Your response was truly amazing. You accuse me of side tracking and digressing YET you go off on a tangent that completely avoids addressing the financial question of what this new burden is going to cost us. Your quote: “But to answer your point about whether Finland joining NATO will cost us “a dime”: Are you completely without strategic or tactical insight?”
So you’re saying you’re answering my point about cost but then go on to talk about everything but cost.
Notwithstanding the PM’s avoidance of the issue, this sudden “overnight” change in the priority of most Finns will definitely have a cost. And you can be 100% certain that Uncle Sam will be getting a portion of the bill.
In September 1939 there were five German divisions between the French border and Berlin. Belgium and the Netherlands could between them mobilize 30 divisions. Imagine if Belgium and the Netherlands had offered to join France and Britain in an alliance against Germany. Would the French has said that defending the Dutch-Belgian border (which, if mobilized they were perfectly capable of defending) would draw too many troops away from the Maginot Line? Would the British have said that attempting to stop the Germans in the Netherlands and Belgium would weaken the defense of the vital Dunkirk beachhead? Because that’s what Starboard would have said.