.
Irony of history. There were some voices obsessing about the Arctic and calling for more Canadian military preparations to counter the oh-so fearsome Russians in the Arctic region; icebreakers, infantry with snow vehicles and whatnot.
Now it becomes obvious that the actual threat to Canada's sovereignty isn't coming from the North; it's coming from the South - icebreakers and fancy snow special forces won't make a difference.
Canadian deterrence & defence isn't about navy, air force or armoured vehicles any more. It's about occupation-proofing themselves by becoming an armed nation.*
Being allied with Europe won't help Canada much if the Fascists in Washington, D.C. Mar-A-Lago get too greedy for land. It's simply not credible deterrence, for Europe cannot defend Canada against the U.S. given the logistical issues and requirement for troops to face Russia in parallel.
So I offer four advices for Canada
- Avoid angering the Fascists too much, particularly don't suddenly shut down the electricity exports.
- Arm yourself with training, equipment, weapons and munitions that would make an occupation impractical and bloody even with a million occupation troops, and let the American public know about it. Conscription for three to six months training is warranted under the current circumstances in my opinion, much longer conscription service for personnel qualified to train the recruits.
- Build up a conventional deterrent, such as the ability to launch ten thousand cheap cruise missiles within an hour to destroy thousands of fragile power grid and (petro-)chemical industry targets up to 1,500 km deep in Fascist America.
- Ward against subversion. Shut out American media, prohibit immigration and travel from Fascist America, minimise the quantity of Fascist American diplomats to a skeleton crew in Ottawa, cut all intelligence and security cooperation including ejecting all American military personnel (even embassy marines), shut down NORAD.
Canada: Stop wasting money on toying with a miniature balanced military. Almost none of it has any relevance to Canadian security.
S O
*: The Americans have the myth that a nation armed with light weapons such as assault rifles is a nation that cannot be occupied. The current crop of American politicians is stupid enough to believe such propaganda, and so will be the loyalty-over-competence crop of new generals that get installed in commands to coup-proof the Fascist regime.
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You only used "fascism" or variations of the word six times. Thats fewer than one per paragraph.
ReplyDeleteI mean, I get it, you don't like the new government and there are good reasons, and the defense advice you lay out also sounds reasonable (same goes for many countries to be honest), but I believe it is a bit of an overreaction to scream about fascism from the rooftops.
Just my two cents.
I scream from rooftops about problems years before others realise them.
DeleteMussolini was in power for 13 years before he started wars of aggression.
Hitler was in power for 5 years before he started grab land.
Canada needs 3 years to satisfactorily apply what I prescribed even if it went all-in on the effort. Rather 10 years at ordinary speed.
The American Fascism checks all boxes of Fascism, it's just not honest about what it is because the brand is burnt (the overt hostility to antifascism is an indicator that at least parts of the movement will become overt Fascists).
One can also describe it as well as oligarchy-kleptocracy with dissolution of separation fo church and state (the "church" serving at a tool to control the population as in Russia, or at least certain demographics).
In the end, it's very much the same as Fascism and it already shows a total lack of respect for the sovereignty of other countries, which means Canada needs a different deterrence & defence ASAP.
@anon:
DeleteI deleted your comment and the rewrite of your comment because I don't tolerate the bollocks about Fascism being an Italy-only thing.
Get some actual political science book or a history book, or even only read wikipedia. Whatever, you will find in non-crazy sources that Fascism is a political ideology/movement. It can exist and has existed in many countries. Nazism is not on the same level, it's a subcategory of Fascism.
Literally on the second paragraph of the German wikipedia article on "Fascism" it says:
Delete"Die Verallgemeinerung des Faschismus-Begriffs von einer zeitlich und national begrenzten Eigenbezeichnung zur Gattungsbezeichnung einer bestimmten Herrschaftsart ist umstritten, besonders für den deutschen NS-Staat."
So much for that.
So your own opinion is in no way consensus.
DeleteIf you disagreed you could have written a counterpoint instead of just censoring, which, in combination with your corresponding rhetorics, just makes you look like a authoritarian leftist.
This blog is in English.
DeleteThe English wikipedia agrees with me wholly, while the German one disagrees with your assertion, as you quoted. Worst case interpretation of the German wikipedia article is that I deleted a comment that asserted something as certain that's disputed.
BTW
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism
Also, I dislike manipulative cherrypicking.
DeleteThere's a whole chapter in the German wikipedia article on fascism listing 6 regimes that are considered Fascist by scholars and 22 European countries where unsuccessful (didn't come to power) Fascist movements existed.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faschismus#%C3%9Cberblick_der_als_faschistisch_bezeichneten_Bewegungen_in_Europa
Well, it doesn't hurt (much) to prepare for various possibilities, and Trump is somewhat erratic so the advice is generally sound (especially the bit about not pissing him off, not so much shutting out the media, most of the US media dislike him somewhat :D ).
ReplyDeleteOne nitpick: Saying you're against "antifascism" makes you fascist? I always saw those antifa guys as essentially a politically motivated group of violent thugs. Dressing in black and wearing masks and beating people for their political opinions, I don't know. Always saw them as the lefts modern version of the Nazis SA during the twenties, but I guess peoples view on that depends what type of politics they were socialised into.
The US needs Russia to help contain China. China is the peer adversary.
ReplyDeleteRussia failed to overrun Ukraine. The US has decided that NATO is no-longer essential.
For a realistic look at whats happening
George Friedman at Geopolitical Futures
https://youtu.be/cYpL-QvGM8M?si=2-JI1YPvgzSpR-GG
For a historical context
Sarah Paine (US navy historian)
https://youtu.be/x0QrOjqXx8U?si=QfceC0cbWZM7ExFh
Seems to me the American's are working to reduce the size of their government and are giving us warnings about free speech.
ReplyDeleteNot very fascist like behavior.
Also abolishing the rule of law and threatening military invasion of other states. Seems moderately and increasingly fascist to me.
DeleteThe American Fascists aren't pursuing "free speech". They want their propaganda to be louder and have absolutely no interest in protecting free speech of political enemies.
DeleteThey "reduce the size of the government" only in regard to consumer protection, white collar crime prosecution, social benefits for the poor and middle class. That's in no way in conflict with the Fascism diagnosis.
If there is a head of state you dislike and he is opposed to all that is good on literally every single point and everything is only ever evil and bad and obviously so yet tens of millions voted for him, you might want to consider that perhaps the problem is that you found your way into a bit of a media echochamber.
DeleteI didn't write about like or dislike. I wrote about what they do.
DeleteI notice you didn't even try to disprove that.
Not like there is much to dispute, you said america is now fascist, I believe you're wrong. But I'll try to at least counter the two points you did make here in the comments.
Delete"The American Fascists aren't pursuing "free speech". They want their propaganda to be louder and have absolutely no interest in protecting free speech of political enemies."
Do you have any proof for this assertion? I don't see it like that, I see almost all political censorship coming from the left ("hatespeech" etc.), while the right (sorry, the "american fascist") actively wants the left to say whatever they want because the left in the US is so far gone that it actually helps the right when people see what these lunatics are up to. Again, just my opinion, fully aware you don't share them.
"They "reduce the size of the government" only in regard to consumer protection, white collar crime prosecution, social benefits for the poor and middle class. That's in no way in conflict with the Fascism diagnosis."
I don't see proof of this, though it is too early yet to see where it will ultimately go. Considering just how much fraud there must be in a government that massive (and with such ridiculously lax corruption laws) I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt for now. The reaction of the opposition to audits suggests the government might still only be scratching at the surface, but as I said, I'll wait and see.
I am with you that the talk of annexing other people's territory is inappropriate to say the least. Though the annex canada thing is just trolling, as if the conservatives would want canada to become part of the US, it would actually hurt their future election chances.
The problem with calling people fascists is that it makes the reader think it's just the opposition screeching because they're pissed. If a conservative or right leaning politician called literally every opponent communists thats just babble and the same is true in reverse. I will say that I respect you (or I wouldn't bother responding), so if you have other points to make I will consider them with an open mind.
If not, I understand, I know how tedious discussing politics on the internet can become.
Maybe Canada should consider what the Poles plan on doing (universal military training).
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy83r93l208o
Welcome back, rare visitor.
DeleteOccupation and punitive bombardment may be deterrable with my proposal,
navsl blockade and punitive ground raids not so much.
Conscription for a regular army is useless, an invitation to disaster.