As Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine, an invasion that began formally with incursions into Crimea earlier this year -- but in reality began many years before with growing Russian influence in Ukraine's domestic politics, Canada's defense posture is becoming less clear over time.
Russia's increasingly aggressive stances on a range of issues since Putin assumed office
My, how wrong McParland was, and still is. Those with even a basic understanding of Russia's increasingly aggressive stances on a range of issues since Putin assumed office in 1999 foresaw the current problems. Anders was correct: Putin -- and Russia in general -- only understands force, and as time has proven right since early 2014, many serious players are now acknowledging that military force against Russia may indeed be necessary.
But rather than engage the adversary early on in a clear demonstration of force, the West piddled around with weak economic instruments in an attempt to deter Russia. These were doomed to fail from the beginning, as economic sanctions always are. They have never worked to deter committed regimes, and they never will. Iraq, Iran, Russia ... and on the list goes of failed recent attempts to deter authoritarian regimes with sanctions.
Who in their right mind really thought sanctions against Russia would work? Clearly a group who forgot -- or never knew -- the lessons of how the West engaged the USSR meekly before Reagan and failed, and how Reagan dealt with the Soviets aggressively and won. In a sense, the West has thrown away the Cold War victory Reagan fought so hard for and achieved. Back to the pre-1980s and weak foreign policies we go. One could have assumed that we wouldn't have failed to learn the lessons of history so quickly, but we did. Why? Because the West is weak, corrupt, and decadent. Our society devotes its time to arguing over trivialities in the superficial and highly toxic culture wars rather than focusing on the real culture war that never ended -- freedom versus tyranny.
How else was Anders right and McParland wrong? Anders wanted the U.S. and/or NATO to engage the Russians. Well, of course, how else would they be engaged? First off, Canada is a member of NATO, so to claim that asking NATO to act is tantamount to asking non-Canadians to do the work is nonsense for the simple reason that Canada is a member of NATO and we would undoubtedly be involved in any NATO action (as we currently are, albeit in a very weak and ineffective deterrence role in eastern Europe). More importantly, Canada lacks the military capacity to independently engage the Russians anywhere other than on Canadian territory. Even that level of engagement in our backyard is debatable, given the absurdly and embarrassingly low military strength Canada retains on its own soil.
Canada's force projection capacity is nil
In short, Canada's force projection capacity is nil. Thus, if it needs to get done, we typically require the Americans and/or Europeans to do it and to ferry us along if we want to go. That isn't right, but it is the way it is and appears destined to stay.
As a side note, Anders isn't the only Canadian to believe Nelson Mandela was a communist, because he was. To claim or imply otherwise is also incorrect, as the
New Statesman clearly showed in late 2013, drawing on
statements released by the South African Communist Party itself. Certainly, Mandela's political views were complex and evolved over time -- as those of all thinking people do -- but the fact remains: "At his arrest in August 1962, Nelson Mandela was not only a member of the then underground South African Communist Party, but was also a member of our Party's Central Committee ... After his release from prison in 1990, Cde Madiba became a great and close friend of the communists till his last days."
Should we deny reality because it suits the politically correct tone of our superficial mainstream media and the hypersensitive public they pander to? Of course not, or we slide further away from democracy towards authoritarianism.
But this is the shallow media game we play in the Great White North. Pretend geopolitical reality doesn't exist until we have to.
Now the same pundit
claims that "Russia's President Vladimir Putin is proving far more reckless than previously imagined in his determination to have his way in Ukraine, exhibiting a level of cynicism and contempt for international law that few could have anticipated." Wrong again. Many anticipated exactly where Putin's actions in the Crimea would lead, as we anticipate where his current invasion of eastern Ukraine will lead if not stopped -- and stopped with military resistance. All these types of weak-kneed strategies do is prolong and exacerbate the inevitable, which is either a renewed cold war with Russia or a hot one.
The prelude to World War II hangs over us at present, reminding us exactly what the consequences are for unserious talk and no action, all the while inching us closer to World War III. Almost all of today's pundits and the political parties they support make Neville Chamberlain look like a defense hawk and geopolitical realist. The recipe in the Canadian media and among all political parties: try every wrong option and approach before even contemplating the correct one.
If Putin's response to NATO resistance in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine would be (have been) a nuclear strike on the alliance, then that fate was inevitable for the simple reasons that (1) territorial ambitions only grow if they meet no resistance along the way, and (2) where will we draw the line? If not in Ukraine -- which can reasonably be construed to be protected against the Russian invasion by the quasi-treaty (if not full treaty) obligations of the Budapest Memorandum -- then where? If the West makes agreements to protect the sovereignty of a nation such as Ukraine, and doesn't live up to them, then are there not reasonable grounds to doubt the NATO alliance will hold if Russia continues to move westward?
The lesson for Ukraine is clear: it was pure folly for this nation to give up its nuclear weapons, highlighting once again the naive utopian belief system of the
Global Zero movement. My recommendation is that Ukraine move to acquire one or several nuclear weapons in the near term on the international "market," and then use its tremendous scientific talents to build a domestic nuclear weapons production program over the mid- to long-term. This assumes at least some portions of the nation can stay independent of Russia long enough to reach these objectives.
Many serious people are
postulating that total war in Europe -- as we last saw seven decades ago -- is a real possibility. No doubt such individuals saw this possibility arising over the past months and years, but the politically correct self-reinforcing ostrich narrative that Russia was (and even still is, according to some quarters) our friend and ally has occupied far too much space in the media since Russian forces first crossed into the Crimea. Remember these
statements from a
Globe and Mail columnist back in mid-March?: "This is not the dark days of the 20th century, and countries such as Ukraine have no reason to be caught in a zero-sum game between powers. This crisis can be resolved, using economic and diplomatic persuasion, if we can all stop living in the past." How well has that "economic and diplomatic persuasion" worked? It didn't, as the Crimea was formally annexed into Russia soon after, and now Russia is following the same invasion path for the rest of Ukraine. Perhaps the rest of Europe and beyond is soon to follow.
A hope-and-change approach to grand strategy will not succeed, nor will silly little tweets from Canada's NATO representatives
A hope-and-change approach to grand strategy will not succeed, nor will silly little
tweets from Canada's NATO representatives which only served to
amuse the Kremlin as it moved farther into Ukraine. The fact that the West is tweeting its disapproval to Russia, rather than meeting it with hard power, speaks clearly to the infantile culture that has been progressively replacing reality in the West since the late 1980s. Soft power is a fantasy-land created by those who profit from unproductive engagement and/or wish to obfuscate the true clarity of good versus evil.
Andrey Piontkovsky is right: Putin
does believe he can win a war with NATO, and he may very well be correct. Why shouldn't he? The idea that "Putin's assumption that the logic of mutually assured destruction (MAD) which prevented a major war between Russia and the West has broken down because of divisions within the West about how to respond to Russian use of a limited nuclear strike" warrants merit in the West's thinking processes. Putin has children that he has gone through
extraordinary lengths to protect, and despite a recent divorce, he still has romantic linkages. A madman bent on suicidal global nuclear war in the ultimate game of brinksmanship? Unlikely. More likely he is a man seeking to rebuild and expand the old USSR who may be betting on NATO's weakness and its eventual choice that for some of its current members to live under neo-Soviet rule once again in central and eastern Europe -- and perhaps even further afield -- is preferable to even limited conventional and/or nuclear conflict with Russia.
One of the infinite number of options for Putin is to hit a few cities/military bases in Europe with first strike nuclear weapons to send a message that he is moving westward and our choice is either to get out of the way, or call his bluff with retaliatory strikes.
For all the tough talk emerging from Canada's leaders since the Crimean invasion, that is all it really is: sassy tweets and
comparisons between Putin and Hitler, visa bans and trivial economic sanctions that the business community
whines about, sending
some "non-lethal military equipment" (aka, effectively useless) to Ukraine,
deploying six archaic CF-18 fighter jets to Poland as part of enhanced NATO patrols in eastern Europe, and other huff-and-puff that will in no way deter or slow Russia's advances. In fact, such weak responses only embolden and hasten Putin's aggression. It is debatable whether they are worse than no response at all.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has recently
stated that he believes Russia "to be a long-term, serious threat to global peace and security" and that "Canada remains steadfast in its support for Ukraine and will not stand idly by while its sovereignty and territorial integrity are threatened." And yet, we
read less than two weeks later that "Canada is balking at a push for NATO countries to commit to boosting military spending to 2 per cent of Gross Domestic Product because Ottawa feels the pledge is too vaguely defined and goes beyond what Canadian taxpayers would support." Janyce McGregor at CBC also
reported on NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen's recent call for more defense spending by Canada, but Canada's current defense spending was incorrectly reported by McGregor as 1.3 percent of GDP. This is 30 percent higher than the
actual current level of 1.0 percent of GDP, which places Canada essentially last among military spending among the serious members of NATO.
Russia: A long-term, serious threat to global peace and security
Thus, Harper claims to see Russia as a long-term, serious threat to global peace and security, but his government is unwilling to devote even the paltry level of 2 percent of GDP towards military spending, all the while Russia is at over 4 percent (the level it has averaged since the early 1990s). This is incoherent policy. The libertarian members of the conservative coalition may want to talk tough while slashing defense spending, but the conservative members are repulsed by such weak foreign policies of all hat, no cattle. Where should the money come from? Unnecessary social expenditures, of course, and there are plenty of these in Canada. Trim the fat off one end to provide for the other.
NATO's request for increased Canadian defense spending shouldn't be necessary. Canada should inherently understand its need to move towards national defense self-sufficiency -- rather than always requiring the Americans to protect us, much as a parent protects a young child -- and we shouldn't need to be chastised in the international sphere by the geopolitical grown-ups.
On
Thursday, Ukraine's ambassador to Canada -- Vadym Prystaiko -- "called for Canada and its allies to act 'immediately' by providing 'real' military support and even troops on the ground to help his country defend itself in what he says has become an outright war." Prystaiko is right. Canada's defense spending should be immediately increased and our forces built up to levels far exceeding what we had during the Cold War (which is a low bar by any reasonable standard), and NATO troops should begin moving into forward positions in Ukraine to engage the adversary that was never our friend -- Russia.
Of course, President Obama is
opposed to any real action in Ukraine, preferring instead to engage only in hash-tag diplomacy and working towards fulfilling
promises made to former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for the weakening of the West's defensive and offensive nuclear and conventional capabilities. Being the military runt in the NATO litter, Canada is forced to follow this erroneous policy line whether we want to or not because we simply have no independent options of our own should we want to militarily assist Ukraine. Canada must push NATO to accept Ukraine as a full member state and for NATO's involvement in the war between Ukraine and Russia, but for us to have any credibility in this call to action, Canada must at least meet or -- preferably -- exceed Rasmussen's call for greater Canadian military spending.
Ukraine must also take real steps towards getting solid leadership into place, including integrating much of the publicly vilified and supposedly "far-right" movement into the governance and national defense apparatus. Unity is what Ukraine needs -- both internally and externally. Canada also needs some serious ministers of national defense and foreign affairs, ones who will make the case to the Canadian public on the need to defend freedom at home and abroad with real action, not just talk and social media excursions.
