Tag: nato

GERMANY AWAKENS

There’s almost nobody left alive today who would remember this from a first-person perspective.

For over eighty years, European security has been guaranteed by the United States.  The continent that had given birth to two world wars, and plenty of others before that, has seen a peace that is virtually unrivalled by any other time in its history.  And as I mentioned, that’s primarily the dividend of having the Americans as a strategic ally.

The enemy is Russia, once known as the Soviet Union, or even the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) as they were once formerly known.  From 1945 until 1991, the Russians were the existential threat, poised as they were to roll right over Western Europe, but held in check by NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) which had the United States as its most powerful member.  During this time, known as the Cold War, the two sides stared each other down over the barricades erected by the Russians, not to keep us out, but to keep their occupied populations in.

Then, in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed upon itself, the victim of its many unsolvable problems, primarily involving Russian incompetence and a general backwardness.  From that point, with Russia a mere rump of its former self, Western Europe, and in fact Eastern Europe as well (formerly members of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact) began to experience e a peace dividend, where money no longer had to be spent in untold billions to manufacture and procure arms with which to defend their sovereignty against the big bad Russian bear.  The bear was off licking its wounds, and Europe thrived as a result of it.

But the Russians never go away.  Never.

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CANADA’S MILITARY PROCUREMENT

What a beating Canada’s military capacity seems to be taking.  And it’s a beating coming at us from our erstwhile friends allies, nations with short memories who ought to know better.

These are important considerations for us to keep in mind as we spend our way to the 2% of GDP threshold we committed to as part of our membership in NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Some European countries question our reliability as an ally if we can’t seem to reach that 2% threshold, which is bonkers.  Canada has a much higher GDP — Gross Domestic Product — than all but three of our European NATO allies, those nations being Germany, France, and the United Kingdom.  The first we defeated in battle (twice), the second we fought to restore their territorial integrity (twice) and the the third we came to the rescue of (twice).

My point is the higher the GDP, the more money on defence spending that 2% represents.  Which means that, despite spending less than that percentage, Canada spends more in real dollars than 26 of our European allies.

So stuff it.

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RUSSIA’S GAMBLE

In most ways, Russia is a difficult nation to understand, as Russians are a difficult people to understand.

At the same time, they can stand astride the apex of the world in the fields of arts, music, sports, even culture, yet be the most despicable collection of louts on the planet.

They know nothing but strength, yet have struggled to attain it and keep it.  They are a geo-political dichotomy, almost as if they can represent the very best, and the very worst of what man-kind can offer.

Plus, they’re just flat-out weird, in a neanderthal type of way.

They are the world’s most paranoid people, and that’s saying a lot.  But they are, and they feel that everyone hates them, one of the few things they can manage to be right about.

If they had a choice between authoritarian government and democracy and freedom, they’d take the authoritarian approach every time, since they don’t have any historical clue as to what the other two things even mean, much less what to do with them.

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RUSSIAN FLEET NEEDS A NEW HOME

I sometimes can’t wrap my head around how breathtakingly stupid the Russians are.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m more than thankful for it, but still, how can a nation that produces so much of the world’s best when it comes to the arts, literature, athletics, and sometimes science, be so knock-down drag em’ out stupid?  Other than cheating.

Usually I make a disclaimer right about now, saying I’m confining my remarks to political Russia, and not to the Russian people.  But saints alive on Christmas Eve, I’m saying flat-out that the whole wagon load of them are face-in-the-back-of-the-head stupid.

It’s what saves us from them.

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PUTIN ADDS NEW THREATS TO AN ALREADY LENGTHY LIST

Good morning everyone, good to see you.  Hope today is the treasure and blessing that all days ought to be for all people.  I wish you the very best.

I’d like to build today’s opinion piece around this carefully considered, deliberately crafted statement that I feel eases me into today’s topic.

Vladimir Putin, aka Russia’s Potato Head dictator, is a world class, five-star, blue-chip, blue-ribbon, card-carrying asshole.  He’s also a BFB, delicately extended to mean “Big F**king Baby.”  I searched the internet to come up with a Russian phrase that would capture the same sentiment and could only come up with Vladimir Putin, so there you go.  It’s built right into their language.

So if I die of polonium poisoning, or if I’m found thrown to death out of a window of my home, or if I blow up in a plane explosion, you can bet it was the Russians.  For the record, I live in a bungalow and rarely fly, so some small degree of comfort there.

President Joe Biden has finally given Ukraine permission to allow long-range American missiles to be used against targets inside Russia itself.  Before they could only be used to blow up things on Ukrainian soil.  But now the gloves are off, and Vlady’s pissed, again.

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