Need to get more people onboard with end to end encryption and obfuscating every possible piece of data online. As other commenters have stated, the corporations that run the internet are not your friends.
There is a large number of people in the US who are authoritarian and can't help but try to get involved in other people's business to the maximum degree. They won't stop at any boundary, they are religious zealots.
There is a lot of propaganda out there, but a hard and fast truth is that no country, not Russia nor the US nor China nor India nor anyone actually cares at all about normal citizens.
People can care about other people, but countries do not and cannot. Its why Putin's claims of protecting Russians are BS. (US Claims of protecting Ukrainians too, its in the US/Europe interest to do so, its not to protect Tibetans or Afghans for example, so it does not)
I honestly don't get this whole nuke placement argument.
Both Russia and the US have nukes that reach around the entire planet, and vehicles to keep nukes moving and hidden so that second strike capability is always present. Russia can hide its nukes in Siberia if its worried about a first strike to remove MAD. The nukes would work just as well. Its also been bragging about its super cavitating torpedo... although I get the Russian position a bit more if its all been a bluff like what appears to be the case in Ukraine.
Hypersonic missiles aren't going to be a huge game changer here (how much of those heavy elements can you cram into them), interception technologies just aren't there yet, and by the time they really come into full swing the US won't be Russia's real problem (demographics are destiny... this applies to everyone)
In addition, I doubt Finland would allow nukes placed on its territory. NATO is a fully voluntary organization. There is no command structure that supersedes national authority.
Also fyi, no one outside of Russia believes that Russia was wasn't trying to level Kiev. They are happily continuing to level Mariupol, so its not like they had humanitarian thoughts in mind. You don't send a massive column of armor for a quick strike smart bomb operation. It boggles my mind that even Russians can believe that.
There's some weird vibes from Russians online with regards to the West and the US in particular.
Anytime you tell Russians that the US basically just wants out of Europe and to focus on China (Remember the pivot to Asia? This doesn't even paint the US in a good light, just a self interested one), they insist that Russia is the US's greatest enemy and that China is basically just a minor member of the team Russia built to destroy the west.
Standard ** measuring between the US and Russia for one.
If Russia ever drops the corruption and becomes a strong democracy, then it could conceivably go into NATO. It would require the US to be much much more passive and a team player (as an American I view this as a good thing, provided it is by other democracies w/ good human rights)
It would also require Russia to have some reason for doing so, mainly if it couldn't defend against China, or some developed Central Asian or Islamist superpower near it. Its also likely that Russia would ally with these forces instead of NATO, or just play them off each other like India is doing with the US/Russia now.
On the NATO side, it would require additional defense commitments by NATO towards Russia (and in the Pacific, the US). I doubt there would be appetite for it in the EU (and maybe not in the US), unless something went really really bad.
I'm pretty sure Finland and Sweden are basically inseparable in terms of foreign policy... where one goes the other will go, and they'll discuss with each other in depth prior to any decision.
They may still forgo NATO, its absolutely their choice, and every NATO member respects that, being the primary difference between NATO and Russia. They can leave at any time too.
What disturbs me is that there is a lot of appeasement rhetoric floating around in the comment sections.
If people want to let Russia get away with wrecking Ukraine because Russia has nukes, then we may as well drop the bombs now - once you legitimize that strategy you are going to have massive nuclear proliferation, and even if appeasement worked (it simply doesn't), every other aggressor is going to view nukes as an easy win.
Like how invaded Finland, stole a bunch of land, and then interfered with Finland's internal politics so much they came up with the term "Finlandization" for it?
Not a great example dude. Everyone eventually hits the "Poland" moment, where you can't keep appeasing a dictator.
It takes a special kind of dumb to criticize the mistakes of others ferociously then make the exact same mistakes yourself, with the only difference being even greater incompetence.
All of the Russian criticism was plainly self serving anyway. You can clearly tell by this war that they had no qualms with anything the US did in Iraq, excluding maybe their own geopolitical interests in the area.
I'm pretty sure a lot of people think NATO == US Empire and Interests. Its simply not true, and this is a pretty great example of how much disinformation and FUD certain "interests" have created around NATO.
Hawaii isn't even covered under NATO, even if someone attacked the US:
Alternative varieties merely want to steal as many resources as possible, beyond that they don't care about the actions of others.