^^I have berated nobody.
I love Canada and have a very favorable opinion of Canadians as a kind, respectful population. It's an amazing country geographically as well. I've spent a ton of time in BC/Alberta/Yukon climbing, skiing, and generally being amazed. In the past, I considered moving to Canmore.
It's a relevant topic. It was posed respectfully.
6th largest GDP in NATO alliance, ranks 25-27th. Canada seems to have the capacity, but perhaps not the will (which I understand, as defense spending kinda sucks). US at 3.38%, only behind Estonia/Poland, who have a LOT to lose.
Those are inequitable numbers.
The dumbest aspect of the Trump fake trade war is that no company is going to make a huge capital investment based on a tariff-free North American trade zone even with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement already in placeQuote:
Originally Posted by LeeLau
There is a minority opinion, albeit not insignificant to say "fuck NATO and the imperliast war machine" (more or less). The NDP does not support funding NATO. I don't think rushing to increase NATO spending would have been politically advantageous for Trudeau. In fact if he did so he might alienate support he has from the left. A previous right-of-centre Liberal PM (Chretien) outright refused to join the US in its middle east venture in Iraq and I think many many Canadians supported that stance. I think many of us like to think of ourselves as a nation with a history of peace keeping.
^^^^I agree with that. But it seems Trudeau is now making it a priority.
Yurp has a crazy Putin on their doorstep. They seem to think NATO is relevant, despite being tied to the United States imperial war machine.
China/Russia aren't exactly up to great things. Taiwan could be gone in a blink as well.
I wish we could all hide and bury our heads in the sand, be peaceful, but human nature hasn't evolved much since we started walking upright.
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That is not a minority opinion. Most NATO militaries are all show and no substance make-work government programs because they long assumed the United States will do all the heavy lifting. We are witnessing a generational realignment where Americans no longer want to pay for policing global trade. Trump is enacting a revolution.</div>
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Peace keeping is a misnomer. Much of the world is currently involved in some kind of armed conflict. More than 20 countries are currently experiencing civil war right now. Russia is at war with Ukraine. There are insurgency conflicts throughout most of Africa. Mexico faces drug and criminal based warfare. Five countries in South America are experiencing armed conflict. Similalry throughout Southeast Asia. Since most of these conflicts do not generate headlines, people underestimate how warlike much of the world is and therefore the challenges countries absent American involvement will face in the future</div>
You know whats worse than placing 25% tariffs on our neighboring countries and starting a trade war?
Bluffing that you are going to place 25% tariffs, and then suffering many of the consequence of a trade war without gaining anything beneficial in return that might have come from a trade war.
We never had a chance to even play it out and see if trumps tariffs would gain the US anything... we just skipped right to suffering the consequences. We started a fight, are eating jabs, and are not even throwing hands back. SMH. Don't start a fight, but if you do, you better fight you fucking pussy.
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Pew Research has interesting data on favorability of NATO: </p>
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https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/07/02/views-of-nato-july-24/</p>
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Canada has the "Our North, Strong and Free" statement about protecting the Arctic from outside influence, yet lacks the military budget to effectively fulfull that objective.</p>
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Military spending sucks, but it's a necessary reality, that even the Canadian government acknowledges. </p>
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...8aae061486.jpgQuote:
Originally Posted by danmelon
The Maritime system and international rules based order that has prevailed for 80 years and raised the world out of poverty and prevented major power conflicts. It was underpinned by ultimate cooperation between players instead of war. The NATO alliance system and the US major ally system, including our extended nuclear umbrellar, are THE primary force behind securing that world peace (and no, it was not the UN, because the UN had jackshit for power and no military).
Military spending is SO MUCH BETTER than fighting wars. Real wars.
Most Americans have no fucking clue because we do NOT study wars in public school history, nor in most college history classes. When we do, we study Vietnam, Iraq, or focus on the bad sides of American interventionalism. Few Americans go to war and people don't have a collective memory or a common shared conversation with modern vets like we did even 30 years ago.
Most people do not understand WW1 at all, or the Franco Prussian War. The WW2 that vast majority of people might know is superficial... if you are lucky people know: "Pearl Harbor started it" and "nukes ended it" and "Nazis are bad and the Holocaust was bad." But most people don't understand the scale of that death, suffering, privation, starvation, and how much work was done to avoid it ever happening again. People think that Vietnam or Iraq were horrible. They were. But people don't understand that you could take every single fucking inter-state war after 1945, put them together, and never hold a candle to what came before.
So when people think military spending for alliances and deterrence are bad, I know they are good hearted but ignorant. But they don't have to be. And we should be nice to Canada. They are our friends and neighbors. And they should spend 2% as should all NATO allies who benefit immensly from the system. Here's an idea: put it all into sealift and naval icebreakers and arctic naval/coastal support since the US sucks at spending on that and it is sorely needed, and it all has a huge peacetime purchase.
It's not an issue that's talked about. Personally I feel Canada ( and most of the EU) were short on security spending. We let the US spend heavily on military and security. That allowed us to build nice comfortable social systems. Basically the US underwrote a good chunk of the Western world's securityQuote:
Originally Posted by Trackhead
^succinct and accurate
And from my perspective, as an American in a country with massive debt, I'd like to see others step up. I get tired of people leaning on us to do mutually agreed upon heavy lifting. It's annoying as hell to see such a massive military budget when there are so many other broken domestic issues that could benefit from that funding. Canada is in the same position. Fix domestic issues first.
But at the same time, I share the frustration/anger/resentment (and embarrassment) with Trump. I told my kid we're going to Fernie in March, and I'm hesitant because of Trump. I don't feel like being ridiculed by Canadians, or worse. Not unlike Muslims feeling unsafe after 9/11. Personal attacks and xenophobia have no place.
Yes, but we were happy to do it because it gave hegemonic control of the western world.Quote:
Originally Posted by summit
I love there is a graphic for everything.
https://ourworldindata.org/cdn-cgi/i...efbaf200/w=850
That's a visual scale of jsut how fucking bad modern warfare CAN be. And why we worked so hard to prevent it.
PreWW2 to now, the share of the worlds population living in extreme poverty (<$2/day equiv) went from 70% down to <10%
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/w...verty-absolute
NATO & US Extended Nuclear Detterence for Major Allies
Maritime system - Trade - Rules based order
Agree. I think the other countries should, and should have been, meeting their obligations, but I don't think that would have lead to the US spending any less.Quote:
Originally Posted by civilcoconut
No, not really.Quote:
Originally Posted by civilcoconut
We already had hegemonic control of the Western hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine was a thing except for a few holdover colonie around the Carribean.
Americans have historically been principled insofar as their international values outside of the Americas coming down against dictators and against expansionism (unelss we are stealing imperial posesssions from an enemy empire, and even then taking the Philippines was a MAJOR controversy for many reasons, but we ended up friends).
The US had historically been isolationist outside of the Americas and was so until Wilson and the Germans pushed us into WW1. And afterwards, after Wilson failed to achieve his primary goals at Versailles, and the rest of the Entente set us up for a century of war, and the German created Soviet Union grew into a beast bent on inducing world wide havoc, the US looked on and said "well, nuts to that shit, we got dragged into their shitshow and we are out!"
We behaved very differently in China than did the European powers. We believed in their self determination and that is why we wouuld not stand for the naked Japanese aggression and brutalization of China leading up to WW2. But war with Japan was all but unavoidable as the miliatrists murdered and silenced the civlian government factions focused on peaceful economic cooperations. And it was invetiable that when we refused to enable that Japanese aggression, they would see attacking us as their way of securing their "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" empire by force.
Nevertheless we were still pretty fucking isolationist in the 20s and 30s and let our military dwindle to nearly nothing except some battleships to defend the coast and trade lanes. FDR did see what was coming and worked on it last minute.
What we were interested in, post WW2, having seen WW1 and that we got off "lightly" having seen WW2 and that we got off "lightly" and then in 1945 looking at the Soviet monster wanting Europe first, then the world, and that the next war the Pacific and Atlantic would not keep the war away from our shores in the age of bombers, we wanted to see a free democractic world where naked expansionist aggression failed and trade succeeded. Europe was our primary trading partner after the Americas and we wanted to protect them. And they couldn't rebuild without our help because the Communists would take over. Europe did not want any of that Soviet kill the Kulaks, Holodomor, reeducation through labor shit. It is a shame we couldn't save Eastern Europe.
So we got a continuation of the North Atlantic Charter that FDR and Churchill put together in 1941: NATO. And we lead a maratime system based on trade and rules based order instead of the old continental system of expansionism and pure domination.
Nonsense. It provided peace and prosperity through trade, less warQuote:
Originally Posted by coconut
It's really sad that a combination of a derranged American revisionist education system interwined with foreign influence operations (that started with the USSR, but now include Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea) have led most Americans to believe this "America was mostly a force for bad" narrative when we were globally the single greatest force of good of the last 100+ years, even if we are most certainly imperfect. Rare anymore is the nuanced perspective. The world is not black and white. We have done horrible and unforgivable things, but far more good and laudable things.
Despite the misbegotten Iraq misadventure the early aughts were probably the most peaceful period in human history in percentage terms of violent deaths, completing the post WWII downward trend. In the 2010s global violent warfare trended up again and is accelerating. If we believe that peace is somehow automatic then we become complacent about what it takes to achieve it
Summit,
Please list the horrible/unforgivable things?
- Slavery is low hanging fruit, something both the US, UK, Canada and Europe participated in.
- Indigenous peoples enslaved each other in both Canada and US.
- Genocide of Native Americans is low hanging fruit, both Canada and US are guilty.
- Iraq war, baseless war on a false premise of WMD.
- Afghanistan war, we were after Bin Laden, Canada also heavily involved.
- Nuking Japan......well, they fucking started it and were horrible genocidal population at the time.
What else, open to discussion. What sets us apart from Canada in horrible and unforgivable things historically?
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Originally Posted by Trackhead
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That is an issue. The the F35s qty 88 and 10 P-12s ?? are on order together from memory 80 billion? So that is something but right now the short fall is like 20 billion a year. So if you look at it what we were supposed to spend 2014 to 2024 on a ramp up that already be a 100 billion short fall</p>
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this is good vid on it , I think Canadians are owning this one. We signed on the line and did pretty much nothing.</p>
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsNQuCyBvUY&t=242s</p>
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We were aware, JT would go to a NATO meeting and smile and reaffirm the comittment and then come back and say nothing. Almost got the impression that if he had been asked the answer would have been " Fuck no we ain't doing shit" You can see that in the body language by JT when asked about it by Trump in vid. Defense spending in Canada is one of those sure we should do it but would rather push it down the road. For us its all foreign spending very little goes any where in Canada unlike in US. Other than shipbuilding there are no bonus points for jobs and even ships alot of the cost are the engines, sensors and weapons so no job there. I worked on the what is the entire navy right now and it was a good program overall but you can't just create one every 25-35 years. Who was involved last time is now old.</p>
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If I was working a deal i'd double the buy of F-35s ( the Finns are buying 68 so we can buy 180) and include we would expand the base at Goose Bay and make it a permanent fighter base. Plus bump up the P-10 buy up by two.</p>
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Buy DDG-52 latest flight qty 5 their about 2 bil a piece , buy them from Maine at BIW that way Canadians can go down the watch the launching it quite a show</p>
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That would give Trump a big win and I think we should eat some humble pie on this one esp JT.</p>
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BUT every time Trump mentions 200billion trade deficit rather than the real number Canada gets a free plane, everytime the words Canada and annex or 51st are used in a sentence or whatever Trump speaks in 2 planes.</p>
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Great video, Doug. All what I've been reading. I'll repost the link in an effort to hopefully have it more viewable without the HTML butchering of TGR forums.
https://youtu.be/gsNQuCyBvUY?si=-z6917ueCeLfdGpp
Trackhead I think you have a pretty good list, though some of the low hanging fruit goes back beyond the WW1 mark, which is the time we truly doubled down on non-isolationism outside of the Monroe Doctric (and Roosevelt corolary), Philippines, and Hawaii.
The influence ops and revionist histories focus on these things. Slavery in particular, yes brought to us by the European empires that then spawned us and Canada... but the way it is discussed has gotten quite strange including the pathetic attempt by the 1619 Project (which was still supported by the NYT of all institutions that should be applying rational thought) to sink the idea of America the Good, destroying the concept of America as a project of liberty, tearing down all old cultural icons of democracy, and saddling all memories and achievemetns with the "yes but you are really just the product and beneficiaries of imperial slavers' spoils and must forever be contrite on the world stage, and unachievable penance shall be your focus" version of Original Sin. The foreign influence ops love it, as do the non-religious bleeding hearts who seek an apparently human evolved need to have an emotional placeholder for religious guilt (I am not religious, for clarity). Self-flagelation until we both believe both that we were never great and can never be great as a nation has become not just a strange academic pasttime, but a core value of the progressive side of our body politic bleeding into mainstream education and the cultural zeigeist. Pushback against that is part of what got us this narcissitic manchild as president... again.
But on your topics of open discussion of what the US did that was bad that Canada did not, I would say the Bannana Wars, while sometimes aimed at getting meddling foreign powers out of the Americs, were also frequently seemed to be for the benefit of corrupt folks.
The internment of Americans with Japanese descent in WW2 goes on my unforgivable and never forget list.
I'll argue that Hawaii was by far the least bad outcome possible for the Hawaians, but the way we did it could have been done much less bad.
I'll argue all day long that the nukes on Japan were a cruel mercy and may have saved the world a much larger nuclear war.
But yes, Canada, being our closest friend and ally, was almost always at our side on the world stage, and on the continental stage of our pasts, so has limited ways to claim moral high ground, and when it can, it was mostly enable by its geopolitical status of having an American shield.
I believe Canada and the US are great nations, forces of good.
Focusing only on failure is a pathway to mediocrity and later subjugation.
Focusing only on greatness is a pathway to future wrongs.
Studying our mistakes along with our successes is the only way to future greatness.
the joke is that a Canadian is just an un-armed American with universal HC
I appologize for my crap spelling grammar and syntax. I normally make a post and then immediately edit it for readability. But now I cannot do that because the editor tries to feed html back and makes it a butchered unreadable mess
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Originally Posted by XXX-er
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Well thats like saying a canadian is a butterface with a nice face. </p>
DougW good post!
I argue that Canada could domestically sell an agenda of increased spending on naval assets like heavy icebreakers. Both the US and Canada have absolutely pathetic icebreaker fleets that are old and in disrepair, and very low in number. I know you were a Navy man and have an understanding of this all.
Here is a joint start of the solution: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/can...kers-1.7260460
To be build in Quebec. More needeed!
And anything that boosts shipbuilding capacity in North America is a Good Thing.
What is the point of spending money on defense if your elected leaders are actively trying to throw away your national identity and culture by turning your nation into a third world country?
https://www.centuryinitiative.ca/
What is there to defend? You are being conquered right now.
The idea that a nation of immigrants loses its "national identity" by allowing more immigration is... interesting. Ditto for the US of course.
I, as a Canadian, agree 100% that Canada should hit its 2% spending commitment.
We said we would and we have not lived up to our word. There is no excuse for it.
To be clear though, the reason that the US is concerned about it has nothing to do with their concern for NATO, world security or their having to pay for our protection. It is simply that a good % of any extra spend would end up in the hands of American contractors. The military industrial complex has found a way to be very quite lately but I have no doubt they are still pulling the strings here.
What good is extra funds spent on military if you have citizens starving and homeless one could ask. Our current military has found very little to do lately. The only folks currently threatening our sovereign borders are supposedly our allies. Any money the US spends on our security is done for their own self interest.
[QUOTE=dan_pdx;
The idea that a nation of immigrants loses its "national identity" by allowing more immigration is... interesting. Ditto for the US of course.[/QUOTE]
In addition, the maw of the capitalist engine requires growth and since our birth rate has tanked, you’d think embracing immigration would be a lot easier than forcing more pregnancies
The birthrate tanked because the quality of life tanked and the cost of living skyrocketed. People from first world countries don't have kids if they don't have secure housing.
Canada could have allowed the cost of living to naturally reset due to slowed population growth, which would have allowed young Canadians to afford housing and start families. This would have increased the quality of life for Canadians following a short term correction in the housing market. Instead, the government did everything in their power to backstop the housing market, including importing millions upon millions of people from the developing world who are used to lower standards of living.
This flood of immigration caused the cost of living to further skyrocket while causing the value of labor to plumett, ever widening the gap between wages and the cost of housing.
No one was looking out for young Canadians. The establishment in Canada was willing to do anything to backstop their property values in the near to mid term, including selling their own children down the river.
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what Hutz sez is the first thing I thot of but we could alway buy guns from someone else</p>
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^^^ sounds like Canada is run just like a typical American ski town. Starter homes at a million bucks and all the rentals filled up with Mexicans.</p>
I'm pretty sure nobody in america can even spel Constitutional Monarchy
Decline in birth rate, in my opinion, has nothing to do with affordable housing. It's been ongoing since the 70s. We are in a generational culture change across the world. People would rather ski, travel, climb, and party than be "tied down by a family". Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I see more and more. It isn't new. I'm 52 and didn't have a kid until age 39, just wanted to ski and climb. Same for all my friends in my peer group. All had kids older, most of us reluctantly. I know more people of my demographic without kids, than with. Kids are a burden, that's the public perception.
Worldwide birth rates are in the tank in developed countries. China and Korea are particularly fucked.
Kevo, are you saying Canada is over-run by immigrants and you see that in a negative light?
Collective security is in both of our interests.Quote:
Originally Posted by LHutz Esq
I made an argument for further revitalizing your icebreaker fleet. Canada doesn't even have a heavy icebreaker! Canada could build these domestically.
You see DougW's suggestion of more Arleigh Burke DDGs and F-35s, which helps keep deterrence in effect and your military focused on training. Canadian destroyers would be welcome to join the US, UK, France, Australia, Japan, and the Phillipines in FONOPs in support of UNCLOS.
China and Japan are your 2 and 4 trading partners. Keeping things cool in the Pacific is very important for the Canadian economy and the peaceful world trade system.
I think the housing issue coupled with immigration is a bit of a red herring. Sure, in the most desirable urban markets like Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto, housing has gone through the roof and out of the reach of young people entering the labour market. But there are oodles of small towns across the country that are bleeding their youth, for many reasons that have nothing to do with the cost of labour (the value of which has lagged behind productivity for decades). Most small communities are resourced based, which required investment by the tenure holders. The profitability of the resources has resulted in those large capitalists players to take their profits shut their doors and move their operations to areas of cheaper factors of productions, whether that be labour or resources. The only large players sticking around are First Nations-based or partnered.
Still lots of relatively cheap housing to get into the market. After 15yrs investment here, I’ll be mortgage free this summer. Several houses down the street similar to mine for sale. But the best jobs have left town and the resources are transported to the distant big cities where labour is cheaper and housing is more expensive. Most of the new people in town are small business folk that are recent immigrants (or second gen), and they are buying/building the gas stations, franchise restaurants, or are in remote tech work.
Edit: and what Trackhead said. Had our Daughter at 40, only one child. Didn’t play so much maybe, but moved around a lot that made settling down with a partner, let alone starting a family, difficult. But it was my choice, and many of my peers in the same boat.