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We know the answer? What is it?
Canada sounds like they’re currently trying to stoke an alliance with China, and the Europeans refuse to invest any money defense, they just keep trying to guilt us into paying for it. Not only that, but their immigration policies have massively destabilized their own countries.
We need strong partners. Denmark and Canada, at this point, aren’t. Canada just struck a deal to buy a bunch of shirty Saab fighter jets instead of massively superior F35s as a way of trying to spite us, the people paying for their defense.
EU defense spending has been growing for 11 years and is now at least at 20 year highs.
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/defence-numbers/
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Donald Trump is an impulsive bully. He thinks grabbing territory is a big-dick move and is thug-brained enough to not grasp the diplomatic consequences. All this talk about polar competition is clumsy rationalization.
(Or, if we want to go fully tinfoil, "I'm going to invade Greenland jk unless..." is a preferable headline to "I'm a pedophile.")
I wonder if the United States government did anything in the past year that might be construed as hostile towards Canada or otherwise make them doubt the integrity of the relationship?
What problem is being solved by antagonizing them? Canada, in particular, could be totally, absolutely useless and the US would still need their cooperation in the arctic. I know people here love the idea that it's all 4d chess to troll US allies into rearmament, but it's not. It's never 4d chess.
I think it was @DaseindustriesLtd who noted that the Trumpist position is that US allies should pay tribute to the US, provide auxiliaries for US military adventures, and also not expect any help from the US. Unsurprisingly, this is not an especially appealing position.
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Yeah, sounds. What's actually happening behind those doors is "oh shit, please we're sorry about our stupid Boomer electorate for fucking up the country, don't go", in a way that simply isn't symmetric for the US (since the Boomers are more likely to support Trump). A lot of the teeth-gnashing about Trump is because the elites in those countries know that, and having the populace angry means they can blame Trump for their own cascade of failures to reinvest in their own countries (and hence, youth) over the last 20 years. Not that Trump makes himself hard to blame, but I digress.
Hence why the only people who want to muster a workable defense against the US are the Boomers in those countries. It's hard to prosecute a war with septuagenarian soliders.
That's also why the Canadians haven't bought the F-35 yet, of course. How long's it been now, 20 years? Dead pilots only cost a few million. Strange, I wonder why nobody wants to join the Air Force now that we've decided we need one? (confused_travolta.gif)
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