Published at 08:37 on 12 December 2025
One of the things that has been worrying me most about Canadian politics is the smug sense of complacency. There is just too much belief in the concept that being a separate country will somehow be a free ticket to escape many consequences of the ongoing transition to fascism south of the border.
In particular, I have been worried about the complacency on national defence. On the Left, I saw complacency about the mere need for defence. This is understandable, as military spending has often been sold under the guise of “defence” when in fact actual defence has little or nothing to do with it. On the Right, there is not so much problem with the very concept of defence, but there is a reluctance to see the USA having become the sort of threat it has actually become. This is also understandable, as acknowledging so means acknowledging no small amount of dirty laundry in the Right’s very own hamper.
That is why I find this to be extremely welcome news. Apparently the Canadian military has been quietly doing an honest assessment of the situation, and come to the obvious conclusion: that the cause of peace and freedom for Canada is now best served by pursuing a measure of military deterrence.
Better yet are the voices on the Left, such as Charlie Angus, who have traditionally been quite skeptical of military spending. Not so much any more, perhaps. Let’s hope so.
Armed struggle is indeed a highly unpleasant thing, but ultimately the world is complex and messy place that does not lend itself to any one simplistic rule (such as “war bad”). As John Stuart Mill once observed:
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.
But it doesn’t have to be so dramatic as that. As the old saying goes, Si vis pacem, para bellum. The best possible use of a fighting force is the use that does not involve any actual fighting; the mere presence of such a force can serve to detract a would-be evildoer and aggressor, by underscoring that the costs of evildoing and aggression are unlikely to be cheap.
And yes, this can work against a significantly more powerful opponent. First, you have the asymmetry of sacrifice: a people are generally willing to sacrifice more to preserve their own freedom than they are to subjugate someone else’s. Then, you have the asymmetry of mission: in order to succeed at conquering a country, the conquerer has to achieve complete control over the conquered. In order to succeed at resisting a conqueror, one needs to do far less; one needs merely to deny the conqueror that control.
Make it clear to Trump that a forcible annexation will be more trouble than it is worth, and Trump will likely forget about the idea (or at least repeatedly postpone it, which accomplishes the same thing). Appealing to a fascist’s sense of justice and humanity is both pointless and foolish, as fascists are lacking in both. Appealing to a fascist’s sense of what is best for his personal power and prestige, however, offers a very real chance of being a successful appeal. And this is not merely theoretical; Finland for many years pursued such policies with respect to the red fascism just to its east, and thereby preserved its independence.
If Canada makes it clear to American fascism that the cause of American fascism is best served by seeking some form of coexistence with a democratic Canada, coexistence it is likely to be, which is far better than being a fascist vassal state.
