With apologies for voicing an opinion rather than linking an external article.
I am of the strong opinion that Remembrance Day had become at best grandstanding, and at worst, completely meaningless. There are phases tossed around like “Lest we Forget” or “Never Again”. But when Russia invaded Ukraine, we have effectively done the opposite (or very nearly).
Sure, we can send ammo so Ukranians can fight back, or host some of their forces for training. But the reality is, we are only marginally involved. We haven’t mobilized. We aren’t on war footing economically.
The root causes are many. But a combination of NATO’s article 5 protection only kicking in if we are attacked (rather than joining an already existing war), and the threat of nuclear retaliation, means we are paralyzed politically.
At a minimum: I would support direct involvement, whether that’s ramping up our own military, deploying specialists, reservists for minesweeping, stationing our own troops (meagre as they are) in Ukraine to directly support the fight. I would actually support much larger actions, including naval blockades or airspace closures but wholly understand that Canada cannot execute those on their own.
We cannot allow genocidal wars to be pressed in the modern world. And we should be doing everything we can about it. Right now, we’re doing barely more than nothing.
Instead of spending billions on a war machine to try to solve a problem … spend billions on peaceful resolutions and negotiations.
And don’t tell me that you can’t, shouldn’t or don’t want to negotiate with Nazis, authoritarians or any other descriptor you use to demonize opponents. You are right, there are nasty, ugly, authoritarian leaders out there … but we still need to create platforms to talk to them to end hostilities.
The old cave man mentality of killing people or figuring out how to kill as many people as possible to make a point or win an argument is completely stupid.
If you invest in war … you will get a war.
If you invest in peace … you will get peace.
Millions died to remind us that war is no answer … yet we forget every year and still try to argue that killing people will solve problems.
@ininewcrow I think the problem is when there is no one on the other side with whom it is possible to engage in reasonable discussion. When the leadership of one side have shown time & time again that they are dishonest, untrustworthy, & not even sufficiently well informed & self aware to know when their cause is struggling, let alone lost.
And when both sides see the other this way, & are unwilling to look at themselves, or to see similarities with the current enemy which might be used as a foundation for peace…
Isn’t that the exact purpose of the UN?
The same body that, despite being members, is being completely ignored by at least half of the combatants in the various shooting wars that are currently in progress.
The same body that the many countries routinely try to discredit or ignore when it’s convenient.
.
I agree that diplomacy should be the way forward, but when aggressors actively ignore and try to subvert the entire process, then unfortunately responding to violence with violence becomes the tool of last resort.
That’s the point I was making … if the world decides to invest in war … chances are high that we will just get war
No one is spending billions on peace and everyone is surprised that there is no peace
You cannot invest in peace without also investing in war. Like someone else said, a country with no military is a country with no negotiating power.
If most of the world invests in peace, and one nation in war you will still get war.
It makes me sad, but people have and probably always will suck.
Reductio ad absurdum (Latin for “reduction to absurdity”), is the form of argument that attempts to establish a claim by showing that the opposite scenario would lead to absurdity or contradiction.
I never said remove all military or dismantle all military altogether … I said stop investing in so much war or so much military corporations and hardware so as to make only war inevitable.
Right now, the world is spending billions upon billions in just war … while only spending a few million on peace … and then everyone wonders why there is so much war.
Ok I see your point and I can concur. However I don’t think my point counts as reductio ad absurdum, as it still stands on its own.
War is the worst form of diplomacy, but can be the only solution if the other party has wholly unacceptable proposals. Given the ultimate choice Ukraine and others have is capitulation or war, what would you have them do? Keep in mind that the last time Ukraine was under Soviet rule, little things like Holodomor happened, so capitulation may not be the life-saving option you’d think it would be.
Everyone likes to refer to history 70 or 80 years ago … but ignore recent history from 10, 20 years ago when military forces were encroaching on Russian borders
I don’t like Russia or its authoritarian government … but Ukraine was a preventable conflict but the world chose instead to start and then act surprised that it happened.
Really? What steps could the international community have used? Which ones that they did use do you think were ineffectual? How do we force sovergien countries to be peaceful when they are beating the drums of war?
So the answer is when someone beats the war drum … to be a bigger war drum?
I’ll keep repeating it … if the world wants to spend money on war, no one should act surprised when war occurs.
Wars are also preventable and if conditions are constantly created to force war, war will always occur.
Everyone can name one or two major corporations or companies that create and build military hardware because billions are spent on them … few can name a company or institution that builds and encourages peace because no one spends money on them … is it any wonder that war is so easily frequent in our world?
When someone starts hitting you what do you do?
Magdump in their chest because I panic and fear for my life. After that, while still shaking, I call ambulance because I feel like I can’t breathe and my blood presure is still rising.
It will take years of therapy to calm me down. Perpetrator’s parents will pay the bills.
Done with you.
This one was actually quite funny.
“Incel who can barely contain his rage, just itching to explain his violence-fantasy at the slightest provocation” describes you quite well as a person. Too bad even reality makes terrible troll bait and the person you tried baiting immediately saw through it. Maybe you’re not as good a troll as I thought?
Anyway, glad I caught this one before I left. Better luck tomorrow, troll friend
How did you end up in a situation where someone is hitting you?
We don’t just exist in a world where people will go around hitting each other … we aren’t Neanderthals, this isn’t a thousands years ago.
If we choose to create and live in a world where hitting each other is the only way to communicate … then you’re right, you just hit back.
There is money to be made on war and the owners of this world enjoy watching people hit each other.
Oh, so you don’t answer questions.
Philosophically, I am very attracted by what you are saying here. It is certainly something to hope for and not to give up on. We cannot completely ignore the evidence of history however.
Are you familiar with the name Neville Chamberlain and the phrase “Peace for our time”? Neville would be applauding your post. Many people believe his desire for peace allowed a lot of war, death, and suffering that could have been avoided.
The real world is complicated. What you want and what you must do are not always the same thing.
The appeasement that led up to WW2 is completely different to anything today.
The world was negotiating with an ultra right wing fanatical political movement that was expansionist with a lot of motivation … a small nation with no natural resources, no fuel and no land area. Coupled with an economy that was destroyed by a previous war and now based all their economy on the military and in expansion to new territory. Not to mention that the western nations supported this fanatical right wing movement at the start … the German war machine was partly funded, supported and assisted by British, American and other European corporations, leaders and even monarchies. Henry Ford is a prime example that supported Nazi Germany and even got an award from Hitler himself … they built Germany’s military trucks leading up to the war … not as Ford but as a newly created company called Opal. International industrial companies, chemical companies, civilian, military, medical and manufacturing companies all lined up to build the German war machine … even as they all knew that Germany was not allowed to build up their military again. Aircraft, ships, military equipment all built inside the most monitored nation in Europe after being blamed by the last war … and the allies turned a blind eye.
Modern Russia has none of these parallels … they don’t have a large enough or modern military (it pales in comparison to the Americans), they have abundant resources and they have more than enough land space. If they had wanted to expand, they would have done it long ago and they would have failed. The only thing the Russians have is nuclear weapons but its a useless weapon because once those are used … everyone loses. Wealthy oligarchs in Russia and everywhere else only have one motivation to not use nuclear weapons … money and finances … they all know that once nuclear weapons start destroying the world, it will take most or all of their imaginary wealth locked up on digital global finances. So everyone on all sides have the greatest motivation to not start nuclear war … greed.
Chamberlain’s appeasement was a false agreement with fascism even when they all knew they were making a deal with the devil who was building an army that everyone knew about (because they were building it with everyone).
Look at the dynamics of the war in Ukraine … Ukraine fights Russia using American funding and resources … without America, there is no war … which means America is fighting a proxy war with Russia. The Americans don’t mind this kind of conflict … they can use their hardware and money and no American lives will be lost … no one cares if Ukrainians die so the war will continue until enough Russians or Ukrainians die … or if America runs out of money.
How many would the Nazis have killed if they weren’t stopped militarily?
Would the Nazis have come to power if the world’s wealthiest individuals, corporations and companies had not supported them or financed them? Check out political movements in the 1920s and 1930s and fascism and Nazism was a fairly acceptable movement at the time.
The Nazi Third Reich didn’t appear in a vacuum or come out of thin air, they were born out of the money and financing of wealthy backers who wanted them in power.
The wealthiest didn’t try to stop them until their pet project got out of hand and out of control.
Everyone likes to talk about who the Nazis ended up becoming … but no one ever likes to discuss where they came from and how they came to power.
You have a point, but how would you stop them from doing that?
All boils down to money and who has control of the majority of it.
If everyone votes for a conservative or far right political party that gives more power to monied interests … eventually the greed will consume everything to the point of small groups of people wanting to control everything and everyone using all means necessary, even war.
To echo OP a bit, negotiate based on what? You can’t just “negotiate” aggression away if you have no leverage. A country with no military has no leverage.
Maybe you’re not a caveman, but plenty of people are, and being pacifists will get us killed.
Then you are bending the argument to extremes … I never said take your gun away to start talking.
In extreme situations when there is no longer any option, fighting may be necessary.
But if the world continually creates situations where everyone is led to only the option of death and war and especially when governments and industries and corporations can only understand that investing billions into a war machine is the only option anyone will consider … then we will only ever see death and destruction.
We’re no different with out mentality a thousand years ago … we just have better weapons now.
Well, I pretty much agree with that, then. NATO guidelines are to spend 2% of GDP on the military, and I think that’s reasonable. I’m certainly not suggesting >25% like some of the more militaristic nations in recent history.
Russia will be spending something on the order of 6% of their GDP on war this year. Obviously their GDP isn’t that high, but neither is their military cost per unit. If NATO were to spend 2% and funnel a fraction of that into Ukraine, the war simply could not be sustained by Russia. The combined GDP of NATO is insane.
However, there’s a caveat-- at some point, Ukraine will run out of soldiers to operate the equipment. Then what?
How many years are we willing to let a continuous conflict go by doing the bare minimum? Is it better to do very little and let a war drag on for years? Unlikely. The only people that benefit then are the arms dealers.
What happens if NATO is deadlocked on intervention because Article 5 is never triggered. Everyone sits around waiting while Russia makes slow gains in a war of attrition? NATO uses their increased funding to buy a bunch of fighter jets that’ll never see combat? We just give up Ukraine?
After a cursory review of available sources, Saudi Arabia appears to be the major country with the highest current military funding by GDP (there are some smaller states as outliers). They are at around 8%. Some projections suggest Russia might hit 10% this year.
For the sake of historical comparison, Nazi Germany was at 10% in 1936, and 75% in 1944. The Soviet Union was 5% in 1936, and 60% in 1944. I have a suspicion that Russia is so committed to winning that they’d be willing to follow those extreme examples. What do we do then? (The US reached 38% during the war.)