From picnics to destroyers and tanks, we need some help, in a hurry. And then, in our final segment, a long philosophical chat about fame, the damage it does ... and Jordan Peterson. God help us.
When you're talking about how long procurement process is, I got reminded of an episode in Yes Minister (or Yes Prime Minister) with a hospital with 500 staff and 0 patients. The 500 staff complained that having patient is just getting in the way of their bureaucratic work.
A terrific episode, pointing out that the whole purpose of public services is to pay staff. We reached that level of perfection with libraries and schools during the covid years.
Dammit Jen, your take on Jordan Peterson was outstanding at every single turn! It was like one of those peak Simpsons episodes where brilliant jokes were layered on top of brilliant jokes – just one great take after another all the way through. And yes, the observations re his harshest critics was bang on – rank professional envy from jealous, over-educated hacks, best exemplified by Dave Foley’s ex.
I think when JP’s story is all said and done the Cathy Newman interview will be his greatest peak and this week’s debacle vs the 20 atheists the sad bottoming out. It really is a shame that he didn’t stay in his lane because for all the reasons you cited, he was a needed breath of fresh air for the culture. His focus on traditional values was desperately needed. Let’s not sugarcoat it – the culture has suffered from an utter lack of public voices articulating true masculine values; the importance for young men to hear the message he was delivering in that regard cannot be overstated. So, it was sad to see him start to lash out as angrily and as often as he did. Indeed, it was unbecoming of someone advocating what are largely, stoic values; his erratic and vitriolic outbursts couldn’t help but diminish his credibility while simultaneously lending credence to the observations of his harshest critics. At the same time, like Jen I have sympathy for him. The insane cauldron that his life became would take its toll on anyone.
The Bambi-like naivete of thinking that Carney has any intention of solving any of Canada's problems would be endearing in anyone who wasn't a journalist. Or a voter.
I'm a yuge Peterson fan, you were very fair in your characterization Jen. I follwed him very closely before and after his breakdown - I can't stress enough just how much that damaged him. When he re-emerged I didn't think he would ever make anything close to a recovery, he seemed to have profound neurological damage, that he has recovered so well is incredible. Benzos are handed out like candy, but the withdrawal is more dangerous than just about any drug, from what I can tell he was nearly dead. Stevie Nicks says that withdrawal from Klonopin makes cocaine look like baby candy, it was a living nightmare "like escaping from a serial killer"
Sorry I missed you at CANSEC, Matt. The rain on Day Two by the way was awful.
One thing about Canada is that we have all the talent and education to develop these technologies, what we lack is commitment of long term capital. Without it the talent goes elsewhere and is wasted. Withiut capital decisions aren't made decisively and we flounder.
Why? Because decision makers aren't incentivized to move fast or take accountability. They are self incentivized to spread the risk among seven key decision makers and to not make waves. Get that pension (the precious) and retire is the dream for many. Ambition is too much risk, not enough reward.
Change the culture, change the incentives and you'll see everything speed up.
Milo, you say in part, "... what we lack is commitment of long term capital ..."
I respectfully suggest that you should restate that to read, "... what we lack is commitment ..." With that adjustment, I - again, respectfully - further suggest that your second paragraph is then superfluous.
I have heard Carney's nice words; we all have. I simply don't and won't believe those words about speed, etc. until the legislation is clear, is actually introduced and is passed in both houses of Parliament and is proclaimed and then only when there is a public execution with elimination of pension rights (an actual execution would do that last, no?) of some Ministers and some top and then middle swivel servants. As they say, the prospect of your execution in the morning provides a great deal of clarity.
I think he is a bit busy rescuing Tesla, SpaceX, et al.
On the other hand, I'm certain that he would send us the chainsaw. After all, that is the critical tool. As a loyal Canadian (oh, yeah, and American and South African), I'm sure that he would share.
As long as they were dirt cheap. Oh, and very long.
I don't know if Musk will get Tesla turned in the right direction but his first order of business is quite clear and he has done it: he resigned from his "spare" job; now, he just has to keep his head down and not talk about anything, not anything, just nothing. People won't forget but perhaps they won't hold everything against him personally and take it out on Tesla. Perhaps. And, then, of course, he needs to actually make the business perform better, a lot of which is getting sales.
So, very long term calls. In my mind, a good speculation. Not at all an investment but a speculation.
The issue long term is that you have sorting, the civil service attracts those who are risk phobic. Those who see "real life begins at retirement" as their worldview, and anything that could jeopardize that as to be avoided.
Anyone who has spent time in an Ottawa Restaurant, Gym or Golf Course during business hours knows exactly what I speak of.
When I hear about an approval process going from 15 years to 2 years, I wonder what the 15 years actually represents.
Did dozens of projects embark on the grueling process, and ultimately get approved after a median process duration of 15 years? Or were most deterred from ever starting and others dropped along the way, with still more plugging away with uncertain time to completion?
How does anybody know how long the Impact Assessment Act takes when it was only passed in 2019? How do they determine how long the court cases are going to take? For pipelines in particular, protracted court challenges are the norm, and if those are now going to get resolved in time for the whole process to take less than 2 years, AFAIK the government hasn't said how.
I wonder whether we are talking about a difference in degree (speeding up from 15 years to 2 years) when in fact it is a difference in kind: going from never actually approving most projects to doing so, or at least aspiring to do so in a way that allows voters to hold the government accountable in the next election if it doesn't happen. Carney may have bitten off more than he can chew here, but going from "15 years" (translation: never) to 2 years might be more than a process change.
My work intersects with a lot of regulatory and certification issues. There's a lot of good regulation, and the good stuff relates to public safety. Building codes, electrical safety standards, pressure vessel standard, motor vehicle safety standards - compliance can be a drag, but those regulations and standards are usually written in blood. They're also a guide to how to build something safe - a bunch of smart people have already figured out how to do something, and you don't have to reinvent the wheel.
My big complaint with regulation is that there's not enough consideration paid to the cost of compliance vs. the net benefits, and next to no consideration given to the cumulative burden of complying with *all* of the applicable regulations. Recently, we had to take a look at a new European regulation for packaging recyclability. It's a long document. It's not simple to interpret. It carries penalties for non-compliance. It's questionable whether it's actually changing much, and in a pre-electronic age, it would probably kill as many trees with the paperwork as it would save in recycling packaging. It's also a pretty good example of why Brexit was successful in the UK. Some bureaucrats devoted a lot of time developing this thing, and since it addresses their pet issue, they of course think it's worth all the effort required for compliance. Somebody should've told them "Stop - this is excessive. Prove to me that it's actually going to deliver a net benefit before you proceed. And then we're going to look at all of the other regulation out there and decide if this is affordable as an addition to the existing burden."
Much of the government contracting world, and even defence contracting is making sense of the Gordian knot of compliance to qualify for bids. Pass the technical bid portion so that you qualify for the financial bid portion.
It's one huge barrier to entry for most people and even most companies. It really does take a certain work and life experience coupled with an understanding of external motivations to work it through.
My favourite are when the different levels of government contradict each other. I've literally had very very senior provincial leaders advise that something must be done one way, which would disqualify us from work with another level of government.
We absolutely should immediately commit tens of billions of dollars to the Ukrainian defence industry (how about by seizing any frozen Russian assets in Canada or denominated in Canadian dollars) and say "please tell us all you know about war and save us". They can even use the Yoda voice if they want.
As to making Ukraine a Canadian province, sure that would be great! The question is though, would they just politely decline our "generous" offer?
There was a proposal a few years back for Canada to adopt Turks and Caicos as a Canadian province. Apparently it was rejected because their corruption was too overt to fit into the more discreet Canadian model. Perhaps this could be revisited to give Canadian snowbirds an alternative to Florida and Arizona 😆😆😆
David, as to your suggestion about buying the consulting from Ukraine (after all, we pay consultants a lot already, no?), the problem is that we wouldn't want to accept the recommendations that they would provide. Recommendations learned through blood and treasure but our leftish cultish government would have to second/third/fourth/etc. source the information and would seek culturally informed elders to shoot it down. In other words, a waste of money, just like current consultants.
I am sure you are absolutely right if it was run in the typical inefficient, ineffective way that Canada does things. My thoughts were more along the lines of "Here Ukraine, here is $30 billion dollars. Go fight the war you are fighting for all of us. But that the same time we want to send our people over to learn everything we can about modern war". But I completely acknowledge that is even less likely to happen!
The actual reason for this liability insurance requirement is in law if the city is 1% liable, and everyone else can't pay, the city pays 100%. The solution is either fix join and several liability, or just require everyone in the province to carry $1 mil liability insurance, like we do with cars.
Here’s the problem that people don’t want to address. You can’t do everything. You have to make choices. We are already at 60 billion deficits before defense spending. The government campaigned on increasing OAS (another example of Canada not being serious). Where is the money going to come from. Something has to be cut back.
On the bureaucracy. Jen, you’ve really nailed something here, and yes finally finding the one competent and helpful public servant is always how it seems to go!
I don’t think what you were talking about here can be overstated for the drag that it is on our economy, and society. If it took you three hours navigating bureaucracy to get a permit for a picnic, what do you think is involved to receive a building and development permit? I know, and you can multiply it by a factor of 10 or more for a single-family house.
We have a class of politician, I would say Trudeau was a part of it, but you will also see it in the mayoral class of our major cities typically, that think they can regulate themselves to successful outcomes and efficiencies. Instead, what you get are ever expanding and never shrinking departments of un incentivized order takers who always seem to utilize the most absurdly conservative interpretation of whatever laws or bylaws they are set to administer. I don’t know how many times I’ve been told (wrongly) something can’t be done due to an incorrect or incomplete determination by a low level and risk adverse bureaucrat. Most people at this point take this determination at face value and let their plan/idea die on the vine. The alternative is, if you are well-versed enough, you must fight to get it approved, but it is incredibly time-consuming, exhausting and a mostly unreimbursed effort. Over time businesses’ figure out ways to make the effort reimbursed, or stop innovating, or simply exit the space. I believe this is what you’re basically seeing in the home building industry writ large at this point.
Lastly, something else to consider is for every bureaucrat we have one less employee for our private sector. Bureaucrats produce nothing, they do not innovate, and they do not create. The balance between private and public is important. The most dynamic economies in the world have larger private sectors comparative to their public. This is something Canada very critically and seriously needs to look at. I don’t know that we are doing that.
A thought I had listening to Matt's discussion of military technology in Ukraine is how applicable are the lessons of Ukraine to conflicts involving NATO? It's as if you were trying to predict what the First World War would be like in from the vantage of the late 19th century. Would you have guessed it would be more like the US Civil War, a long war with grinding sieges? Or would you have based it on the Franco-Prussian War characterized by rapid maneuver and a short duration? The US Civil War was probably more predictive, but that wasn't obvious at the time. In any case, both examples missed the effect of modern artillery and machine guns.
There's a lot of things to learn from the war in Ukraine, particularly with respect to the proliferation of large numbers of cheap, disposable drones and the rapid pace of electronic warfare. There's also a number of features that make it starkly different from how the West might fight elsewhere: it's a war between 2 militaries that evolved out of Soviet doctrine; it's being fought on large, open plains; neither side brings a lot of airpower or seapower to battlefield, and neither side has particularly strong logistics.
Some of the lessons from Ukraine are already being learned: tanks are being equipped with active protection systems, cheaper munitions are being adapted to take out drones (AAA is back: once obsolete Flakpanzer Gepard systems turn out to be great for gunning drones; fighter aircraft are starting to be equipped with laser-guided rockets to shoot down drones instead of using expensive air-to-air missiles). Russia and Ukraine have had success with longer-range strikes using drone swarms, but Iran fared poorly against Western-style air forces when they attacked Israel. Hopefully it's enough that Western forces won't be shocked with foreseeable changes in their next conflict.
Good post. I've always believed that a country's military is proportionate to its foreign policy. Throwing new kit at the troops is not going to solve the structural problems. Want to recruit troops? Give them a reason to want to join up. The CF needs a rebuild from the top down where the focus is on defending Canada. There is no point in spending billions for new gear if the tactical use of that gear is not based on Russian invasion of Ukraine since Russia is now back on the enemy list. The culture of the Canadian military needs to shift from individuality to forming a cohesive and effective military that is mission focused. For me it is always, 'fight like a spartan'. I think they young Canadians might identify with a video game more than our own armed forces and that's a worry tbh.
Listeners/viewers interested in the efficacy of “golden dome” or the realities of defence against nuclear attack, should consider reading Annie Jacobsen’s new book entitled “Nuclear War: a scenario”.
It is a chilling portrayal of how a limited North Korean nuclear attack might unfold: just two missiles, on two US targets, plus an EMP weapon.
Which generate a devastating world-altering chain reaction.
The book is a good description of the current “set piece” reality, and also of what could unfold if “deterrence” (“mutual assured destruction”) fails.
Particularly with leaders like Trump or Kim Jong Un at the helm – neither of whom is a paradigm of calculating rationality.
Oh, that's interesting; for although it was obviously speculative, I thought she painted the context quite well. Including the suggestion that the "rogue state" might not be a primary adversary of the United States. Illuminating (by its absence or failure in the scenario painted), the importance of direct communications, that, I gather, were cemented in place as a result of the Cuban missile crisis, which I am old enough to have experienced as a high school student. Do you quarrel with the author's doubt about the efficacy of anti-missile systems? or the frailty of the human elements in the command structure. My email is easy to find if you are inclined to reply and would prefer to use that channel.
The scenario was absurd. The system is designed to deter, of course. But failing that it is designed to allow controlled escalation. Instead we went from “hey look a missile” to “end of all things” in the fewest possible steps. The author clearly had a working grasp of the basics. And no more.
Who decides which big projects get rapid approval? Given our government's preferences, we could rapidly expand coal exports while stifling LNG exports.
Enjoyed the commentary about Jordan Peterson. Completely forgot about Faith Goldy and the rest of the mid-late 2010s crowd of culture warriors. Having been in high school during Peterson’s initial rise, it was incredible to see the borderline rockstar status he had among young men. Because initially, he represented pretty milquetoast traditionalist father figure to young men who kept getting told they were failures. Today, he’s off the deep end for most folks. I think there’s just less of an interest in young father figures like that now. There’s still grifters out there but nowhere near the same level of popularity and influence as Peterson, Andrew Tate, etc in their heydays.
Beyond the conversation about how fame change Peterson personally, I’m intrigued to see how this kind of fame affects family too. His daughter hitched onto the rocket ship and has a little right wing influencer career of her own. Ben Shapiro’s sister also has a noticeable amount of fame. What happens to these people once the reason for their success gets rejected by the same forces that pushed them into lives of fame?
When you're talking about how long procurement process is, I got reminded of an episode in Yes Minister (or Yes Prime Minister) with a hospital with 500 staff and 0 patients. The 500 staff complained that having patient is just getting in the way of their bureaucratic work.
A terrific episode, pointing out that the whole purpose of public services is to pay staff. We reached that level of perfection with libraries and schools during the covid years.
I love teaching. It's those darned students I can't stand.
Dammit Jen, your take on Jordan Peterson was outstanding at every single turn! It was like one of those peak Simpsons episodes where brilliant jokes were layered on top of brilliant jokes – just one great take after another all the way through. And yes, the observations re his harshest critics was bang on – rank professional envy from jealous, over-educated hacks, best exemplified by Dave Foley’s ex.
I think when JP’s story is all said and done the Cathy Newman interview will be his greatest peak and this week’s debacle vs the 20 atheists the sad bottoming out. It really is a shame that he didn’t stay in his lane because for all the reasons you cited, he was a needed breath of fresh air for the culture. His focus on traditional values was desperately needed. Let’s not sugarcoat it – the culture has suffered from an utter lack of public voices articulating true masculine values; the importance for young men to hear the message he was delivering in that regard cannot be overstated. So, it was sad to see him start to lash out as angrily and as often as he did. Indeed, it was unbecoming of someone advocating what are largely, stoic values; his erratic and vitriolic outbursts couldn’t help but diminish his credibility while simultaneously lending credence to the observations of his harshest critics. At the same time, like Jen I have sympathy for him. The insane cauldron that his life became would take its toll on anyone.
Re Segment 1, and over-regulation, just two words: Javier. Milei. I have linked this Cato piece before but it is again relevant given that segment. https://www.cato.org/free-society/spring-2025/deregulation-argentina-milei-takes-deep-chainsaw-bureaucracy-red-tape
The Bambi-like naivete of thinking that Carney has any intention of solving any of Canada's problems would be endearing in anyone who wasn't a journalist. Or a voter.
Canadians have a reputation for being a bit naive, and expecting the rest of the world to be just as naive.
I'm a yuge Peterson fan, you were very fair in your characterization Jen. I follwed him very closely before and after his breakdown - I can't stress enough just how much that damaged him. When he re-emerged I didn't think he would ever make anything close to a recovery, he seemed to have profound neurological damage, that he has recovered so well is incredible. Benzos are handed out like candy, but the withdrawal is more dangerous than just about any drug, from what I can tell he was nearly dead. Stevie Nicks says that withdrawal from Klonopin makes cocaine look like baby candy, it was a living nightmare "like escaping from a serial killer"
Sorry I missed you at CANSEC, Matt. The rain on Day Two by the way was awful.
One thing about Canada is that we have all the talent and education to develop these technologies, what we lack is commitment of long term capital. Without it the talent goes elsewhere and is wasted. Withiut capital decisions aren't made decisively and we flounder.
Why? Because decision makers aren't incentivized to move fast or take accountability. They are self incentivized to spread the risk among seven key decision makers and to not make waves. Get that pension (the precious) and retire is the dream for many. Ambition is too much risk, not enough reward.
Change the culture, change the incentives and you'll see everything speed up.
Milo, you say in part, "... what we lack is commitment of long term capital ..."
I respectfully suggest that you should restate that to read, "... what we lack is commitment ..." With that adjustment, I - again, respectfully - further suggest that your second paragraph is then superfluous.
I have heard Carney's nice words; we all have. I simply don't and won't believe those words about speed, etc. until the legislation is clear, is actually introduced and is passed in both houses of Parliament and is proclaimed and then only when there is a public execution with elimination of pension rights (an actual execution would do that last, no?) of some Ministers and some top and then middle swivel servants. As they say, the prospect of your execution in the morning provides a great deal of clarity.
Perhaps we could hire Elon Musk to evaluate our civil service with his chainsaw. I understand he has an opening.
I think he is a bit busy rescuing Tesla, SpaceX, et al.
On the other hand, I'm certain that he would send us the chainsaw. After all, that is the critical tool. As a loyal Canadian (oh, yeah, and American and South African), I'm sure that he would share.
I bought some sort dirt cheap $TSLA long dated calls just in case.
As long as they were dirt cheap. Oh, and very long.
I don't know if Musk will get Tesla turned in the right direction but his first order of business is quite clear and he has done it: he resigned from his "spare" job; now, he just has to keep his head down and not talk about anything, not anything, just nothing. People won't forget but perhaps they won't hold everything against him personally and take it out on Tesla. Perhaps. And, then, of course, he needs to actually make the business perform better, a lot of which is getting sales.
So, very long term calls. In my mind, a good speculation. Not at all an investment but a speculation.
So true! The reward for Federal civil servants is as choose to zero as you can get. The indexed pension is the dream!
The issue long term is that you have sorting, the civil service attracts those who are risk phobic. Those who see "real life begins at retirement" as their worldview, and anything that could jeopardize that as to be avoided.
Anyone who has spent time in an Ottawa Restaurant, Gym or Golf Course during business hours knows exactly what I speak of.
Gurney has no empathy for, or theory of mind of, anyone who isn’t a suburban UMC hockey drone.
Pot calling the kettle black as far as “boring” goes, Jesus queue up the next Star Trek reference.
love u Gen!
When I hear about an approval process going from 15 years to 2 years, I wonder what the 15 years actually represents.
Did dozens of projects embark on the grueling process, and ultimately get approved after a median process duration of 15 years? Or were most deterred from ever starting and others dropped along the way, with still more plugging away with uncertain time to completion?
How does anybody know how long the Impact Assessment Act takes when it was only passed in 2019? How do they determine how long the court cases are going to take? For pipelines in particular, protracted court challenges are the norm, and if those are now going to get resolved in time for the whole process to take less than 2 years, AFAIK the government hasn't said how.
I wonder whether we are talking about a difference in degree (speeding up from 15 years to 2 years) when in fact it is a difference in kind: going from never actually approving most projects to doing so, or at least aspiring to do so in a way that allows voters to hold the government accountable in the next election if it doesn't happen. Carney may have bitten off more than he can chew here, but going from "15 years" (translation: never) to 2 years might be more than a process change.
My work intersects with a lot of regulatory and certification issues. There's a lot of good regulation, and the good stuff relates to public safety. Building codes, electrical safety standards, pressure vessel standard, motor vehicle safety standards - compliance can be a drag, but those regulations and standards are usually written in blood. They're also a guide to how to build something safe - a bunch of smart people have already figured out how to do something, and you don't have to reinvent the wheel.
My big complaint with regulation is that there's not enough consideration paid to the cost of compliance vs. the net benefits, and next to no consideration given to the cumulative burden of complying with *all* of the applicable regulations. Recently, we had to take a look at a new European regulation for packaging recyclability. It's a long document. It's not simple to interpret. It carries penalties for non-compliance. It's questionable whether it's actually changing much, and in a pre-electronic age, it would probably kill as many trees with the paperwork as it would save in recycling packaging. It's also a pretty good example of why Brexit was successful in the UK. Some bureaucrats devoted a lot of time developing this thing, and since it addresses their pet issue, they of course think it's worth all the effort required for compliance. Somebody should've told them "Stop - this is excessive. Prove to me that it's actually going to deliver a net benefit before you proceed. And then we're going to look at all of the other regulation out there and decide if this is affordable as an addition to the existing burden."
Much of the government contracting world, and even defence contracting is making sense of the Gordian knot of compliance to qualify for bids. Pass the technical bid portion so that you qualify for the financial bid portion.
It's one huge barrier to entry for most people and even most companies. It really does take a certain work and life experience coupled with an understanding of external motivations to work it through.
My favourite are when the different levels of government contradict each other. I've literally had very very senior provincial leaders advise that something must be done one way, which would disqualify us from work with another level of government.
We absolutely should immediately commit tens of billions of dollars to the Ukrainian defence industry (how about by seizing any frozen Russian assets in Canada or denominated in Canadian dollars) and say "please tell us all you know about war and save us". They can even use the Yoda voice if they want.
As to making Ukraine a Canadian province, sure that would be great! The question is though, would they just politely decline our "generous" offer?
There was a proposal a few years back for Canada to adopt Turks and Caicos as a Canadian province. Apparently it was rejected because their corruption was too overt to fit into the more discreet Canadian model. Perhaps this could be revisited to give Canadian snowbirds an alternative to Florida and Arizona 😆😆😆
Good suggestion. I believe our corruption would be at the right level now.
Considering that the Canadian banks are intertwined with the Turks & Caicos economy already, that might have brought heat onto them, TD style.
David, as to your suggestion about buying the consulting from Ukraine (after all, we pay consultants a lot already, no?), the problem is that we wouldn't want to accept the recommendations that they would provide. Recommendations learned through blood and treasure but our leftish cultish government would have to second/third/fourth/etc. source the information and would seek culturally informed elders to shoot it down. In other words, a waste of money, just like current consultants.
I am sure you are absolutely right if it was run in the typical inefficient, ineffective way that Canada does things. My thoughts were more along the lines of "Here Ukraine, here is $30 billion dollars. Go fight the war you are fighting for all of us. But that the same time we want to send our people over to learn everything we can about modern war". But I completely acknowledge that is even less likely to happen!
The actual reason for this liability insurance requirement is in law if the city is 1% liable, and everyone else can't pay, the city pays 100%. The solution is either fix join and several liability, or just require everyone in the province to carry $1 mil liability insurance, like we do with cars.
I think this is a clear case of a well intentioned law having bizarre downstream effects.
In any case, I don't mind paying the fees. I just think they should streamline insurance into the permitting process. JG
Here’s the problem that people don’t want to address. You can’t do everything. You have to make choices. We are already at 60 billion deficits before defense spending. The government campaigned on increasing OAS (another example of Canada not being serious). Where is the money going to come from. Something has to be cut back.
On the bureaucracy. Jen, you’ve really nailed something here, and yes finally finding the one competent and helpful public servant is always how it seems to go!
I don’t think what you were talking about here can be overstated for the drag that it is on our economy, and society. If it took you three hours navigating bureaucracy to get a permit for a picnic, what do you think is involved to receive a building and development permit? I know, and you can multiply it by a factor of 10 or more for a single-family house.
We have a class of politician, I would say Trudeau was a part of it, but you will also see it in the mayoral class of our major cities typically, that think they can regulate themselves to successful outcomes and efficiencies. Instead, what you get are ever expanding and never shrinking departments of un incentivized order takers who always seem to utilize the most absurdly conservative interpretation of whatever laws or bylaws they are set to administer. I don’t know how many times I’ve been told (wrongly) something can’t be done due to an incorrect or incomplete determination by a low level and risk adverse bureaucrat. Most people at this point take this determination at face value and let their plan/idea die on the vine. The alternative is, if you are well-versed enough, you must fight to get it approved, but it is incredibly time-consuming, exhausting and a mostly unreimbursed effort. Over time businesses’ figure out ways to make the effort reimbursed, or stop innovating, or simply exit the space. I believe this is what you’re basically seeing in the home building industry writ large at this point.
Lastly, something else to consider is for every bureaucrat we have one less employee for our private sector. Bureaucrats produce nothing, they do not innovate, and they do not create. The balance between private and public is important. The most dynamic economies in the world have larger private sectors comparative to their public. This is something Canada very critically and seriously needs to look at. I don’t know that we are doing that.
A thought I had listening to Matt's discussion of military technology in Ukraine is how applicable are the lessons of Ukraine to conflicts involving NATO? It's as if you were trying to predict what the First World War would be like in from the vantage of the late 19th century. Would you have guessed it would be more like the US Civil War, a long war with grinding sieges? Or would you have based it on the Franco-Prussian War characterized by rapid maneuver and a short duration? The US Civil War was probably more predictive, but that wasn't obvious at the time. In any case, both examples missed the effect of modern artillery and machine guns.
There's a lot of things to learn from the war in Ukraine, particularly with respect to the proliferation of large numbers of cheap, disposable drones and the rapid pace of electronic warfare. There's also a number of features that make it starkly different from how the West might fight elsewhere: it's a war between 2 militaries that evolved out of Soviet doctrine; it's being fought on large, open plains; neither side brings a lot of airpower or seapower to battlefield, and neither side has particularly strong logistics.
Some of the lessons from Ukraine are already being learned: tanks are being equipped with active protection systems, cheaper munitions are being adapted to take out drones (AAA is back: once obsolete Flakpanzer Gepard systems turn out to be great for gunning drones; fighter aircraft are starting to be equipped with laser-guided rockets to shoot down drones instead of using expensive air-to-air missiles). Russia and Ukraine have had success with longer-range strikes using drone swarms, but Iran fared poorly against Western-style air forces when they attacked Israel. Hopefully it's enough that Western forces won't be shocked with foreseeable changes in their next conflict.
Good post. I've always believed that a country's military is proportionate to its foreign policy. Throwing new kit at the troops is not going to solve the structural problems. Want to recruit troops? Give them a reason to want to join up. The CF needs a rebuild from the top down where the focus is on defending Canada. There is no point in spending billions for new gear if the tactical use of that gear is not based on Russian invasion of Ukraine since Russia is now back on the enemy list. The culture of the Canadian military needs to shift from individuality to forming a cohesive and effective military that is mission focused. For me it is always, 'fight like a spartan'. I think they young Canadians might identify with a video game more than our own armed forces and that's a worry tbh.
Listeners/viewers interested in the efficacy of “golden dome” or the realities of defence against nuclear attack, should consider reading Annie Jacobsen’s new book entitled “Nuclear War: a scenario”.
It is a chilling portrayal of how a limited North Korean nuclear attack might unfold: just two missiles, on two US targets, plus an EMP weapon.
Which generate a devastating world-altering chain reaction.
The book is a good description of the current “set piece” reality, and also of what could unfold if “deterrence” (“mutual assured destruction”) fails.
Particularly with leaders like Trump or Kim Jong Un at the helm – neither of whom is a paradigm of calculating rationality.
Did not love the book.
Oh, that's interesting; for although it was obviously speculative, I thought she painted the context quite well. Including the suggestion that the "rogue state" might not be a primary adversary of the United States. Illuminating (by its absence or failure in the scenario painted), the importance of direct communications, that, I gather, were cemented in place as a result of the Cuban missile crisis, which I am old enough to have experienced as a high school student. Do you quarrel with the author's doubt about the efficacy of anti-missile systems? or the frailty of the human elements in the command structure. My email is easy to find if you are inclined to reply and would prefer to use that channel.
The scenario was absurd. The system is designed to deter, of course. But failing that it is designed to allow controlled escalation. Instead we went from “hey look a missile” to “end of all things” in the fewest possible steps. The author clearly had a working grasp of the basics. And no more.
PS It would be interesting to hear/read Martin Van Creveld's assessment of the piece, even though it was, necessarily, speculative.
Watch Threads on YouTube. That's all anyone should need.
Who decides which big projects get rapid approval? Given our government's preferences, we could rapidly expand coal exports while stifling LNG exports.
Enjoyed the commentary about Jordan Peterson. Completely forgot about Faith Goldy and the rest of the mid-late 2010s crowd of culture warriors. Having been in high school during Peterson’s initial rise, it was incredible to see the borderline rockstar status he had among young men. Because initially, he represented pretty milquetoast traditionalist father figure to young men who kept getting told they were failures. Today, he’s off the deep end for most folks. I think there’s just less of an interest in young father figures like that now. There’s still grifters out there but nowhere near the same level of popularity and influence as Peterson, Andrew Tate, etc in their heydays.
Beyond the conversation about how fame change Peterson personally, I’m intrigued to see how this kind of fame affects family too. His daughter hitched onto the rocket ship and has a little right wing influencer career of her own. Ben Shapiro’s sister also has a noticeable amount of fame. What happens to these people once the reason for their success gets rejected by the same forces that pushed them into lives of fame?