EU neighbors (having correctly prioritized energy security, military, and technology), it doesn't matter because size is more important.
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You are right, but the problem with turning the EU into a real union is that it is very difficult and risky. The creation of new nations and new identities more often than not leads to violence - and they are often formed by war.
Yes, the EU is fragile, but I think trying to fix it that way would be worse.
I think 1) the rich democracies in Europe are unlikely to go to war with each other and 2) have good reason to unite against common threats so I think a military alliance is military alliance makes sense.
Yes, we already have NATO but the US is going to be ever more focused on China, and Russia is not the threat the Soviet union was so a new military alliance focused on Russia and securing the Atlantic (the latter in cooperation with the US) makes a lot of sense. Obviously different countries have different interests (the Atlantic is a lot more important to the UK than it is to most others) but also enough in common.
> made far more rational decisions than its EU neighbors (having correctly prioritized energy security, military, and technology
Because there is one objectively correct way to prioritize /s
Our diversity is not fragility. It makes things harder to arrange but it also keeps them fair. There is no chance of some president/party getting voted into office and making unilateral decisions that screw everybody. Like you know, the US. Or the UK with Brexit. In Europe the diversity keeps that from happening.
It also combats exceptionalism, that "Our nation is the greatest ever!" kinda stuff. Because in Europe we know we're not a nation but an alliance. That we need others to survive.
And remember that Finland didn't even bother joining NATO until Russia invaded Ukraine, if they thought it was so important to be together as a big bloc, this would have been the first step.
Ps: if the other countries in Europe didn't agree with Finland's smart decisions, how do you think these decisions would come to pass if Europe was one big country? Because the people wanting those would be in the minority. You would have very little input to the whole. And no chance to decide them yourself as you currently do.