Define posturing in this context. Most of the beefs I hear about Canada and NATO are just hypocritical slams on Hair Guy from the War Room, so try to filter that junk out.
There’s this obsession in Washington that has propagated throughout the West that somehow, magically, China will decide to invade Taiwan and that the West ought to build up military support to defend against such an attack.
Nevermind that Taiwan is literally one of the most unassailable places in the world: a mountainous jungle island that would require a naval assault larger than D-Day. Nevermind that Taiwan has had almost a century to build up core defenses. Nevermind that Taiwan has mandatory military service and thus has a massive swath of citizens trained in combat. Nevermind that Taiwan is basically unassailable in a direct conflict because of the aforementioned…
Taiwanese culture is strong in China. Taiwan-China trade is massive. Tourism between the two countries is very sizable. Bloodshed would be incredibly unpopular politically because Taiwan is simply not seen as an enemy. A blockade is possible, but impractical given that the goal is still the de facto unification of Taiwan and Mainland China in economy and culture if not in government. Prior to the rise of the DPP and the close alignment of Taiwan (and thus TSMC) to the US, Taiwan and China had maintained a rather amicable relationship and it seemed that a diplomatic solution was on the horizon: with neither side acknowledging the independence of the other, independence was implicitly allowed so long as the economies and cultures remained coupled.
Today? The economic coupling of China and Taiwan is still rather strong. The cultural coupling is even stronger… But diplomatic relations have completely broken down and economic relations have deteriorated. Sanctions on imports of semiconductors have been met by bans of imports of Taiwanese products. Imports of Western weapons have been met by provocative tests of Taiwan’s response times.
Relations between the US (and thus the West) and China have deteriorated precipitously. This context provides the backdrop for the fall of globalization and the rise of multipolarity. As a result, Canada can no longer sit on the sidelines and offer humanitarian aid. Canada cannot afford to focus on a military that orients itself towards peacekeeping and humanitarian aid and engineering because the countries that Canada could help the most are increasingly becoming aligned against the West.
By our own political posturing, we are being tied into a conflict that frankly is silly to even contemplate. We are losing our core and unique military capabilities to become a simple complement to the US while bleeding our top engineers (e.g. those that designed the Bombardier C-Series) to foreign firms. If war does erupt, we have little domestic R&D capacity to exploit, but if war does not happen we lack the resources to project soft power because of how tightly coupled we are with NATO.
Define posturing in this context. Most of the beefs I hear about Canada and NATO are just hypocritical slams on Hair Guy from the War Room, so try to filter that junk out.
There’s this obsession in Washington that has propagated throughout the West that somehow, magically, China will decide to invade Taiwan and that the West ought to build up military support to defend against such an attack.
Nevermind that Taiwan is literally one of the most unassailable places in the world: a mountainous jungle island that would require a naval assault larger than D-Day. Nevermind that Taiwan has had almost a century to build up core defenses. Nevermind that Taiwan has mandatory military service and thus has a massive swath of citizens trained in combat. Nevermind that Taiwan is basically unassailable in a direct conflict because of the aforementioned…
Taiwanese culture is strong in China. Taiwan-China trade is massive. Tourism between the two countries is very sizable. Bloodshed would be incredibly unpopular politically because Taiwan is simply not seen as an enemy. A blockade is possible, but impractical given that the goal is still the de facto unification of Taiwan and Mainland China in economy and culture if not in government. Prior to the rise of the DPP and the close alignment of Taiwan (and thus TSMC) to the US, Taiwan and China had maintained a rather amicable relationship and it seemed that a diplomatic solution was on the horizon: with neither side acknowledging the independence of the other, independence was implicitly allowed so long as the economies and cultures remained coupled.
Today? The economic coupling of China and Taiwan is still rather strong. The cultural coupling is even stronger… But diplomatic relations have completely broken down and economic relations have deteriorated. Sanctions on imports of semiconductors have been met by bans of imports of Taiwanese products. Imports of Western weapons have been met by provocative tests of Taiwan’s response times.
Relations between the US (and thus the West) and China have deteriorated precipitously. This context provides the backdrop for the fall of globalization and the rise of multipolarity. As a result, Canada can no longer sit on the sidelines and offer humanitarian aid. Canada cannot afford to focus on a military that orients itself towards peacekeeping and humanitarian aid and engineering because the countries that Canada could help the most are increasingly becoming aligned against the West.
By our own political posturing, we are being tied into a conflict that frankly is silly to even contemplate. We are losing our core and unique military capabilities to become a simple complement to the US while bleeding our top engineers (e.g. those that designed the Bombardier C-Series) to foreign firms. If war does erupt, we have little domestic R&D capacity to exploit, but if war does not happen we lack the resources to project soft power because of how tightly coupled we are with NATO.