“Aussies have a knack for blunt talk mixed with humour”
Oh yes. As part of my duties I was once assigned to hosting a visiting high-ranking Australian officer. On Day One I escorted him around our facility, showing off the various departments. On the morning of Day Two he smilingly greeted me with, “So, more corporate bullshit today or can you tell me how this place really runs?”
Exactly this And no offense to Matt but it's been obvious for 40 plus years. Everything but that happens people scream for the Yanks to do something. Doing something has consequences. So then they scream the Yanks are horrible. Then it's repeated. So Americans protecting shipping lanes and knocking off a few pirates? Human rights violations! Take those carrier groups home and watch the carnage on the high seas? Those effing Americans are letting this happen! Yeah.
Canada is screwed because of a reward things. Long term shirking. Pretense we are nice. (We are lazy in that we prefer to not take responsibility). We are far too socialist at the ballot box and respond to personal incentives. We do not hold drifters to account. We don't have a rules based national order FFS. We allow courts to make rules that benefit the criminals We have the major press who are tepid about covering stories that might stir up tension which only allows tension and conspiracy to foment. We have Quebec. We a system that allows parties to reward their friends with impunity. And we elect people with no direct skills because we've been ingrained to dislike competency.
And we have zero desire to face any of those problems head on.
Great column as always. Really interesting. Canada is the spoiled, only child of a rich family that just found out they’re not included in the will. Like Matt, I don’t see Canada, (or its leaders) making the hard decisions that need to be made. I hope I’m proven wrong….
"Pax Americana" is the term I recall. As Peter Zeihan says, it was always transactional. USA patrols the oceans ensuring profitable trade for everyone, while her allies stand united against the Soviets.
Post 1991, there was a brief peace dividend, until 9/11 prompted USA to throw the rules out the window and go on a rampage. So the rest of the world now rolls their eyes when they hear "rules based order".
Today USA exports oil instead of relying on OPEC countries. Hypersonic missiles and drones are disrupting old tactics and emboldening second-tier powers. Our supply chains are fragile and vulnerable. It's a new game.
We used to be an ally bringing serious assets to the table in guarding USA from attack on it's Northern flank. If that's no longer relevant, what do we offer in exchange for favorable trade, easy border crossing, and support on the world stage?
Peter Zeihan popped into my head as well when reading this article. And as far as global hegemony goes, I cannot think of any other country besides the USA that I would want in that role. People who believe USA is simply an evil bully probably live in the USA, and they have never had to fight for the freedoms they enjoy.
I am always amazed and shocked by the graves of veterans that almost fill small town cemeteries in the mid west.... I think these people know very well.
We offer Justin Trudeau, his "intelect", the Lieberals - NDP and their ethics, the Laurentian corruptocrat unelites, the Discrimination - Ignorance - Exclusion, entrenched wokeism, the CBC a.k.a Radio Moskva, almost destroyed industrial base strangled in red tape created by fanatical eco-activists, crushing national debt. A fucking Potemkin village, that is what we offer.
Great stuff. Hard hitting on the political realities as you say we’ve always known but in recent years have taken entirely for granted. It has always been so. When the US sneezes, Canada catches cold.
Doug Fords response to the tarrif threat actually echoed my feelings perfectly. And it was a stupid thing to say but his comms people thought everyone would like his folksy candor and they were right. You know ….family member stabbed me in the heart. It was such a bloody awful surprise. Who knows what comes next?
But wake up people. We look weaker now than I have ever known. Although I suspect the enhanced cooperation and investment at the border with drones and helicopters will be very useful in sending refugees back to the U.S. and slowing down illegal gun running into Canada. All this is needed so it’s an opportunity to get our act together.
We need hundreds of billions invested in our military to have any standing or respect amongst our NATO allies who we need more than ever.
And we have the absurd and embarrassing spectacle of a government bribing some of us with our own money. Now.
Time for Canada to get a serious adult government that actually has the intellectual capacity to care about the future of Canada and not just their electoral pluralities.
My father was a spitfire pilot in WW2. He was 4th generation Irish- his family came here pre- famine but they had no love for the British Empire or the stuffy exclusion of the Toronto WASP community. He believed in manifest destiny - the eventual swallowing of Canada by the US. Growing up in an era of boundless optimism- of Expo67 and massive economic growth - his thinking seemed totally out of sync with reality. As a political science student I really couldn’t grasp where he was coming from. Canada seemed to have it all.
But I do wonder. Canada really needs to grow up. And fast.
That's always been my take -- that America created a new kind of 'collaborative empire' based on a combination of free trade (meaning, access to the US market), security under the US defence umbrella, and secure movement of goods across the oceans and lands of this empire.
Countries had to opt in -- but the alternatives were to become part of the USSR or try to go alone. Some did the latter successfully (Sweden, Switzerland), but most of us benefited from some kind of access to the largest, richest market in the world *and* the security of the largest, strongest military in the world. The US, in turn, could place military outposts around the world; tap into new markets for it's multnational companies; tap into low-cost labour around the world; and established the US dollar as a defacto currency of trade, which has benefits to the US in terms of borrowing.
After the fall of the USSR, it was pretty clear that the US didn't really need this collaborative empire for defense. But, it's multinationals loved access to fast-growing global market, so the shift turned to the economic part of the pact. That benefited the world economy, some of us (like Canada) who traded with the US, and the owner class in the us (stockholders, owners, managerial class) at the expense of large swaths of the US labour market.
So -- here we are: the great renegotiation. The US is legitmately asking the rest of this collaborative empire: "what's in this for us?" Regular people want good-paying jobs and some level of economic security that's slowly been bled away from them since the middle 1970s. The government doesn't want to keep spending to defend places where it doesn't really have a sustained strategic purpose. Being the anchor of the "rules-based order" has always requires some degree of give and take for the US (even if it tended to benefit as often as not) but it's understandably looking at the rest of us and wondering why it continues to pay the freight.
There's lots of good reasons for Canada and the US to continue to have a productive relationship -- moreso than some farther flung areas (Germany, as one example). But, the the US is going to expect more out of the relationship with Canada than it feels like it's getting. That means Canada is going to have to be more vocal about what it actually does provide; it's going to have to take US concerns a lot more seriously; and it needs to get a bunch more strategic about what *we* want with our relationship with the US -- and what we're willing to trade off to get it.
This also potentially opens up a bunch of new potential partners -- other middle-sized countries that have been part of the Western alliance that are also going to have to redefine themselves. Are there opportunities there? If so -- what do we want out of our relationships with similar sized powers (the UK, France, Japan, etc?). A smart strategic approach might give us a bunch of new, different relationships that could be benefitial to Canada -- but we need to get a lot smarter about what we want, what we're willing to give up, and what we realistically can expect. We ain't there yet.
Perfectly correct. The US finished WWII with a 4000 ship navy, most of the worlds gold, most of the former British Empires overseas bases and the only intact economy and all its enemies in utter ruins - except the USSR who were now the threat. To counter that threat they created the world order with the UN, World Bank, IMF. They created NATO and rebuilt Europe as a bulwark against the USSR. They policed the worlds oceans so nobody else had to. It wasn’t for free - we all had to sign on granting the US final say in all security matters. The Cold War containment policy was the result. It worked marvellously.
It came apart with 911 and the two disastrous wars that followed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The emperor was revealed to have no clothes. The limits of military power were apparent. Not only that, the US had allowed the rest of the world to catch up militarily - particularly China. The Houthis can close the Suez Canal! Let that sink in - its a feat formerly reserved only for major military powers. The US is now forced to operate on a two-way rifle range which is disconcerting to say the least and cause for great caution.
Interestingly, China’s rise is largely thanks to the US Navy which has effectively patrolled the worlds oceans since the end of WWII so that China didn’t have to. China can’t duplicate that. It has neither the Naval Bases nor the Blue Water Navy necessary. They’ve peaked demographically, financially and economically and their time is about done.
The US can no longer do what it has done. Time for a pivot and Trump realizes this. The Democrats are running on outdated thinking - just like almost everyone else.
Excellent work and great point. This leads me to see Trump’s slogan from a different perspective as well. MAGA is nice and pithy. What Trump really means is that he is going to Make other nations remember that America is still Great > Again. And yes, a key new rule to partition in the USA’s economic arrangements is that it will not be free.
Yes this is how I've viewed it. It's also a movement to remind a large proportion of its citizens that they live in a great nation. Just see Trump's thanksgiving tweet for an example of this.
Mark Steyn, love him or loathe him, for decades has been bluntly stating Shearer's point about the rules-based international order, noting any 'order' we enjoy quite obviously stems from the assurance that the 'benign hegemon' (US) keeps the FODE (forces of darkness and evil) at bay.
I'm with you on Aussie sensibilities - they can be blunt, to the point of being assholes, if you believe their Kiwi neighbours - but they are generally on point with realistic assessments. Their recognition of CCP influence and their attempts to stem it should be instructional for Canada.
Love the ST reference about PMJT and his cabinet beaming from ice to tropics - brilliant!
Hi Matt, thank you for bringing this to our attention. And thank you also for being persuaded by Andrew Shearer's views. However, there is a part of me-a big part of me-that says, why would such an astute pundit who I have followed avidly for many years, not have known this, or observed this before?
And you are not alone-it is a comment on your generation of journalists. The very best and brightest of you have not come to the table with a worldview that understands good and bad actors, the uses of power, and the naivete of believing that fairness, progressive ideals, and kumbaya really doesn't mean much when push comes to shove and the world has to face the actions of those bad actors. Because those guys couldn’t care less about the other stuff. They do what they think is in the very best interests of their nations, rightly or wrongly, and they will do whatever that can get away with to promote them. From time to time the US has governments which also forget about this. The Obama era, which just ended with Trump's second win, was one of those governments. No one in the world knows the truth of American might better than Putin, and Xi, and the mullahs, and even Kim.
So when feckless leaders like Obama and Biden forget the power they wield, or just want to pander to concepts like globalism and a rules based order, bad actors pounce. You don't have to be Amarillo Slim to know that when trans people like "Rachel" Levine and woke bleeding heart generals like Milley are appointed to senior positions of power in the US, you are feasting on a patsy. It is so simple; it is so human nature; it is so common sense. Your generation doesn't know this because you have faced no adversity, no threat, that would creep into your DNA. And you ignore people who have.
As a child of holocaust survivors who were also refugees from Communist Hungary I learned, at their knee and on their skin, what those bad actors are capable of. I also know that the US saved the world in WW2, and contained and then destroyed Communism, despite the thankfully feeble voices of the pacifists of WW2 and the gaslighting of the post-Viet Nam War generation of revisionists and neo-Marxists exemplified by Bernie Sanders, Saul Alinsky, Herbert Marcuse, and Obama.
But here is the thing: You are realizing this at a time when the US has in fact moved light years past that dominance, built on the advantages they had until around 1992. That is when the drive to innovate, the abundance of capital, and the pursuit of excellence, which is foundational to US culture and society, came together to create the greatest transformation of the world since the Industrial revolution-and one which will far outstrip its impact.
The fact is, Europe is dead. It has been dying for decades, under the weight of its empty head and soft heart. Indeed, the GDPs of the EU and the US were near equal around the time of the financial crisis. Since that time the US has grown to exceed it by 80% or more.
Asia simply doesn't have the intellectual freedom or the capital to play meaningfully in the technology game. I defy you to find an item in your everyday life that stems from Asian IP.
And now the US owns the AI space.
This, more than the last, will be America's century. I suggest you read Peter Zeihan to understand the why, and the scale. The very best that Canada-and Mexico-can do is take advantage of our proximity, and the fact that we have things the US will need, like resources (Canada) and labour (Mexico), and be along for the ride. The rest of the world will continue to wither due to its own delusions, in the case of Europe, and its totalitarianism, in the case of the "CRINKs".
Meanwhile, Trump and Musk will aim for the stars. Like it or not, the early days post-Nov 5 offer the possibility of a visionary leadership for the US that it has not had since JFK, and to a lesser extent Reagan. The bullet dodged by Trump also missed us. We should recognize that, and embrace it. And so should our journalist class, or events will simply propel its trajectory to irrelevance.
I appreciate this long and thoughtful comment. But I am moved to note at the outset that I think you’re being uncharitable in your interpretation of what I’ve written above. Nothing in this column is a surprise to me. I made the explicit point of noting that Shearer isn’t telling me anything I didn’t know. And haven’t tried to warn people about. He’s just telling it to me in a particularly elegant way I intend to steal and use from now on, starting with this very piece.
ClearThinker, I agree with most of your great comment, but strongly disagree with your take on Gurney as a journalist. I have been reading him long enough to know that he understands and has no illusions about good and bad actors, the uses of power, and the failings of naivete.
And I don’t disagree, it is precisely because of my appreciation for his work that I felt the need to comment. If I misapprehended his understanding of the issue my bad, but I do believe, if so, he stands alone among his cohort, most of whom appear to have been born yesterday, and as such have been active contributors in the creation of a morally adrift west.
We talk and talk about getting more kit for the CAF. But very little heat and light is put on the need for warm bodies to operate those new doodads. Is some sort of national service in my grand kids future?
I don't know if the two are really mutually exclusive. We *have* been living in a rules-based order since WWII. It's just that those rules were mostly decided by and backed by the States.
I also don't think that world leaders imagined these rules existed independent of US power. What they underestimated was how quickly the willingness of the US to play nice would change.
Because yes, now things are changing. There are still rules though; only the game has changed. And it's true that we haven't been able to pivot as quickly as we need to. The Liberal paradigm is basically opposite what we are seeing now around the world. It's almost entirely addressing the highest level of Maslow's pyramid. It's difficult to move from that to the button rungs.
Great analysis. As I read, I thought about all those people who decry the actions of the Americans when they weren’t following the rules of the international order. It isn’t an international order, it’s an American order. Thank goodness the US is a relatively benign hegemony. As Matt wrote, it remains to be seen the extent to which is continues to be benign.
Excellent column. Thought provoking and as you said a nice summary of a lot of what you have been saying in your weekly podcast. Not optimistic at all that our current government does or will ever understand the situation as you described. Want to hope the next government will be more aware but only very slightly more optimistic- I fear that we are going to need a blunt instrument to slap us upside the head. Inertia is a powerful force and we have decades of inertia to overcome
Agree 100%. IMHO Canada is a de facto US protectorate now. I’m told Mexico’s constitution prevents its armed forces from operating outside Mexico. Then the Canadian forces would only have to assist in public projects and control the domestic population like the redcoats did 250 years or so ago.
Armed Forces only operating within the country means essentially withdrawing from the world and as a nation dependent on trade that has huge consequences as Trudeau and his Liberals are starting to realize.
“Aussies have a knack for blunt talk mixed with humour”
Oh yes. As part of my duties I was once assigned to hosting a visiting high-ranking Australian officer. On Day One I escorted him around our facility, showing off the various departments. On the morning of Day Two he smilingly greeted me with, “So, more corporate bullshit today or can you tell me how this place really runs?”
The ice was broken :)
One of the first things I taught in an intro to international trade class was put up a picture of a US naval taskforce. Jaws hit the floor.
Exactly this And no offense to Matt but it's been obvious for 40 plus years. Everything but that happens people scream for the Yanks to do something. Doing something has consequences. So then they scream the Yanks are horrible. Then it's repeated. So Americans protecting shipping lanes and knocking off a few pirates? Human rights violations! Take those carrier groups home and watch the carnage on the high seas? Those effing Americans are letting this happen! Yeah.
Canada is screwed because of a reward things. Long term shirking. Pretense we are nice. (We are lazy in that we prefer to not take responsibility). We are far too socialist at the ballot box and respond to personal incentives. We do not hold drifters to account. We don't have a rules based national order FFS. We allow courts to make rules that benefit the criminals We have the major press who are tepid about covering stories that might stir up tension which only allows tension and conspiracy to foment. We have Quebec. We a system that allows parties to reward their friends with impunity. And we elect people with no direct skills because we've been ingrained to dislike competency.
And we have zero desire to face any of those problems head on.
"We don't have a rules based national order FFS."
Fantastic quote.
It wouldn't be nice to confront those problems head on. Too confrontational. Quebec might threaten another neverendum.
Great column as always. Really interesting. Canada is the spoiled, only child of a rich family that just found out they’re not included in the will. Like Matt, I don’t see Canada, (or its leaders) making the hard decisions that need to be made. I hope I’m proven wrong….
Your articulation of the rich kid is absolutely perfect!
"Pax Americana" is the term I recall. As Peter Zeihan says, it was always transactional. USA patrols the oceans ensuring profitable trade for everyone, while her allies stand united against the Soviets.
Post 1991, there was a brief peace dividend, until 9/11 prompted USA to throw the rules out the window and go on a rampage. So the rest of the world now rolls their eyes when they hear "rules based order".
Today USA exports oil instead of relying on OPEC countries. Hypersonic missiles and drones are disrupting old tactics and emboldening second-tier powers. Our supply chains are fragile and vulnerable. It's a new game.
We used to be an ally bringing serious assets to the table in guarding USA from attack on it's Northern flank. If that's no longer relevant, what do we offer in exchange for favorable trade, easy border crossing, and support on the world stage?
Peter Zeihan popped into my head as well when reading this article. And as far as global hegemony goes, I cannot think of any other country besides the USA that I would want in that role. People who believe USA is simply an evil bully probably live in the USA, and they have never had to fight for the freedoms they enjoy.
I am always amazed and shocked by the graves of veterans that almost fill small town cemeteries in the mid west.... I think these people know very well.
We offer Justin Trudeau, his "intelect", the Lieberals - NDP and their ethics, the Laurentian corruptocrat unelites, the Discrimination - Ignorance - Exclusion, entrenched wokeism, the CBC a.k.a Radio Moskva, almost destroyed industrial base strangled in red tape created by fanatical eco-activists, crushing national debt. A fucking Potemkin village, that is what we offer.
The US is still a net oil importer, mostly from Canada:
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/imports-and-exports.php
It is a net petroleum exporter due to net exports of natural gas, gas liquids and refined product.
Great stuff. Hard hitting on the political realities as you say we’ve always known but in recent years have taken entirely for granted. It has always been so. When the US sneezes, Canada catches cold.
Doug Fords response to the tarrif threat actually echoed my feelings perfectly. And it was a stupid thing to say but his comms people thought everyone would like his folksy candor and they were right. You know ….family member stabbed me in the heart. It was such a bloody awful surprise. Who knows what comes next?
But wake up people. We look weaker now than I have ever known. Although I suspect the enhanced cooperation and investment at the border with drones and helicopters will be very useful in sending refugees back to the U.S. and slowing down illegal gun running into Canada. All this is needed so it’s an opportunity to get our act together.
We need hundreds of billions invested in our military to have any standing or respect amongst our NATO allies who we need more than ever.
And we have the absurd and embarrassing spectacle of a government bribing some of us with our own money. Now.
Time for Canada to get a serious adult government that actually has the intellectual capacity to care about the future of Canada and not just their electoral pluralities.
My father was a spitfire pilot in WW2. He was 4th generation Irish- his family came here pre- famine but they had no love for the British Empire or the stuffy exclusion of the Toronto WASP community. He believed in manifest destiny - the eventual swallowing of Canada by the US. Growing up in an era of boundless optimism- of Expo67 and massive economic growth - his thinking seemed totally out of sync with reality. As a political science student I really couldn’t grasp where he was coming from. Canada seemed to have it all.
But I do wonder. Canada really needs to grow up. And fast.
Re. the last sentence: Too late. The bones have grown too soft. The regrowing-up will take a long time, too long, and will be very painful.
That's always been my take -- that America created a new kind of 'collaborative empire' based on a combination of free trade (meaning, access to the US market), security under the US defence umbrella, and secure movement of goods across the oceans and lands of this empire.
Countries had to opt in -- but the alternatives were to become part of the USSR or try to go alone. Some did the latter successfully (Sweden, Switzerland), but most of us benefited from some kind of access to the largest, richest market in the world *and* the security of the largest, strongest military in the world. The US, in turn, could place military outposts around the world; tap into new markets for it's multnational companies; tap into low-cost labour around the world; and established the US dollar as a defacto currency of trade, which has benefits to the US in terms of borrowing.
After the fall of the USSR, it was pretty clear that the US didn't really need this collaborative empire for defense. But, it's multinationals loved access to fast-growing global market, so the shift turned to the economic part of the pact. That benefited the world economy, some of us (like Canada) who traded with the US, and the owner class in the us (stockholders, owners, managerial class) at the expense of large swaths of the US labour market.
So -- here we are: the great renegotiation. The US is legitmately asking the rest of this collaborative empire: "what's in this for us?" Regular people want good-paying jobs and some level of economic security that's slowly been bled away from them since the middle 1970s. The government doesn't want to keep spending to defend places where it doesn't really have a sustained strategic purpose. Being the anchor of the "rules-based order" has always requires some degree of give and take for the US (even if it tended to benefit as often as not) but it's understandably looking at the rest of us and wondering why it continues to pay the freight.
There's lots of good reasons for Canada and the US to continue to have a productive relationship -- moreso than some farther flung areas (Germany, as one example). But, the the US is going to expect more out of the relationship with Canada than it feels like it's getting. That means Canada is going to have to be more vocal about what it actually does provide; it's going to have to take US concerns a lot more seriously; and it needs to get a bunch more strategic about what *we* want with our relationship with the US -- and what we're willing to trade off to get it.
This also potentially opens up a bunch of new potential partners -- other middle-sized countries that have been part of the Western alliance that are also going to have to redefine themselves. Are there opportunities there? If so -- what do we want out of our relationships with similar sized powers (the UK, France, Japan, etc?). A smart strategic approach might give us a bunch of new, different relationships that could be benefitial to Canada -- but we need to get a lot smarter about what we want, what we're willing to give up, and what we realistically can expect. We ain't there yet.
Perfectly correct. The US finished WWII with a 4000 ship navy, most of the worlds gold, most of the former British Empires overseas bases and the only intact economy and all its enemies in utter ruins - except the USSR who were now the threat. To counter that threat they created the world order with the UN, World Bank, IMF. They created NATO and rebuilt Europe as a bulwark against the USSR. They policed the worlds oceans so nobody else had to. It wasn’t for free - we all had to sign on granting the US final say in all security matters. The Cold War containment policy was the result. It worked marvellously.
It came apart with 911 and the two disastrous wars that followed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The emperor was revealed to have no clothes. The limits of military power were apparent. Not only that, the US had allowed the rest of the world to catch up militarily - particularly China. The Houthis can close the Suez Canal! Let that sink in - its a feat formerly reserved only for major military powers. The US is now forced to operate on a two-way rifle range which is disconcerting to say the least and cause for great caution.
Interestingly, China’s rise is largely thanks to the US Navy which has effectively patrolled the worlds oceans since the end of WWII so that China didn’t have to. China can’t duplicate that. It has neither the Naval Bases nor the Blue Water Navy necessary. They’ve peaked demographically, financially and economically and their time is about done.
The US can no longer do what it has done. Time for a pivot and Trump realizes this. The Democrats are running on outdated thinking - just like almost everyone else.
Excellent work and great point. This leads me to see Trump’s slogan from a different perspective as well. MAGA is nice and pithy. What Trump really means is that he is going to Make other nations remember that America is still Great > Again. And yes, a key new rule to partition in the USA’s economic arrangements is that it will not be free.
Yes this is how I've viewed it. It's also a movement to remind a large proportion of its citizens that they live in a great nation. Just see Trump's thanksgiving tweet for an example of this.
Spot on.
Mark Steyn, love him or loathe him, for decades has been bluntly stating Shearer's point about the rules-based international order, noting any 'order' we enjoy quite obviously stems from the assurance that the 'benign hegemon' (US) keeps the FODE (forces of darkness and evil) at bay.
I'm with you on Aussie sensibilities - they can be blunt, to the point of being assholes, if you believe their Kiwi neighbours - but they are generally on point with realistic assessments. Their recognition of CCP influence and their attempts to stem it should be instructional for Canada.
Love the ST reference about PMJT and his cabinet beaming from ice to tropics - brilliant!
My favourite Kiwi line about Australians:
"They are a chosen people. They were selected by the best judges in Britain."
Hi Matt, thank you for bringing this to our attention. And thank you also for being persuaded by Andrew Shearer's views. However, there is a part of me-a big part of me-that says, why would such an astute pundit who I have followed avidly for many years, not have known this, or observed this before?
And you are not alone-it is a comment on your generation of journalists. The very best and brightest of you have not come to the table with a worldview that understands good and bad actors, the uses of power, and the naivete of believing that fairness, progressive ideals, and kumbaya really doesn't mean much when push comes to shove and the world has to face the actions of those bad actors. Because those guys couldn’t care less about the other stuff. They do what they think is in the very best interests of their nations, rightly or wrongly, and they will do whatever that can get away with to promote them. From time to time the US has governments which also forget about this. The Obama era, which just ended with Trump's second win, was one of those governments. No one in the world knows the truth of American might better than Putin, and Xi, and the mullahs, and even Kim.
So when feckless leaders like Obama and Biden forget the power they wield, or just want to pander to concepts like globalism and a rules based order, bad actors pounce. You don't have to be Amarillo Slim to know that when trans people like "Rachel" Levine and woke bleeding heart generals like Milley are appointed to senior positions of power in the US, you are feasting on a patsy. It is so simple; it is so human nature; it is so common sense. Your generation doesn't know this because you have faced no adversity, no threat, that would creep into your DNA. And you ignore people who have.
As a child of holocaust survivors who were also refugees from Communist Hungary I learned, at their knee and on their skin, what those bad actors are capable of. I also know that the US saved the world in WW2, and contained and then destroyed Communism, despite the thankfully feeble voices of the pacifists of WW2 and the gaslighting of the post-Viet Nam War generation of revisionists and neo-Marxists exemplified by Bernie Sanders, Saul Alinsky, Herbert Marcuse, and Obama.
But here is the thing: You are realizing this at a time when the US has in fact moved light years past that dominance, built on the advantages they had until around 1992. That is when the drive to innovate, the abundance of capital, and the pursuit of excellence, which is foundational to US culture and society, came together to create the greatest transformation of the world since the Industrial revolution-and one which will far outstrip its impact.
The fact is, Europe is dead. It has been dying for decades, under the weight of its empty head and soft heart. Indeed, the GDPs of the EU and the US were near equal around the time of the financial crisis. Since that time the US has grown to exceed it by 80% or more.
Asia simply doesn't have the intellectual freedom or the capital to play meaningfully in the technology game. I defy you to find an item in your everyday life that stems from Asian IP.
And now the US owns the AI space.
This, more than the last, will be America's century. I suggest you read Peter Zeihan to understand the why, and the scale. The very best that Canada-and Mexico-can do is take advantage of our proximity, and the fact that we have things the US will need, like resources (Canada) and labour (Mexico), and be along for the ride. The rest of the world will continue to wither due to its own delusions, in the case of Europe, and its totalitarianism, in the case of the "CRINKs".
Meanwhile, Trump and Musk will aim for the stars. Like it or not, the early days post-Nov 5 offer the possibility of a visionary leadership for the US that it has not had since JFK, and to a lesser extent Reagan. The bullet dodged by Trump also missed us. We should recognize that, and embrace it. And so should our journalist class, or events will simply propel its trajectory to irrelevance.
I appreciate this long and thoughtful comment. But I am moved to note at the outset that I think you’re being uncharitable in your interpretation of what I’ve written above. Nothing in this column is a surprise to me. I made the explicit point of noting that Shearer isn’t telling me anything I didn’t know. And haven’t tried to warn people about. He’s just telling it to me in a particularly elegant way I intend to steal and use from now on, starting with this very piece.
ClearThinker, I agree with most of your great comment, but strongly disagree with your take on Gurney as a journalist. I have been reading him long enough to know that he understands and has no illusions about good and bad actors, the uses of power, and the failings of naivete.
And I don’t disagree, it is precisely because of my appreciation for his work that I felt the need to comment. If I misapprehended his understanding of the issue my bad, but I do believe, if so, he stands alone among his cohort, most of whom appear to have been born yesterday, and as such have been active contributors in the creation of a morally adrift west.
We talk and talk about getting more kit for the CAF. But very little heat and light is put on the need for warm bodies to operate those new doodads. Is some sort of national service in my grand kids future?
Let’s hope so — and I say that as a grandfather.
Fred, as another grandfather, I agree.
They'll get more bodies by agreeing to fund sex-change operations.
I don't know if the two are really mutually exclusive. We *have* been living in a rules-based order since WWII. It's just that those rules were mostly decided by and backed by the States.
I also don't think that world leaders imagined these rules existed independent of US power. What they underestimated was how quickly the willingness of the US to play nice would change.
Because yes, now things are changing. There are still rules though; only the game has changed. And it's true that we haven't been able to pivot as quickly as we need to. The Liberal paradigm is basically opposite what we are seeing now around the world. It's almost entirely addressing the highest level of Maslow's pyramid. It's difficult to move from that to the button rungs.
Great analysis. As I read, I thought about all those people who decry the actions of the Americans when they weren’t following the rules of the international order. It isn’t an international order, it’s an American order. Thank goodness the US is a relatively benign hegemony. As Matt wrote, it remains to be seen the extent to which is continues to be benign.
Well you did again, nailed it on the most important issue we face in our weirdly disfunctional coun try. Also sorry to be missing your talks at RCMI.
Excellent column. Thought provoking and as you said a nice summary of a lot of what you have been saying in your weekly podcast. Not optimistic at all that our current government does or will ever understand the situation as you described. Want to hope the next government will be more aware but only very slightly more optimistic- I fear that we are going to need a blunt instrument to slap us upside the head. Inertia is a powerful force and we have decades of inertia to overcome
So frustrating yet predictable that hosting discussions is considered a jewel in Canada’s defence crown.
God knows how much $ taxpayers were bilked for this.
Honestly it seems at this point we’d be further ahead in defending Canada if we just turned our entire military budget over to the u.s.
Agree 100%. IMHO Canada is a de facto US protectorate now. I’m told Mexico’s constitution prevents its armed forces from operating outside Mexico. Then the Canadian forces would only have to assist in public projects and control the domestic population like the redcoats did 250 years or so ago.
Oops missed a linking sentence. @The Mexican approach would work for Canada”
Armed Forces only operating within the country means essentially withdrawing from the world and as a nation dependent on trade that has huge consequences as Trudeau and his Liberals are starting to realize.