“In general, there is the sense that a country whose leaders have long had their finger on the pulse of the Kremlin has lost the count. ‘There used to be the sense: we know these people; they know us,’ the Finnish thinker and legal theorist Martti Koskenniemi told me. ‘But you can’t negotiate with a power that no longer knows where its interests lie. And if the power is more powerful than you are – and becomes in a sense crazy – then membership in Nato becomes reasonable.’ …

‘It’s not that we were very insecure yesterday, and will be very secure in Nato tomorrow,’ he says. ‘It’s that this is a negotiation with a country that can no longer negotiate, and so Nato membership helps clarify our position to them.’”

aus: Thomas Meaney: Finland and Sweden may join Nato – but even they can’t guarantee that will make them safer, Guardian Online, 18.5.22, im Internet

05/22