Again, you suggest the arbitrary percentage of attack. And again, I go back to asking you: what is the Russia's strategic interest in such an attack? Why would it want to effectively surrender all its NATO borders and its extremely difficult Chinese borders to engage all of its military in a single northern campaign against a neutral state that has shown remarkable resilience to that kind of attack in the past. And even if such a campaign were to be successful, what is the benefit to Russia and why would it outweigh all the problems caused by this attack?

As in, how did you derive that 10% number?

1. Again, no we do not. The reason you need that huge budget is because you need to project intercontinental conventional force. I recall math being done on your nuclear carriers alone - you need six-seven of them to keep one stationed in a region permanently. That is why you have as many as you do.

Europe's needs are the security of Mediterranean and Eastern borders, plus maintenance of Arctic. That means minimal force projection. In addition to this specific states need minor intercontinental force projection. that is French and their African client states, Brits and Falklands/Malvinas, but as we have seen recently with French, they have no significant problems with their current spending. UK is currently more questionable, though the deterrent they achieved in previous war added with financial problems of Argentinian state suggest that Falklands are safe for now.

2. They would be happy to spend money to defend entire Europe however, if that was indeed a pan European defence. Our current defence minister who comes from that party has openly stated that he favours alliance with Sweden (which they are currently working on by the way) and previously stated that it would be a very good idea to have a pan-European defence initiative.

Since in Italy this initiative would be used to turn illegal immigrants away, that would sit very well with the party. They love those kinds of things, as do their constituents.

On your last point, may I remind you that Europe has been successful in almost all its containment of Polish extremism so far? We successfully defused their attempts to destroy EU's secularity, we effectively forced their right wing anti EU party (which currently holds presidency again) to conform to European standards and even establish significant trade relations with Russia in spite of a lot of their teeth grinding and the fact that their former president still routinely accuses Russia of killing his brother. This in spite of us knowing from the cockpit recordings that it was his brother's drunk defence minister that forced pilots to try to land aircraft when airport told him in no uncertain terms that it wasn't equipped for landing in that kind of bad weather.

The problem is that US is very skilled in using both its image as "protector" as well as manipulating what is effectively it's client states in EU, that being Poland, Baltics and UK to push EU in desired direction. That is why they are afraid of UK exit so much - without it, their influence within EU would be cut at its knees, as Poles and Balts alone are far to weak to be able to influence EU in the way they need it to.

P.S. I'm not saying they "created" the crisis. I'm saying they took the current situation, and acted to make it to suit their needs. Just like they did with 9/11. It's pretty irrelevant if the crisis is natural or created in that sense - what matters is how you use it.
In a few years, that kind of uprising would no longer be supportable in the same way because of geopolitical balance shift from competition between EU and Russia to cooperation between EU and Russia. That would mean that the last second deal would not have been breached as it was, and we wouldn't be in a mess like we are in now because president representing people the of Eastern Ukraine would not have been overthrown and have Western Ukrainian leadership installed in his place. Instead we'd have had peaceful transition as was the deal and maybe some sort of actually good deal for Ukraine instead of current status quo where it has no future.

You seem to be unable to answer this question: Why would "Putin" invade Finland (in more rational minds, it's usually countries, not leaders that invade)? What is the strategic reason for this action? Because right now, it's literally the dumbest move Russia could make in terms of offensive actions - all other borders are far more dangerous to defend and most are far easier to attack.

Yet you keep insisting he would. Why? Countries don't invade without strategic reasons. Even US military policy, as nuts as it seems at times always follows strategic interests.

On your points:
1. The reason why US needs the current budget is because it's a worldwide hegemon. As such, it needs little defensive force and massive ability to project force far away from its borders. That is why its military costs trump the rest of the world combined - force projection is massively more expensive than national defence and projection capability within immediate vicinity of one's borders. No other country in the world is in the same situation, as they have to actually have at least some, and in case of Europe most of their strategic worries focused on territorial defence and force projection in immediate vicinity.
2. I never claimed Europeans see themselves as one nation, because we certainly do not. Implying that someone suggests that implies assumption of severe ignorance of reality on that person's part. I do not believe I said anything to merit this kind of assumption so far. I merely pointed out that it would be a natural extension of current integration drive in EU to also synchronise defence. NATO tries to just that, and it usually half way fails simply because it's way of doing things is too much about dictation. It would be much more acceptable to population and national leadership if it wasn't a US-lead organisation that didn't have a single defensive campaign in its history and mainly focuses on ensuring that US conquests across the world have European military and logistics support. But instead a pan-European organisation designed specifically to secure Europe's borders would be far more acceptable to population and politicians, as they would have far greater control over organisation's strategic goals. Considering the current immigrant crisis in Mediterranean, we could really use such a force that could just deploy heavier hardware on porous outside borders of Greece, and start blockading Libya at sea. Border organisations are simply not designed for that sort of action.

On your last point, you are probably correct, but you're really missing the reason why this is so. Europe actually came dangerously close to being able to politically disconnect from US's foreign policy umbilical cord a few years ago. We've seen many individual states openly refuse to participate in US attacks on other countries and even freezing of TTIP negotiations after Snowden's revelations that EU negotiation position was completely exposed to US negotiator through spying. This was something unheard of a couple of decades ago, and almost impossible to imagine in current climate of FUD.

It's likely one of the main reasons why Ukrainian poison pill was activated when it was activated to put a political wedge between EU and Russia. It needed to be done before the enough of the fears between the two were put to rest and cooperation between the two became extensive enough to make activating said poison pill unworkable. And in current climate, it is indeed impossible for NATO EU states to disconnect from US foreign policy, no matter how brutal it becomes. At least for foreseeable future.

"Moral responsibility" in a war is an oxymoron.

Case to point: current drone assassination program which kills and maims women and children en masse..

That is actually correct. Land mines kill and maim a lot of civilians to this date in many states, including for example Vietnam, where most mines were airdropped from US bombers.

How many commanders, bomber crews, or really any US military have you heard of being held responsible for this?

This isn't limited to US either by any stretch of imagination. Russians did the same thing in Afghanistan (as did US) for example. Not much responsibility there either.

Mines killing and maiming people are a huge problem across the world. Look it up.

An interesting but understandable angle. I would however point out the counterpoint as to why this would actually be overwhelmingly positive for us.

We have been among the few nations calling for European, rather than Atlantic defence forces. Essentially none of the "project force in far away lands to help with US foreign policy" and full focus on securing Europe itself. Due to heavy presence of NATO in Europe, the only support so far came from Sweden. The rest are too invested in NATO at the moment.

If Germany was to actually start distancing itself from NATO, that would mean a significant increase in the argument of pan European defence force to replace it as security guarantor in Europe. As a result, this would be an overwhelmingly positive change from our perspective in medium and long term.

Short term would likely be negative due to potential for creation of security vacuum as you mention. That and the fact that regardless of everything else, the umbrella of "Western world" is very important in the world where Asian "know who over rule of law" style culture is rising through both China and Russia. After the Snowden's revelations, already having driven a significant wedge between the two, Europe had to be given Ukrainian poison pill to push it back to US. If split were to become even more significant, US would have to compensate even harder to reel Europe back in, because it needs Europe to maintain its world wide hegemony, which is already in decline.

And hegemons in decline are very dangerous. Especially in modern world with modern weaponry. So sudden movements from Germans to distance themselves from NATO and US would indeed cause some very dangerous ripples through world security.

What does Putin have to do with this?

This is Markin, the well known token ultra nationalist retard who works as a spokesman rather than investigator. He's a bit like Rush Limbaugh in US, only with a whole lot less audience. Pens private op-eds every once in a while. He was mentioned a couple of times during a prime time show we had here in Finland about relations, basically dismissed by everyone as someone who likes attention and only gets it by publishing private over the top op-eds.

Thing is, those guys apparently have it worse than most soldiers. In modern warfare, most soldiers rarely if ever see the immediate consequences of them firing on the enemy. You shoot at targets far away, and you rarely get to see the consequences until much later. Specialist roles like artillery, support crews, bomber pilots and so on don't really ever get to see it. They just perform actions they're trained to perform without ever seeing the consequences directly. This allows mind to abstract "death" from "my performing actions" to a great degree, protecting the mind from empathic reaction toward the enemy.

The only ones that really get to see most of the actual death as a result of their actions in modern warfare are snipers, medics and now drone pilots.

Here's a hint for you: IS operates in territory where they enjoy wide popular support. That means drones kill a lot of women and children in addition to "enemy combatants" which is a classification used to anyone killed who happens to have a pair of balls that already dropped. Especially children since due to high mortality and no social security, people are effectively forced to produce a lot of children to be able to survive their senior years in those regions.

And with drones having to stick around to see what happened, you get to see those shredded or burning children. Often while they're still alive and burning or bleeding to death. Something rational human mind that isn't completely psychopathic generally finds very hard to do because of emotion known as empathy, even when it happens to other men. Children are even worse. Either people crack and do become psychopaths devoid of empathy, or they get extremely stressed as their mind attempts to comprehend, justify and generally just try to process that they have killed a lot of people, often in an extremely gruesome way such as burning them alive or blowing them to pieces. All while they have to watch and document exactly what happens after the strike.

Essentially the only way to act like you suggest is to be a psychopath. Considering your arguments, it's quite likely you are one.

Drones can largely fly themselves. Automation is there. The reason why they need operators is decision making. I.e. unless you pre-program a full mission, which is very difficult you are better off with the organic brain capable of directing the machine through it. And making a call on who to follow with the camera or who to shoot at is something machines aren't going to really be able to for a while at least - as it would require comprehending the criteria why we as people choose to track and kill those other people.

Drone designers are most definitely working on the issue however, which is why there is a very significant discussion going on about who is responsible if a fully automated drone that can make decisions due to extremely complex algorithms allowing it to does make decisions that are incorrect.

Read and comprehend the post and relevant explanations. Your question has already been answered.

You seem to think we are a part of NATO, or that we are relying on NATO to defend us.

This argument is straight up idiotic. We are neutral, overwhelmingly anti-NATO in stance, and we maintain a huge reserve and universal conscription for all men, with army branches that specialize in both frontal warfare and guerrilla warfare. We specifically geared the entire military for fight against something like Soviet or NATO assault where we would get little to no outside help. Country is awash in weapons, most of which are buried in cashes.

We even have huge anti-nuclear bunkers designed specifically to withstand NATO tactical nukes in all major cities because NATO basically informed our leaders back in 1970s that in event of USSR attack, they would drop tactical nukes on our main cities to deny Soviets infrastructure and every large building is mandated to come with bomb shelter. They're used as storage facilities, saunas and so on during peace time. Hard to get all touchy feely about "nice NATO that wants to defend you" when you visit that huge tactical nuclear bomb shelter when you want to take a swim or get some skating time in the summer.

In case you want to make a suggestion that these are against Russian nukes, I would simply remind you that their second largest city is well within fallout range and their main cause for both wars with us so far has been security of that very city.

As a result, your suggestion that NATO base locations in Eastern Europe create security, rather than insecurity for us is quite absurd. To us, NATO approaching Russian borders is a huge cause for concern because it forces Russia to militarise its Western borders and Gulf of Finland, which destabilizes the region.

As for "stretch goals", may I remind you of degree of Russian military success in Finland before this day, and the fact that they have huge problems essentially on all borders except those in Middle Asia and on our border. Are you really here suggesting that they would want to destabilize their most stable borders and would be willing to invest massive amount of military force needed to actually do something meaningful to us instead of addressing the actually problematic parts of their borders?

Because if you genuinely believe them to be that stupid, why are you worried about them at all? They will lose everywhere shortly if they're that stupid, simply through investing their forces in all the wrong places and getting overrun elsewhere and will get cut to small, manageable pieces as per doctrine of certain think tanks back in the 1990s.

Except that you'd get taken to EHCR, and likely lose. This ruling was extremely narrow in scope and court went to great pains to emphasize this. Attempting to jury-rig it to fit broad scope censorship would fail for a number of reasons, many of which are listed in my post.

Indeed, this is straight up shock scaremongering. Original article itself in fact goes to state:

T J McIntyre, who is a lecturer in law and Chairman of Digital Rights Ireland, the lead organisation that won an important victory against EU data retention in the Court of Justice of the European Union last year, explained where things now stand. "Today's decision doesn't have any direct legal effect. It simply finds that Estonia's laws on site liability aren't incompatible with the ECHR. It doesn't directly require any change in national or EU law. Indirectly, however, it may be influential in further development of the law in a way which undermines freedom of expression. As a decision of the Grand Chamber of the ECHR it will be given weight by other courts and by legislative bodies."

Basis for decision:
The Grand Chamber emphasised a number of factors that led it to rule that Delfi was liable: the "extreme" nature of the comments which the court considered to amount to hate speech, the fact that they were published on a professionally-run and commercial news website, the insufficient measures taken by Delfi to weed out the comments in question and the low likelihood of a prosecution of the users who posted the comments, and the moderate sanction imposed on Delfi.

Basically the problem was the fact that the company was informed that comments were easily distinguished as illegal and refused to remove them. This does not mean a change to national legislation, or pre moderation or anything of the sorts. It simply means that if comments are easily distinguished as illegal, you can't just ignore the law and let them stay up. Court also notes that punishment is moderate and serves as a warning to follow the law hopefully without stifling free speech.

Overall, it looks like they did all they could on court's side to not make a decision against national hate speech laws without giving ammunition for broader call for censorship.

Considering the recent treatment Polish gastarbeiters got, or the fact that we have long standing conflict with them that had to be sorted out on governmental level about their waste issues in Gulf of Finland, I'm extremely confused where you got that idea.

Finland has a long standing history of neutrality, similar to Switzerland. We have no fight with Russians, and Russians are desperate enough to get us on their good side that they are willing to sell us cheap technology just to keep us neutral. Last news is that Rosatom is making an extremely good offer on third Loviisa reactor if we don't get any closer to joining NATO. We also recently opened new electric interconnects which allow us to sell surplus electricity to Russia. We have zero gas-related problems with Russia as we don't have any third party causing problems in between us, and we had no security issues on our border either. It's literally the calmest and most secure border they have, and they very much appreciate it.

As a point to make, when they recently opened a base to secure Murmansk and Arctic Ocean near our borders, region on the other side of the border invited personnel of the new base and their families to visit. That is how afraid of Russian military folks that have to live right next to Russian bases are here in Finland. Good business, calm border.

Suggesting that we are somehow pro-NATO in this conflict beyond the mandatory participation in EU sanctions is absurd. If anything, the current Polish line is considered damaging to regional security here in Finland - something our foreign minister of outgoing government made no qualms about voicing every once in a while. Not beneficial and certainly nothing to be supportive of.

As for the rest, I don't think you quite understand the problem. On one hand, you don't want to put your mission critical bases into politically unstable states. Poland still has serious stability issues, as we have seen with their conservative religious right wingers suddenly getting electable again on the platform of fear of Europe.
On the other hand there are issues of infrastructure. Poland is far less developed than Germany is. And moving bases is expensive, but getting new infrastructure that can support them installed is far more expensive. That is why current plans are to move to Northern Italy, rather than Poland according to leaks.

I'm not talking about current security situation in Eastern Europe, and as a Finn, I find your attempt to pretend we're allied with hysterical extremely right wing Poland distasteful at best. Pretty much the only ones we can see ourselves allied with and are in actual talks with on the topic is Sweden. We're not in NATO, not feeling threatened by Russia and mostly worried about the fact that worsening security situation is going to squeeze our finances even further.

Germany on the other hand houses the single most important part of US assets in Europe. They are home to intelligence nerve centres of most military and spying activities. Those are directly related to current spying situation. Then there's the recent scandal with satellite controls of US killer drones in Middle East, and in fact there has been an active discussion in Germany that it should act to investigate, as many activities revealed are either illegal or clearly attempting to circumvent German legislation. Attempt was strong enough for US to start making plans for alternative facilities in Italy. But building secure high end connections, radomes and so on in sufficient numbers takes a lot of time. So right now, they apparently managed to put a lid on the discussion through arguing that US breaking laws in Germany is not as important as Germany's relationship with US.

Which may be partially correct in the current security situation, but most certainly does remind Germans that ones acting most aggressively against their state come from the other side of Atlantic, nor from the East.

And that stuff is cumulating right now. Even Ukrainian poison pill given to Europe is starting to not be poisonous enough to make public overlook all the problems coming from other side of Atlantic. And that is not good for cohesion among the states that go under the umbrella of "Western states".

Which at the time of real issue, that of the fact that US is diminishing as world hegemon is very dangerous for all parties involved.