Comments from Finland to Nordic Military, our right wing conservative party is very trans-atlantic oriented and is working hard in order to get Finland into Nato even if about 70 % of Finns does not want to join Nato. The party has about 25-27 % support of voters. It is now very aggressive in its politics because it is for long time in government, it is a party with not so much experience and responsibility in security and foreign policy affairs and because USA and Nato started a very active campaign in Sweden and Finland to get the countries into Nato as part of USA's policy to isolate and surround Russia militarily with the help of NATO. Now the conservatives have foreign and defence ministry posts and the ministers are very inexperienced which has caused certain imbalance and uncertainty in our foreign and security policy. The impression that Finland would join Nordic military is not the correct one but is a consequence of our conservative party's and defence minister's intentions to get Finland closer to NATO even through back doors. He proposed that Finland would join the Iceland's air surveillance and defece system avoiding the fact that it would have meant a membership in Nato air defence organisation. The other parties and politicians were awake in the parliament and rejected defence minister's proposals. Our president who is also the commander chief of the Finnish army has also interviened. Now the defence minister is of the opinion that Finland is not interested in participating Iceland's air surveillance system. Still, the Nordic countiries defence ministries are studying ways to get military costs down by finding ways and objects to purchase military equippment together.

Why is strangely enough United States have land bordering Arctic Ocean. After all, Russia sold to the US at the fair price of $7,200,000 in 1867. By the way, at the time, if you you polled most Americans, they would said Russia got the better of the deal.

@ E. Uusikvi, thanks for the insights. To the outsiders this really looks very much like NATO expansion into the countries that are currently outside the military alliance. However, with or without NATO, it is troublesome that Western countries can think only in the terms of military alliances. Is it possible that there are other ways of approaching the fleshing out of the UN Convention on the Laws of the Sea? I am sure, that given some time, all parties would find a good way to implement the law, to everyone's satisfaction. Just because US does not want to ratify the Convention, it does not mean it does not exist. In fact, since the majority of UN members have ratified it, it is the law. It gives countries by far better deal in having a say in their priviledged economic zones, but it limits the presence of military traffic to only one approved by the authorities. While it curtails the rights of some countries' militaries to get into the priviledged economic zone, it also makes sure that the rights are clear about the exploitation. What is this alliance supposed to achieve? Deny Russia its priviledged economic zone, just because US does not like it? The countries of the region would be better served to mind their own business, and secure their interests along with Russia's. And not getting roped into "purchasing military equipment together". O, what a savings. Door to door salesman would do better then that. How about just not buying what you do not need??