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Notes -
Self-Immolation as Civic Nation-Building
To demonize another person, we first have to self-canonize.
Envy and hatred try to pierce our neighbor with a sword, when the blade cannot reach him unless it first passes through our own body.
In recent news of culture-war-as-trade-war, Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney inflicted retaliatory 50% tariffs on many goods traversing the Canada-US border. This will obviously have the effect of scalding his own nation, but both Carney and his countrymen appear to gleefully accept this masochistic act in the hope that the US might also get singed a little bit (75% of Canadians supported a withdrawal from negotiations - negotiations which solely existed in the first place to try and lessen the cost on Canada’s economy). Indeed, the issue appears to be so universally mandated up north that Carney’s nemesis, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, has primarily attacked Carney for… not being antagonistic enough towards the US, particularly in regard to said tariffs. Obviously Poilievre is falling into a classic bear trap tendency of conservatives: fearing the social isolation of a strongly differentiated viewpoint and therefore gradually moulding himself into “Liberals but sensible”. We saw how this played out for the Republican Party from 2008-2016; I wonder if Canada is capable of producing a brash enough figure to fill the crucial life ring role played by Trump, which we now recognize as having been the only solution for the prolonged political life of conservatives in the US.
There is another angle here which is even more fascinating. It is often observed that citizens who despise their own country while at home will become surprisingly patriotic and defensive of their nation when traveling abroad and facing criticisms from foreigners. But there is a stronger, deeper version of this phenomenon: that of a nation which either failed to establish territory in the modern world or which ceased to exist as wars were lost and maps were redrawn. The zealous identity of these “invisible nations” can be seen everywhere from Eastern Europe to Kurdistan to American Indian reservations to the Pacific islands. No flag is raised with more patriotism than those flags which have been erased from the map.
With Canada facing a crisis of existence in its ethnic makeup and self-belief, with its only guiding light being burning resentment toward its big brother, what can save the nation? What can transform a postmodern, puritanical nowhere place into a beloved homeland to be fought for, to be boasted about, to be made great again?
In their recent actions and polling numbers, it appears Canadians already know the answer to these questions. So, in their own mind, they might as well go down swinging.
I feel like 5% of Americans and 95% of Canadians know that there is a current trade war between the two countries. And this bodes very poorly for Canada.
In pretty much every conflict, the winner is the one who fights it with the fewer hardships incurred. In the Civil War, there were gentlemen attending Harvard whose life was barely touched by the war. And meanwhile, essentially the entire student body of the University of Mississippi enlisted and almost all of them were killed or injured.
On the extreme end, the US can destroy the entire Air Force and Navy of Iran, drive their entire economy into ruins, and only spend like 0.2% of GDP to do so with like two dozen casualties.
Which I guess is to make the trite point that Goliath always wins, as long as he doesn't even have to try very hard. The Don Draper meme "I don't even think about you at all", encapsulates the situation perfectly.
I know the US military says this but is it actually true? Is the war currently in a state you'd expect if the Iranian navy and air force are destroyed?
Why doesn't the US head back into its Gulf bases? Or sail into the straits of Hormuz with the fleet and have the 210 civilian ships waiting there head on through off to make more money rather than sit around anxiously?
If the Iranian economy is in ruins then why has the Trump administration switched tactics back to sanctioning/threatening Iran's trading partners. Why a financial D-Day and not a real one?
I fully believe that Iran's warships and fixed-wing warplanes have been destroyed or otherwise rendered inoperable. So what.
I don't remember hearing about Iran having warships worth mentioning before the war. Sinking a few minelayers may deprive Iran of a strategic option they don't currently want (mining the Straits so they are off limits to everyone) but doesn't achieve any US political goals - although it isn't clear if it even does that given that you could probably mine the Straits with rowboats if you wanted to.
The Russia-Ukraine war demonstrates that second world armies facing second world air defences don't fly fixed-wing warplanes in anger, so destroying them doesn't hurt Iran much. Even mid-price reusable drones like the Turkish Byraktar are steering clear of enemy air defences (Ukraine is mostly using them over water) with the proper air war fought using cheap disposable drones and missiles. Iran's behaviour in the current war is consistent with this picture. The Fog of War means I can't be sure whether or not the 5th Fleet base in Bahrain is rekt, but if it is the damage was done by cheap drones.
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