Quotulatiousness

April 17, 2025

Canadian labelling regulations save us from “too many vitamins”

Filed under: Australia, Britain, Bureaucracy, Cancon, Food, Government, Health — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In the National Post, Jesse Kline points out that Canadian food label regulations have become so nit-picky that they prevent safe and accurately labelled foods from Australia, Britain, and other countries from being sold here:

Marmite from the UK and Vegemite from Australia, two of the products at risk of Canadian over-regulatory twitches.

Shortly after winning the Liberal leadership, Mark Carney travelled to Paris and London to shore up our trading relationship with our European allies.

Yet it is noteworthy that Canada is one of only two countries that has not yet ratified the United Kingdom’s accession into the CPTPP, meaning that we don’t enjoy the benefits of free trade with the country with whom we share a system of government and a King. Meanwhile, France is one of a handful of countries that has yet to ratify the free-trade agreement between Canada and the EU.

If we can’t even agree to implement trade deals that have already been negotiated and agreed upon with countries that have such deep historical ties to Canada, what hope do we have of improving trade with our other partners around the world?

Part of the problem is that Canada refuses to follow the example of countries like Australia and New Zealand, which successfully phased out their own systems of supply management years ago with great success.

As a result, supply management has proven to be a sticking point in virtually every trade negotiation we’ve entered into, and is a constant source of tension even among countries we have free-trade deals with.

But we have also fallen into the trap, along with our European friends, of over-regulation. Modern bureaucratic states impose so many restrictions on commercial enterprises, it often becomes uneconomic to market their products in other countries.

Canada, for example, imposes stringent labelling requirements to ensure product information is available in both English and French, and that nutritional information conforms to our very specific requirements.

None of this is necessary, especially in an age in which we can hold a phone up to a box of French crackers to see what it says. But the problem extends far beyond language or disagreements over the recommended daily intake of fibre.

As the CBC reported on Monday, Leighton Walters, an expat from Down Under who owns several Australian-themed coffee shops in the Greater Toronto Area, was told earlier this year by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) that he was no longer allowed to sell the roughly $8,000 worth of Vegemite he had imported because it contains … too many vitamins.

Under current regulations, only a select list of products are allowed to contain added vitamins. Vitamin B-rich spreads like Vegemite and its British equivalent Marmite are not among them because … well, just because.

A similar situation arose a decade ago when reports that the government had ordered Marmite and the Scottish drink Irn-Bru to be taken off the shelves of a British supermarket in Saskatoon caused outrage on both sides of the pond.

The CFIA later clarified that only versions of those products formulated specifically to meet Canadian requirements — i.e., those that don’t contain added vitamins or a specific type of food colouring — are allowed to be sold in this country. Because heaven forbid we trust that other advanced Commonwealth nations would have reasonable enough food safety standards.

We have quite literally regulated ourselves into a corner. We can’t even import spreads like Marmite and Vegemite — which have been staples of British and Australian diets for decades — not because they’re unhealthy or unsafe, but because they don’t conform to our nit-picky regulations.

April 10, 2025

Canadian political aspirations to being “very mid” on the world stage

In The Line, Matt Gurney reflects on a recent statement by caretaker prime minister Mark Carney about Canada taking a “leadership role” on the international stage and supplanting the United States under President Trump:

Oh, we will, eh?

Don’t get me wrong, I like the sound of it. He’s certainly manifesting that elbows-up spirit that seems to be so impressing Canadians.

But, like — Carney knows which country he’s in, right? Canada? The one full of Canadians? Because as I heard him say what Canada would do in response to the accelerating American withdrawal from global affairs, I couldn’t help but note that there is a problem here.

Canada isn’t a leader. Canada doesn’t lead.

Even as I write this, I know it’s going to be a fraught statement. Canadian patriotism is a bit supercharged right now. It’s nice to see. But a lot of stupidity gets overlooked — or even caused — by patriotic outbursts. Internal dissent becomes a lot less popular when everybody is sewing the Maple Leaf onto their backpack. So I want to make my point respectfully and politely, largely to spare myself the agony of wading through idiotic replies for a few days. So here goes: many Canadians do indeed lead in their fields, and there is nothing inherent about Canada that makes us incapable of exercising leadership. If Mark Carney remains prime minister — or if someone with similar ambitions should replace him and make a point of pursuing a policy of broad-based Canadian global leadership — I don’t write that off as a doomed proposition.

There is more that we could choose to do. There are practical constraints that would bind us, and we’ll talk about those in a minute, but just to get into the spirit of the moment: sure. We could choose to exercise global leadership.

But we would first have to start with the recognition that it has been generations since we have actually tried to do that. This is not a moral judgment on Canada or Canadians. It is simply a recognition of the historical record. This country has not pursued a national policy — or even a series of smaller policies that take on a greater form in the aggregate — that sought to establish this country as a leader in the world.

If we’re being honest, we’ve typically pursued almost the opposite policy, and deliberately. I’m not saying we’re slavish followers. But this is a country that for generations has been quite comfortable thinking of itself as an overachieving middle power, nestled comfortably in a supporting role for allied countries that do seek to lead. Usually the Americans. Maybe sometimes the British or French. Or something like the UN or NATO. We’ve never claimed to land the hardest punches, or tried to. We’d settle for punching above our weight. We haven’t tried to conquer or command or even compel. In the words of a member of the incumbent government, our aspiration largely maxed out at wishing to convene.

But, of course, as we’re learning these days, Canadian politicians of almost all parties (Maxime Bernier is the only exception I’m aware of) consider the beneficiaries of our trade-distorting supply management system to be the only ones whose interests they always champion:

The most interesting field of international relations, though, and the most germane to what Carney said on Liberation Day, is in the field of trade. Canada definitely likes trade. I’ll even give some credit here to both Liberals and Conservatives. It has been broadly understood that Canada thrives when we have access to markets all over the world. The pursuit of expanded trading relationships has been a bipartisan priority for Liberals and Conservatives alike … so long as it doesn’t cost us anything on the domestic political front.


And yes, I’m talking about dairy. Some other things, too. But mostly the milk and eggs.

Seriously. Scroll up a bit. Look at that big quote I dropped in at the top from Carney. Watch the CTV feed again. Canada is going to pursue a role of leadership in defending liberalized free trade?

Really? Forgive me for squinting. I’m struggling with my middle-aged eyes to find the tiny text appended to Carney’s pledge that notes that “conditions apply”. Because that very same Mark Carney has already gone out of his way to say that protecting Canada’s supply-managed dairy and egg producers is an absolute, unbendable priority for him and his party.

So yes. Let’s all pledge ourselves to a new era of Canadian leadership in defence of free trade and unfettered market access, right up until the moment some weirdo foreigner gets it into their pathetic little brain that they should be allowed to sell me a stick of butter. Because that ain’t on, friends. Let’s get our elbows up, and bury them deep into this wheel of filthy xenocheddar.

April 4, 2025

Alberta plays a separate hand

In The Line, Jen Gerson discusses the disconnects between “Team Canada” (such as it is) and Alberta that now have Alberta sending its own delegation to talk to … someone … in Washington DC:

Photo by Jen Gerson, The Line.

Alberta’s periodic bursts of secessionist sentiment operate a little like the aurora that occasionally flash across the prairie sky, in tune with decades-long solar flare cycles. The phenomenon is always fascinating, yet it’s always impossible to know how seriously to take it. It waxes and wanes in line with a number of factors, only some of which can be predicted — oil prices, the partisan stripe of the federal government, and the introduction of new regulations.

We are getting another show, of late, and The Line has responded by commissioning some fresh hot polling numbers to determine just how willing Albertans are to take up U.S. President Donald Trump’s call of becoming the 51st state.

It is not a surprise that this is being talked about again. We appear to be on the verge of a potential fourth term of loathed Liberals — after being all but promised a Conservative one. Trump has declared economic war, and openly undermines our sovereignty. Alberta has elected a premier who seems to be willing to go much further than leaders past to both threaten the federal government, and align herself with Americans. Danielle Smith has made several appearances in conservative American media institutions to argue against tariffs; she also made a public appeal to her Quebec counterpart to create a common front for greater provincial autonomy. This after threatening to form another “Fair Deal” panel if a future federal government doesn’t meet a list of requests.

In the midst of this revived inter-provincial tension, an Alberta delegation has formed, insisting that it will be travelling to the U.S. in coming weeks to meet with members of the Trump administration.

Who are they meeting? Well, they won’t say.

“The response that we’re getting, quite frankly, from the present U.S. administration is very positive. We’ve been advised that the interest in what we’re doing is extremely high, and certainly everything that we’ve seen indicates that this is far from a fool’s errand,” said Jeffrey Rath, an Alberta lawyer leading the delegation, during a press conference last week held just off the lobby of a well-known Calgary hotel. The conference wasn’t well publicized, and it was obscurely signed — if you knew, you knew — and was thus populated by about 80 fellow travellers of the Alberta independence movement.

“We’ve been advised by the people we’re speaking to in the States to not disclose who it is that we’re talking to at this point,” Rath said. But the goal is clear. They’re going to Washington to meet with representatives of the Trump administration to “determine the level of support that the government of the United States would be prepared to provide to an independent Alberta.”

Admittedly, they’re only independent citizens — former Premier Jason Kenney called Rath a “treasonous kook” — though the press conference featured one former Conservative MP, LaVar Payne, and the U.S. delegation will reportedly include former Conservative MP Rob Anders.

March 30, 2025

QotD: FDR, Mackenzie King and Churchill in 1940

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, History, Military, Quotations, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

On May 30th 1940, just after the war cabinet crisis & during the Dunkirk evacuation;

Winston Churchill was informed by the Canadian Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, of more dreadful news.

Roosevelt had no faith in Churchill nor Britain, and wanted Canada to give up on her.

Roosevelt thought that Britain would likely collapse, and Churchill could not be trusted to maintain her struggle.

Rather than appealing to Churchill’s pleas of aid — which were politically impossible then anyway — Roosevelt sought more drastic measures.

A delegation was summoned [from] Canada.

They requested Canada to pester Britain to have the Royal Navy sent across the Atlantic, before Britain’s seemingly-inevitable collapse.

Moreover, they wanted Canada to encourage the other British Dominions to get on board such a plan.

Mackenzie King was mortified. Writing in his diary,

“The United States was seeking to save itself at the expense of Britain. That it was an appeal to the selfishness of the Dominions at the expense of the British Isles. […] I instinctively revolted against such a thought. My reaction was that I would rather die than do aught to save ourselves or any part of this continent at the expense of Britain.”

On the 5th June 1940, Churchill wrote back to Mackenzie King,

“We must be careful not to let the Americans view too complacently prospect of a British collapse, out of which they would get the British Fleet and the guardianship of the British Empire, minus Great Britain. […]

Although President [Roosevelt] is our best friend, no practical help has been forthcoming from the United States as yet.”

Another example of the hell Churchill had to endure — which would have broken every lesser man.

Whilst the United States heroically came to aid Britain and her Empire, the initial relationship between the two great powers was different to what is commonly believed.

(The first key mover that swung Roosevelt into entrusting Churchill to continue the struggle — and as such aid would not be wasted on Britain — was when Churchill ordered the Royal Navy’s Force H to open fire and destroy the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kébir — after Admiral Gensoul had refused the very reasonable offers from Britain, despite Germany and Italy demanding the transference of the French Fleet as part of the armistices.)

Andreas Koreas, Twitter, 2024-12-27.

March 29, 2025

Carney, our unelected PM, announces the end of our generations-long bilateral relationship with the US

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Government, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

As many folks on Twit-, er, I mean X have pointed out, Mark Carney is just a caretaker PM, not having ever been elected to the position, so it’s more than a bit breathtaking that he’s making announcements like this without any mandate from the voters:

Later, we get to vote on whether he made it to the podium

The last Liberal leader promised real change too. Apparently this one uses a different definition.

“It is clear that the United States is no longer a reliable partner,” Mark Carney said after a cabinet meeting on Thursday. “It is possible that with comprehensive negotiations we will be able to restore some trust. But there will be no turning back.”

Uh, sir, you’re sounding kind of categorical —

“The next government — and all that follow — will have a fundamentally different relationship with the United States,” Carney said.

So if I understand correctly, what you’re saying is —

“Coming to terms with this sobering reality is the first step in taking necessary actions to defend our nation,” Carney said. “But it’s only the first step.”

In a career that now stretches back to before many of my readers were born, I’ve covered speeches like this before, of course. Maybe five. Well, two. No, strike that, this was new.

“Over the coming weeks, months, and years we must fundamentally reimagine our economy,” the rookie leader of the Liberal Party of Canada said.

Well, you know, “fundamentally” can mean a lot of things —

“The old relationship we had with the United States, based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over.”

Oh, so you mean fundamentally.

In French, a language that fits this Savile Row man like a hand-carved barrel — it covers the essentials while leaving the odd splinter — Carney did a version of the Doug Ford thing where he asked for a strong mandate to undertake negotiations. Unlike Ford he put no real effort into selling it. Was he being overconfident? Not at all, he said, as every man ever has in response to that question. He still needs to “win every vote,” he insisted.

But it “would be better” to have a large mandate “to have a large, comprehensive negotiation, the most important in our life.” Here he didn’t pause, really, so much as consider the ramifications of what he was saying while the words were still coming out.

“Especially in my life. When I was born the Auto Pact was created.” Which sounds grandiose, sure, but to be fair I believe Carney, who was born in Fort Smith in 1965, was merely asserting correlation, not causality. “And now it’s over.”

Wait, what? The AUTO PACT is over? That’s like saying it’s time to shut the ski operation at Whistler down, if Whistler contributed 11.5% to Canada’s manufacturing GDP. “It’s very serious, this situation,” he concluded, mildly.

Later, some of the early reaction to Carney’s remarks seemed to me to skip too lightly over the plain meaning of the Prime Minister’s words. And yes, it feels odd to call him the Prime Minister. We haven’t yet had a vote on the matter, although I’m told one will be held shortly. But the people in the cabinet room were people Carney had appointed, and the Parliamentary Protective Service let them in, so I guess in a rough-and-ready way, he really is — Anyway. It’s possible Carney’s words meant nothing. Or that he’ll be forced to eat them later. Or that, it being election season, he’ll never get a chance to implement them. In the latter case, the Carney Tariff Scrum of March 2025 would become an item of wonk trivia, like Kim Campbell’s genuinely impressive government reorganization of 1993.

March 15, 2025

Trump’s actual goal in Ukraine

Filed under: Europe, Military, Russia, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

David Friedman posted this a couple of days ago, considering what President Trump’s real goals may be in the Russo-Ukraine conflict:

There are two possible interpretations of Trump’s policy. The pessimistic one is that he plans to give Putin what he wants, force Zelensky to accept peace terms that give Russia substantial amounts of Ukrainian territory and leave Ukraine disarmed and defenseless against future Russian demands. On that theory the clash with Zelensky was a pre-planned drama intended to provide an excuse for the US withdrawing support, make it less obvious that Trump now supports Putin. As of Monday that looked like a plausible reading of the situation.

The optimistic reading was that Trump wanted to force an end to the war on compromise terms, use the withdrawal of support to force Zelensky to agree. Tuesday’s news, Zelensky agreeing to a proposed cease fire and Trump responding by resuming US support for Ukraine, is evidence for that reading. The ball is now in Putin’s court. If he rejects the proposal Trump will be under pressure to continue, perhaps even increase, US support. That is a reason for him not to reject the proposal. My guess is that Putin will agree to a temporary cease fire, at least in principle, although he may haggle over details, try to push for a version more favorable to him.

What Trump wants, on the optimistic interpretation, which I now find likely, is to end the war. To do that he needs to find terms that both sides will accept. Zelensky will not accept terms that amount to surrender — even if the US abandons him, he has the option of continuing the war with increased support from the European powers, now moving to rearm. If they are sufficiently committed to Ukraine or sufficiently annoyed at the US they should be able to replace most, although not all, of what the US has been providing, if necessary with munitions purchased from the US; it is hard to imagine even Trump forbidding US arms manufacturers from selling to allies. Ukraine would be worse off than continuing the war with US support but, if Russia is willing to agree to terms Trump approves of and Ukraine is not, that will not be an option.

Putin was, despite American support for Ukraine under the previous administration, winning, although very slowly and at considerable cost. Unless Trump is willing to respond to Russian rejection of his peace plan by greatly increasing US support, which I think unlikely — no boots on the ground nor wings in the air — Putin has the option of returning to that, so will not accept anything much less. That suggests that the most likely terms amount to an extended cease fire. Ukraine does not disarm, Russia does not withdraw from territory it is occupying. Both sides stop blowing things up on territory controlled by the other, stop shooting at each other.

Judged by territorial control that is a win for Russia, since it ends up controlling most of what it wanted, the parts of Ukraine occupied by Russian speakers plus the areas that can block the water supply into Crimea, with Ukraine even further from recovering Crimea than before. That might be enough to let Putin present it to his population has a victory sufficient to justify the decision to invade Ukraine.

Seen from the outside, it would be an expensive victory, which might be enough to deter future adventurism or a renewal of the war. To get it, Russia has consumed a large part of the store of military equipment inherited from the Soviet Union, making it less formidable in any future conflict with Ukraine or anyone else. Worse still, the war has driven two neutral powers, both militarily substantial and one of them on the Russian border, into joining NATO. And between Putin and Trump they may have pushed the European powers into finally rearming. The population of the European NATO members is several times that of Russia, their economies as well:

    “It’s striking but it’s true. Right now, 500 million Europeans are begging 300 million Americans for protection from 140 million Russians who have been unable to overcome 50 million Ukrainians for three years.” (Donald Tusk, prime minister of Poland)

What would be the effect of an extended pause in the war on the balance of power between Russia and Ukraine, the prospects for a renewed conflict? Both Russia and Ukraine will be able to rebuild what the war has destroyed; that will be a bigger benefit for Ukraine, since it has lost much more. One of Russia’s advantages in the war was that it not only had more munitions, it could build more, could fire far more shells at Ukrainian forces than Ukraine could fire back. An extended pause will give Ukraine and its allies time to build the factories they need. It will give states not involved in the war, such as South Korea and India, time to build up supplies of armaments and ammunition some of which can be sold to Ukraine when and if the pause ends. It will give US arms firms time to expand for a world where there is increased demand for what they produce.

If the European powers go through with their current talk of greatly increased military expenditure and continue to back Ukraine, there will be much more money bidding for arms on behalf of Ukraine than on behalf of Russia. That could shift the balance when and if the war resumes.

March 9, 2025

Europe’s leaders start talking about rearmament

Filed under: Europe, Government, Military, Russia — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Yet another side-effect of the Trumpening has been a shift in attitude among European leaders on the issue of self-defence and military spending. eugyppius points out that the flashy new media campaign to drum up support for the new position has “borrowed” its design from an unfortunate donor:

For three years we have had war in Ukraine, masterminded on the NATO side by senile warmonger-in-chief Joe Biden. This war included bizarre moments, like direct attacks on German energy infrastructure, and also escalatory brinksmanship, as when Biden authorised long-range missile strikes within Russian territory, and the Russians responded with a not-so-subtle threat of nuclear retaliation. Throughout all of this madness, the Europeans slept, sparing hardly a single thought for their defence. Now that Donald Trump hopes to end the war in Ukraine, however, Continental political leaders are losing their minds. War: not scary at all. Peace: an existential threat.

The first way our leaders hope to dispel the disturbing spectre of peace, is via Ursula von der Leyen’s “ReArm Europe” initiative, which will permit member states to take on billions in debt to fund their rearmament. In this way, the clueless histrionic Brussels juggernaut hopes (in the words of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk) to “join and win the arms race” with Russia, even if (in the words of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung – h/t the incomparable Roger Köppel) we must “avoid for the moment a confrontation with the new Washington”. Becoming a global superpower with a view towards confronting the hated Americans is all about spending and time, you don’t need strategy or a plan or anything like that.

Those of you wondering whether it might be a better idea to rearm first and then set about alienating our powerful geopolitical partners simply lack the Eurotardian vision. These are such serious people, that in the space of a few days they spun up this remarkable logo for their spending programme …

… which obviously portrays the EU member states smearing yellow warpaint on themselves and in no way evokes the most notorious obscene internet image of all time. Nations just do stuff, but the Eurotards cannot even take a shit without bizarre hamfisted branding campaigns.

As I said, these are deeply serious people, and they also speak very seriously, in declarative sentences that don’t mean anything. In a publicity statement, von der Leyen said that these are “extraordinary times” which are a “watershed moment” for Europe and also a “watershed moment for the Ukraine”. Such extraordinary watersheds require “special measures,” such as “peace through strength” and “defence” through “investment”. Top EU diplomat and leading Estonian crazy person Kaja Kallas for her part noted that “We have initiative on the table” and that she’s “looking forward to seeing Europe show unity and resolve”. Perhaps there will also be money in the ReArm Europe programme to outfit Brussels with an arsenal of thesauruses so we do not have to hear the same words all the time.

At Roots & Wings, Frank Furedi says that “Europe Has Just Become A More Dangerous Place” thanks to the shift to “military Keynsianism” where future economic growth is mortgaged to current military spending:

Net Zero image from Jo Nova

Of course, it is still early days, and wise counsel may well prevail over Europe’s jingoistic shift towards a war economy. The justification for opting for military Keynesianism is the supposed threat posed by Russia to European security and the necessity for defending the integrity of Ukraine. However, it is evident to all that even if all the billions earmarked for the defense of Europe are invested wisely it will have little bearing on developments on the battlefields of Ukraine. Converting Germany’s ailing automobile industry to produce military hardware will take years as will the process of transforming Western Europe’s existing security resources into a credible military force.

Just remember that Germany’s railway infrastructure is currently in too poor a state to transfer tanks and other military hardware across the country. Years of obsessing with Net Zero Green ideology have taken their toll on Germany’s once formidable economy.

It is an open secret that Europe has seriously neglected its defence infrastructure. It is also the case that initiatives led by the EU and other European institutions are implemented at a painfully slow pace. The failure of the EU to offer an effective Europe wide response to the Covid pandemic crisis exposed the sorry state of this institutions capacity to deal with an emergency. The EU is good at regulating but not at getting things done. The EU’s regulatory institutions are more interested in regulating than in implementing a complex plan designed to rearm the continent.

Nor is the problem of transforming European defense into a credible force simply an matter to do with military hardware. European armies – Britain and France included – are poorly prepared for a war. The nations of the EU have become estranged from the kind of patriotic values necessary to support a real military engagement with Russia. Keir Starmer’s “coalition of the willing” raises the question of “willing to do what?”. At a time when neither France nor Britain can secure their borders to prevent mass illegal migration their willingness to be willing will be truly tested.

Macron and his colleagues may well be good at acting the role of would-be Napoleon Bonapartes. But these windbags are not in a position seriously affect the outcome of the war in Ukraine. As matters stand only the United States has the resources and the military-technological capacity to significantly influence the outcome of this war.

While all the tough talk emanating from the Brussels Bubble has a distinct performative dimension it is important to take seriously the dangers of unleashing an explosive dynamic that has the potential of quickly escalating and getting out of control. As we head towards a world of increased protectionism and economic conflict there is a danger that European rearmament could inadvertently lead to an arms race. History shows that such a development inevitably has unpredictable consequences.

What’s really concerning about the decision taken by the European Council is not simply its “spend, spend” strategy or its wager on the economic benefits of the arms industry. What is really worrying is that Europe’s leading military hawks lack clarity about the continent’s future direction of travel. Afflicted by the disease of geopolitical illiteracy the leaders of Europe have failed to address the issue of how they can navigate a world where the three dominant powers – America, China, Russia – have a disproportionately strong influence on geopolitical matters.

March 7, 2025

Soviet Invasion of Finland: Winter War 1939-40

Filed under: Europe, History, Military, Russia, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Real Time History
Published 18 Oct 2024

November 1939. Germany and the Soviet Union have conquered Poland, and Germany is at war with France and Britain. Moscow is free to do as it pleases in Eastern Europe and sets its sights on Finland – but the Winter War will be a nasty surprise for Stalin.

Corrections:
02:19 The dot marking Leningrad is about 80km too far east, it’s of course directly at the far eastern end of the Gulf of Finland.
(more…)

March 6, 2025

As Trump’s tariffs begin to bite, Canadians strike back at … King Charles and Wayne Gretzky?

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

As if more evidence were needed that Canadians aren’t well-served by our political leaders, social media personalities and legacy media types are pointing at uninvolved figures to be rounded up as the targets of maple-flavoured Two Minutes’ Hate sessions:

Canada’s latest Emmanuel Goldstein replacement, “The Great One” aka Wayne Gretzky

You can’t have an outburst of nationalism without purity tests coming into play, and two prominent Canadian figures have failed theirs in the court of chattering-class opinion: Wayne Gretzky and King Charles III, of all people.

In recent consecutive days, hilariously, The Globe and Mail‘s website published the following headlines to its online readers’-letters pages: “Wayne Gretzky’s fall from grace is a long time coming”; “Let Wayne Gretzky feel some pain”; and “Wayne Gretzky has always been held in the highest regard … now, he is dead to me”.

Gretzky is friendly with President Trump, you see, which is unacceptable. And if Gretzky isn’t willing to publicly disavow Trump, he should be using his influence to sit Trump down and explain that Canada will never be the 51st state … at which point, presumably, something useful is supposed to happen. It’s never clear what that useful thing would be, beyond a cheap nationalist thrill.

Gretzky’s Yankeeism was confirmed when he served as honorary captain of Team Canada in the final game of the 4 Nations tournament in Boston. (Imagine if he hadn’t served as honorary captain!) He gave the American players a thumbs up — which in any other context would have been considered simple good sportsmanship. He didn’t wear a Team Canada sweater, but rather a suit — which in any other context wouldn’t even have been noticed. He didn’t wear his Order of Canada pin — well, now we’re just grasping at straws.

It’s funny that the same kind of people who have no time for the Crown under normal circumstances (even if they’re not quite out-and-out republicans) are delighted to pile on to any accusations that King Charles isn’t doing … something … to fight off the Bad Orange Man for us:

This brings us to our head of state, and the baffling calls in recent days for him to shake his sceptre toward Washington and declare that Canada shall never never never be the 51st state. If these calls were coming just from anti-monarchists, it would be understandable (though it’s odd to hear them suddenly demanding that the sovereign speak on our behalf). But all kinds of otherwise reasonable people jumped aboard as well, as if this was something the King should self-evidently be doing.

It is self-evidently not what the King should be doing — certainly not before receiving advice from the Canadian prime minister, and probably not at all. Charles’s mother wouldn’t have mouthed off, and I have to wonder if she would have gotten the same criticism were she still alive to see this mess.

Indeed, I think a moment like this is precisely when having an apolitical head of state — maybe even one that doesn’t live here — is most valuable. We have more than enough people, elected and unelected, completely and vocally embroiled in the Trump Tariff Wars, pursuing some combination of national, partisan and personal gain. Isn’t it nice to have precisely the sort of democratic constancy the United States now lacks? You don’t throw away an anchor, however rusty, with a gale on the horizon.

March 4, 2025

FDR – behind closed doors – was as bad as Trump while the Dunkirk evacuation was going on

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, History, Military, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Winston Churchill became prime minister of Britain the same day the Germans launched their attack against France and the Low Countries in May, 1940. The situation went from bad to appalling in very short order as the vaunted French army’s high command crumbled under the stress (even if the soldiers fought bravely in most cases). The British Expeditionary Force retreated with the French mobile forces toward the English Channel, eventually evacuating as many troops as they could from the port of Dunkirk. During this time, Churchill was appealing to the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt for whatever aid he could send.

Postwar histories tended to portray FDR as both benevolent and helpful toward Churchill in this stressful period, but behind closed doors FDR was far less a future ally, as Andreas Koureas explained on Twitter:

More than a year after FDR’s attempt to pry Canada and the Royal Navy away from a “dying” Britain, he and Churchill met onboard HMS Prince of Wales, in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, during the Atlantic Charter Conference. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (left) and Prime Minister Winston Churchill are seated in the foreground. Standing directly behind them are Admiral Ernest J. King, USN; General George C. Marshall, U.S. Army; General Sir John Dill, British Army; Admiral Harold R. Stark, USN; and Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, RN. At far left is Harry Hopkins, talking with W. Averell Harriman.
US Naval Historical Center Photograph #: NH 67209 via Wikimedia Commons.

Ironically, the truth is that in 1940, Roosevelt — behind closed doors — behaved worse than Trump.

On the 20th May 1940, after multiple failed pleas for aid, Churchill wrote to Roosevelt that:

“If members of the present administration were finished and others came in to parley amid the ruins, you must not be blind to the fact that the sole remaining bargaining counter with Germany would be the fleet, and if this country was left by the United States to its fate no one would have the right to blame those then responsible if they made the best terms they could for the surviving inhabitants. Excuse me, Mr. President, putting this nightmare bluntly.”

Roosevelt’s refusal for aid was understandable given the political situation in America. As he told Churchill earlier that month, it wasn’t “wise for that suggestion to be made to the Congress at this moment”.

However, what he did after the 20th May telegram wasn’t.

Not bothering to even reply to Churchill’s warnings, Roosevelt instead sought to get Canada to give up on Britain.

As Roosevelt thought that Britain would likely collapse, and Churchill could not be trusted to maintain the struggle, he summoned a delegation for Canada.

The aim was to get Canada to pester Britain to have the Royal Navy sent across the Atlantic, before Britain’s seemingly-inevitable collapse.

Furthermore, to ensure this, the Americans wanted Canada to encourage the other British Dominions to get on board such a plan, and likewise gang up against Britain.

You can see Mackenzie King’s (PM of Canada) disbelief and horror in his diary,

“The United States was seeking to save itself at the expense of Britain. That it was an appeal to the selfishness of the Dominions at the expense of the British Isles. […] I instinctively revolted against such a thought. My reaction was that I would rather die than do aught to save ourselves or any part of this continent at the expense of Britain.”

King telegrammed Churchill on the 30th May that this was the closed-door political situation across the Atlantic.

Bear in mind, Roosevelt was trying to instigate this during the Dunkirk evacuations.

How Churchill didn’t break knowing the one ally he needed in his darkest hour thought he’d fail, I have no idea.

On the 5th June 1940, Churchill wrote back to Mackenzie King,

“We must be careful not to let the Americans view too complacently prospect of a British collapse, out of which they would get the British Fleet and the guardianship of the British Empire, minus Great Britain. […] Although President [Roosevelt] is our best friend, no practical help has been forthcoming from the United States as yet.”

(The first key mover that swung Roosevelt into entrusting Churchill to continue the struggle — and as such aid would not be wasted on Britain — was when Churchill ordered the Royal Navy’s Force H to open fire and destroy the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kébir — after Admiral Gensoul had refused the very reasonable offers from Britain, despite Germany and Italy demanding the transference of the French Fleet as part of the armistices.)

March 3, 2025

Trump and Zelensky in “the most amazing bilateral meeting and press conference of all time”

Filed under: Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In the free-to-cheapskates portion of his latest post, eugyppius considers the most newsworthy press conference in living memory between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky that went theatrically wrong:

tfw you have no cards.

Since 2022, the Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has been running about the globe in his weird focus-grouped jumpers and combat boots, lecturing all of our parliaments on the unity and mutual interests of Europe, the goodness of democracy, the genocidal evils of Vladimir Putin and the importance of ever more weapons deliveries to his country’s armed forces. In the process, he has become one of the more obnoxious political phenomena in recent memory, and I hope I would be able to see this even if I were firmly convinced that German interests aligned perfectly with Ukrainian interests and that we should do nothing but give the AFU all of our tanks and all of our Taurus missiles and possibly even all of our soldiers to defend our shiny wonderful and deeply liberal European democracy, where we are so free that riot police will bash your head in for protesting Covid restrictions and if you call the wrong cabinet minister a moron the speech crimes battalion will raid your house.

Here in Europe, our political leaders have treated the shouting, remonstrating Zelensky with nothing but egregious reverence, and the man has grown accustomed to his noxious political celebrity. Nothing else can explain the amazing press conference Zelensky and Trump held yesterday, ahead of afternoon plans to sign an agreement concerning Ukraine’s rare-earth minerals. We got to witness nothing less than the near-total meltdown of American and Ukrainian relations, live and in colour. Historians of the Ukraine war will be writing about this press conference for years and decades to come.

The meeting almost didn’t happen at all. Zelensky has been publicly irritated that Trump reversed the American policy of isolating Russia, after the American president opened talks with Vladimir Putin to end the war. Two weeks ago, Trump suggested that Ukraine was at fault for the hostilities, Zelensky said Trump was “living in a [Russian] disinformation space“, and Trump said Zelensky was “a dictator without elections“. Trump’s administration initially planned to cancel Zelensky’s visit to Washington this week, but French President Emmanuel Macron persuaded the Americans to go ahead with it. Imagine how much the man regrets that now. After receiving his verbal beat-down in the Oval Office, Zelensky and the rest of the Ukrainian delegation decamped to the Roosevelt Room, while Trump and his advisers decided that the President of Ukraine “was in no position to negotiate“. White House officials told them to leave before they could even eat lunch.

Foreign relations are typically pounded out in back rooms, out of sight, and that was also the intent here. Somewhere in the midst of the journalists’ questions and Trump’s banter, however, yesterday’s event ceased being a press conference and became at first a subtle unacknowledged negotiation and then a hostile disagreement – one which Zelensky got the worst of.

Mark Steyn examines what was said both before and during the Zelensky-Trump slap fight:

The Beltway rumour is that, on his flight to DC, Zelenskyyyy was telephoned by Victoria Nuland, She-Wolf of the Donbass, plus Susan Rice and Anthony Blinken and advised to get tough with Trump. If true, that’s gotta be the worst episode of “Phone-a-Friend” since the plucky little Ukrainian started playing Who Wants to Be a Billionaire (in Euros)? For all you nuanced diplomatists out there, there is now a rather arcane dispute as to whether Z called the Vice President of the United States a “bitch” or merely interjected “f**king hell”:

    He literally didn’t. He said “suka blyat“, which, like “kurwa mać” in Polish, is an expression of annoyance equivalent to “fucking hell”. Not ideal politics, granted, but not the same.https://t.co/mOgGZN9iwh

    — Ben Sixsmith (@BDSixsmith) March 1, 2025

UPDATE! From Leonid in our comments section:

    If the audio is not altered, it does sound like ‘suka, blyad‘ which is akin to ‘f**king piece of sh*t’. It is not necessarily directed at Vance personally, but I specifically translated this as ‘f**king piece of sh*t’, not ‘f**king hell’ because it can indeed be taken as directed at Vance, too. Obviously, even the milder reading doesn’t absolve Z of being an a**hole.

The Ukrainian ambassador seemed to be the only member of Z’s delegation who grasped how badly things were degenerating: the cameras captured her at one point with her head in her hands. The President booted the guy from the White House and gave the Ukrainian’s lunch to the Oval Office interns. I have always found the American vernacular “oh, the guy totally ate my lunch” incredibly lame, but, if Trump is now proposing to make it literal, I wish he’d started with Keir Starmer. Fortunately, America’s wanker media could be relied upon to agree that, when it comes to Z vs T, “the world” sides with Ukraine.

    World opinion has been swift, loud and mostly unanimous against the childish behavior today of Trump and Vance. The only question now is if other countries realize that the USA they’ve long known, loved and respected is no longer a reliable ally.

    — Aaron Astor (@AstorAaron) February 28, 2025

By “world opinion”, Mr Astor means not China, India, South Africa, Brazil or Saudi Arabia, but the Prime Minister of Luxembourg:

    Luxembourg stands with Ukraine. You are fighting for your freedom and a rules based international order. 🇱🇺🇺🇦

    — Luc Frieden (@LucFrieden) February 28, 2025

From the blissful ignorance of a California congressman:

    My grandfather and the Greatest Generation didn’t fight in World War II to see our country side with murderous thugs like Putin. This is a disgrace. https://t.co/3ZrB8ur2Au

    — Mike Levin (@MikeLevin) February 28, 2025

Er, in your extensive researches into World War Two, did you ever happen to come across a photograph of, say, the Yalta summit?

Churchill, FDR, and Stalin at Yalta

Still, if Luxembourgish prime ministers are going through one of their periodic butch phases, I prefer the words of Mr Frieden’s predecessor, Jacques Poos, who a third-of-a-century back, as Yugoslavia was disintegrating, told the Yanks to butt out and declared “The hour of Europe has come!” He was right, kind of: shortly thereafter, Bosnian Serbs began tying Continental peacekeepers to trees.

Mr Frieden, like many other politicians and geopolitical experts, has failed to grasp the essential dynamic of yesterday’s meeting – which is very simple:

Zelenskyyyy needs Trump far more than Trump needs Zelenskyyyy.

March 2, 2025

The end of the Ukraine narrative

Filed under: Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

On the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, “Captain Benjamin” outlines the last several years of progressive narrative that may have been totally derailed in the Oval Office the other day:

Zelenskyy walked into the Oval Office wearing an outfit that was reminiscent of the uniforms from Star Trek, he was escorted out a few hours later and the entire liberal consensus that has been the guiding narrative of the West for the last three years was a smoking hot mess, as if struck by several Photon Torpedoes from the Starship Enterprise itself.

It’s forgotten now but the Ukraine War was how the Liberal consensus moved on at breakneck pace from the Covid hysteria without ever having to explain why we had hidden from a cold for the previous two years and spent untold billions doing so.

I still remember being in a newsagent and the woman behind the desk told me that Covid was over and Ukraine was the new thing now, that was how quickly it happened, one mass consensus narrative seamlessly replaced another and the show went on.

Until today when show came off the tracks crashed into the buffers and a million Liberal talking heads exploded in unison as the entire narrative which had served as this strange outlet for their repressed jingoistic and nationalist desires was destroyed.

To me there was always something about the Ukraine War that didn’t pass the sniff test, whether it was Hunter Biden’s links to energy companies there, the way in which valid criticisms of the NATO expansion were shouted down, the mysterious blowing up of the Nordstream pipeline that was never explained.

Or the feverish want to protect Ukraine’s borders while European elites operated an unpopular open borders policy themselves, the billions being funnelled in, the tales of Ukrainians buying up yachts and sports cars.

But most clearly fact that the entire Uniparty Party and the chattering classes were in absolute lockstep about what needed to be down and any disagreement or attempt to question the narrative had you dismissed as a traitor or Putinist.

It was all very reminiscent of the groupthink that had swept the world two years previous during Covid, another unquestionable narrative, with the Uniparty in lockstep and anyone who dared to question it smeared as an anti-vaxxer.

I didn’t support Covid as the narrative had more holes than Swiss cheese and the Ukraine narrative has similarly porous texture, but to see the narrative explode so spectacularly was as much as a shock to me as it was to Zelenskyy who found himself in a hole and just kept digging.

At one-point he shocking seeming to delivered a veiled threat to Trump himself: “During war, everybody has problems, even you, but you have a nice ocean and don’t feel now, but you will feel it in the future.”

A comment that really sent the meeting side-ways, as Trump swiftly told Zelenskyy not to tell him what he should feel, leading to the arguments that scuppered the signing of a deal.

And the essence is that Trump wanted to make a deal, he’d been bragging about it to Starmer the day before, he was going to get a great deal, recoup American loses with rare-earth minerals and the EU could save-face by guarding the American mines as a peace keeping force.

It also meant that America wasn’t getting sucked into a Vietnam in the snow.

Trump doesn’t want to be a war-time President, especially a war he doesn’t think is necessary or good for business, Trump wants to usher in an AI Golden Age, send rockets to Mars, and American living standards to the moon; a 21st Century tycoon economy.

He wants peace for Ukraine and Russia as he knows that thousands are senselessly dying every week, and knows his presidency and the country cannot cope with hundreds of Americans coming home in body bags every month.

And so he wanted to make a deal with Zelenskyy, make a deal with Russia, and America gets paid, it’s a crude outcome but its aligned with reality.

But Zelenskyy doesn’t want that, he wants America men and weapons to win the war and make Russia to pay, while the EU have gassed him up to believe this possible because the EU are clinging to this war as a chance to project the veneer of power that they cannot possibly muster domestically due [to] Populist parties eroding their authority at home.

However, as Trump asked Keir to much nervous laughter, can you take on Russia alone?

America knows without them the EU cannot continue this charade, but more than that the Americans are disgusted with the EU, they view them as a drunk Uncle that has run out of goodwill.

How they are suppressing the free-speech of their citizens, failing to protect their own borders, yet grandstanding off the back of the US defence budget?

These are the questions being asked Stateside about the since Trump took office.

While the America people are questioning why are billions of tax dollars being poured into Ukraine as America goes deeper into debt.

Trump wanted to close the chapter with a deal, Zelenskyy wanted to continue a war he cannot win, and as Zelenskyy realised he wasn’t going to drag America deeper into this war he lost control, and in doing so forgot he wasn’t dealing with the Bidens and petulantly disrespected his new would-be patrons, triggering the mother of all blowbacks in the process.

Trump made it clear that what Zelenskyy was asking for was for America to risk World War 3, and Vance made it clear that everyone knew that Zelenskyy was a creature of the old regime, even highlighting how Zelenskyy campaigned against Trump in Ohio, while Trump reiterated that without the America Zelenskyy holds no cards for future negotiations with Russia.

This dose of reality was too much for Zelenskyy and also for the EU who tweeted up a storm in the aftermath pledging to ‘stand’ with Ukraine, only Starmer staying conspicuously silent.

This wasn’t simply a change of policy direction this was the public evisceration of the sacred cow of the waning Liberal Order by the ascendant Populist Insurgency.

Ukraine has functioned as the binding narrative, and in the Oval Office it faced Total Liberal Death, the fragile myth of the rules based international order being violated by Russia Man Bad and being saved by the Liberal Democratic Alliance Good, no further thinking necessary, had functioned as a very effective distraction from the utter failure that Liberalism had turned into domestically while allowing our elites to cos-play as war heroes on the world stage.

This narrative has now been utterly destroyed.

What comes next is still unknown but what we can clearly see is that the Populist Pax Americana will be a very different beast from the Liberal Pax Americana.

As always my friends, thank you for reading I know this is a very polarising issue, so if resonates please like, share and follow, if not please feel free to point out the flaws in my thinking in the comments.

February 21, 2025

“… a sea change in American foreign policy priorities”

Theophilus Chilton on how the markedly changed US foreign policies under Donald Trump are roiling the old certainties of so many western “transnational” elites:

Last Friday, an event occurred which represents a sea change in American foreign policy priorities, but the importance of which may have been missed by many. Vice-President Vance gave a speech at the Munich Security Conference. In this speech, he basically pulled no punches, calling out the various Western European governments for their support for mass immigration, their opposition to free speech, and the erosion of democratic functions within their governments. The speech itself presented a stark contrast between the new American administration and the “leadership” that currently exists in most European countries. It represents a decisive rupture between an American executive which is in the process of refuting the influence of a globalist transnational “elite” over its country and European governments which are still firmly ensconced in that elite’s thrall.

The thing is, Vance was pretty much right about everything he said. Mass immigration, especially that part of it coming from Africa and the Muslim world, is absolutely destroying the social fabric of every European nation as well as dragging down their standards of living toward third world levels. Euro governments, in fact, do absolutely hate freedom of speech and apply strictures that medieval monarchies would never have dreamed of instituting. For all their talk about the importance of democracy and the “threat” to it represented by Trump and his administration, Euro countries make an absolute mockery out of the entire concept. Those European slaves of the globalists can grumble and sit there aghast at Vance’s words, but the simple fact of the matter is that he was right in every way in the criticisms he leveled against them.

After all, these are the people who overturn Romanian elections because actual Romanians voted for the wrong person — all to “defend democracy”. These are the people who ban political parties to “defend democracy”. These are the people who let “migrants” stab little girls to death to “defend democracy”. These are the people who arrest Christians for singing hymns on a public street to “defend democracy”. These are the people who do armed midnight raids and throw people into prison for sharing memes on social media to “defend democracy”. You get the picture. Populism and popular sovereignty are such a threat to these regimes because their democracy is a sham, a foil used to give a pretended legitimacy to globalist policies which are destroying the actual people of these various countries.

For all the breathless hyperventilating about Russia “invading Europe” (which it is in no position to do, LOL), the fact is that there is nothing that the Russians could do to the people of Europe that would be worse than what their own governments already subject them to.

What makes this all the more amusing is the excited “nationalism” we’ve been seeing from the lefties and globalists in several of the countries that have been in the Trump/Vance crosshairs over the past month. A good example would be in Canada, in response to the tariff threats that Trump made to try to push the Canadian government into being a little more proactive about securing their side of the border from the fentanyl and illegal aliens that enter the USA. Watching the Canadian government fall all over itself trying to fake an exuberant pride in their Canadian-ness, even as they continue to turn their country into an Indian colony and treat their own White Canadian population like a bunch of expendable paypigs has been enlightening, to say the least. Obviously, what’s driving the reaction is not a genuine love of country or people, but loyalty to the transnational elite that is piqued at recently being disempowered in the USA.

In all of this, it’s important to remember that the enemies here, the people who deserve our ire and derision, are not the peoples of Canada, the UK, the European countries. It is the transnational clique and their progressive Left hangers-on, the same people who were until very recently doing the exact same things to the American people, too. We need to be very clear that regular, everyday Americans and regular, everyday Frenchmen, Germans, Canadians, Italians, and all the rest are on the same side here. We have the same enemy. The European and other peoples are victims of their own governments, first and foremost. I mean, their own governments are now formally making them eat the bugs as part of their anti-human green agenda, just to give one example.

February 19, 2025

A brief nod to the shade of Missouri Representative James Beauchamp “Champ” Clark

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Government, History, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

I was aware that the greatest Liberal Prime Minister in Canadian history, Sir Wilfred Laurier, had lost an election on the basis of a negotiated free trade deal with the United States, but I was not aware of exactly how that happened. Colby Cosh provides the gory details that got Laurier out of office for good:

Funny thing I noticed: Friday marked the anniversary of the 20th century’s most remarkable explosion in Canadian-American relations, which took place on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1911. On that day, Feb. 14, Missouri Democratic congressman James Beauchamp “Champ” Clark gave a short speech in defence of a free-trade agreement that had been hammered out between the (Republican) Taft administration and Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberal government.

Clark, a progressive and witty westerner who had already been chosen to become Speaker of the House in April, was widely expected to be the Democratic nominee for president in 1912. He was, in other words, a man who counted. And on the floor of the House, he advocated passage of the free-trade deal on grounds that eventually doomed it: namely, that it was a conscious step toward total American absorption of the Dominion of Canada.

When Clark’s remarks hit the newspapers up north — and no news story hit harder between 1900 and the dawn of the Great War — there was a spasm of anti-American and pro-Empire feeling throughout the country. As any schoolbook will tell you, this helped lead to the defeat of Laurier and the ruin of the trade deal in September 1911’s general election. This gaffe is indeed now what Clark is best remembered for, along with his eventual fumbling away of the 1912 presidential nomination to an unassuming professor named Woodrow Wilson.

When I was an undergraduate, we all had to have it explicitly explained to us that back in Edwardian days, the Liberals were the party of free trade, and the Conservatives the great defenders of tariff protection (although Sir John A. had sometimes sought without success to kick-stark “reciprocity” negotiations with the U.S.). Perhaps the most confusing feature of the 1911 controversy to students of today will be Champ Clark’s idea that the U.S. government would want to lower trade barriers to facilitate eventual annexation of Canada, rather than raising them to mutually punitive levels as a matter of crude antagonism.

Between Confederation and Champ’s time, Americans often just assumed as a matter of course that Canada would fall into their laps without any need for aggression or invasion. We northerners would eventually see that the benefits of American citizenship were more valuable than our romantic imperial attachments, and we would come beat down the door. This was certainly Clark’s own idea, and it created no controversy among Americans themselves when he expressed it.

Of course, in Laurier’s day “liberal” meant something closer to the modern sense of “libertarian” than it does to the current incarnation (or shambling corpse) of that party.

February 18, 2025

Trump is a lot of things, but he’s no Neville Chamberlain

Filed under: Europe, History, Politics, Russia, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Tom at The Last Ditch reacts to his European friends’ facile association of Trump’s overtures to Putin with Chamberlain’s ill-fated attempts to appease Hitler:

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain at Heston Aerodrome, waving a copy of the Anglo-German Declaration he had negotiated with Adolf Hitler, 30 September, 1938.
Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe via Wikimedia Commons.

It’s interesting to watch my Continental friends react on their socials to President Trump’s overtures to that monster Putin — the greatest modern example of a real life Bond villain. Their sympathies, like mine, are with plucky Ukraine. Its soldiers, outgunned and outmanned, have fought like lions and their place in history is assured. Toasts will be drunk and songs will be sung, for sure. But they’re losing and not one European power is ready to send in troops. Under Biden the policy of the West was to fight to the last Ukrainian. Trump sees it in more practical terms.

[…]

Trump’s drama, trolling and exaggeration is in the same category. Most people just don’t get it and react to his bluster like that naive articled clerk I once was. Everything he says and does is calculated to find a path to the best achievable outcome. There’s not a virtue-signalling molecule in his body and yet there’s more actual virtue than in his hypocritical critics.

My European friends are comparing Trump to Chamberlain and Putin to Hitler. Europe seems unable to move on from World War II. Every issue is analysed through the historical lens of how they mishandled the rise of the Nazis. As someone once said, all we really learn from history is that we never learn from history.

The hypocrisy here is breathtaking. If his critics were any more ready than him to send in their troops, they’d have the moral high ground over him. They aren’t and (Poland perhaps excepted) they never will be. So whether it’s just or not, Ukraine can’t win. The only people the Germans and French are ready to see die in this war are Ukrainians, Americans and their loyal English-speaking sidekicks — as usual. So they have no moral basis for their maiden auntery

The post-war settlement has expired. Continental Europeans have to meet their long-neglected NATO obligations and stop expecting Uncle Sam (already carrying more debt than the world has assets) to pay for everything.

Putin is evil, yes, but Ukraine is every bit as corrupt as Russia and would add nothing to NATO’s strength. It’s in the right here as a matter of international law and (for what it’s worth in war) morality. But international law is a myth unless the rich nations enforce it by (plausible threat of) military action. Europe is just standing by signalling virtue while breaching sanctions and sending half the military matériels it promises. Meanwhile Ukraine loses men and wealth with no hope of victory. When the last Ukrainian soldier has died or surrendered, what do Europeans think the outcome will be? Ukrainian flags on your socials won’t win it mes amis.

My advice to my Continental chums? They should let the President try to make peace and hold their comments until they see the result. Based on all my years working in Continental Europe, I expect them all to decry the result and pretend their leaders (prepared to sacrifice nothing) would have done better. It’s bullshit. War is hell and has to end eventually. This is not a Hollywood movie. There are no guarantees that the (relatively) good guys will win. If you won’t end it with arms, then jaw jaw is all you have. This man is much better at jaw jaw than you are so shut up and stop assisting the enemy by showing him how divided the West is.

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