We certainly didn’t fire a barrage of munitions. We haven’t got one. That was Britain, whose rapidly crumbling military can still provide auxiliary actual support. All we sent, you discover in paragraph four of a story that starts misleadingly “Canada was among several allies that provided support to the United States and United Kingdom during their second wave of attacks against Houthi targets in Yemen, the Department of National Defence said Saturday,” is “two planners and one intelligence analyst.” Also known as window dressing.
What’s crucial here, other than the obvious threats to our national security from our navy having virtually no ships while our aging used submarines cannot be used, our army that fielded five divisions in World War II from under 12 million Canadians being unable today to send one regiment into combat and our air force going AWOL, is that we don’t care. We’re no longer surprised, let alone indignant.
No, wait. That’s important but not crucial. What’s crucial is that we live in a world of make-believe, emanating from politics perhaps but resonating with enough voters to survive until push comes to shove. And not just us; in the 2011 Libyan crisis, then-British Prime Minister David Cameron asked where their nearest aircraft carrier was only to be reminded he’d scrapped it in gutting defence to fund welfare, yet assumed it must still be operational because he wanted it.
The people who call us “Strong Secure Engaged,” while realistic about focus group findings, are completely deluded about our actual military situation. They think we are, well, strong, secure, engaged. And we are none of the above, except perhaps secure thanks to Uncle Sam, who will certainly patrol our Arctic if we don’t. Our “Defence Policy” will shape our role in the world by depriving us of one, except as protectorate or victim, because we have no armed forces.
The United States has its own problems, from intellectual to fiscal, slowly but relentlessly sapping their combat capability, including a bizarrely woke military that seems to have employed focus groups to find the exact approach best designed to discourage the dwindling pool of appropriate recruits from applying. But as Adam Smith said, there’s a lot of ruin in a nation.
Washington is still willing and able to defend world order, even as most of their allies insult and annoy them and incline the U.S. public to withdraw into Fortress America instead of wasting blood and treasure on ungrateful foreigners. Like us, who skip joint training exercises because we have nothing to send and nobody to operate it, are distrusted on intelligence and tout inclusion with Bahrain on joint statements as better than nothing, barely. Yet we strut strut strut and talk talk talk.
If we knew it, we would be crimson with shame. And we would try to do something. But we don’t. Instead we think posturing, pontificating, and preening actually are strength, compassion, and commitment.
The politicians aren’t faking it. What you see is what you get. And citizens assume that because we want to be safe, and think we’re safe, we must be safe.
It’s bad. Very bad.
