Yet More Guns, More Butter

 Heaps of baking today as I spent yesterday at the Diefenbunker, learning more about the Cold War and Canada's role in it.  So, two more episodes of Guns and Butter:

Cream cheese as a central ingredient was a focus today for these recipes, while I talked about the spat between the Democratic officeholders who had served in the military or CIA and Trump over illegal orders. 

• 

  Cinnamon roll 
  blondies

  Cookies and cream cookies 
• Cinnamon roll blondies 
  
• Sparkle sugar cookies.  I just dropped the almond extract since I don't want to trigger any allergies. 
• Maple cinnamon star cookies.  These are not quite done since Sally says they should be frozen before the last step of dipping into melted white chocolate.  So, that will have to wait until just before the delivery date. 

I did a second Guns and Butter reel to talk about the aforementioned dipping challenge, the difficulty of rollout cookies requiring a consistent thickness of dough, and, yes, stupid ways to think about burden-sharing. 

A Hidden Part of Professing: Assessing

 I was talking to someone recently, and I said something about the quality of someone else's argument, I guess, and this person joked that I was being snobby, that I was judging someone else's ideas.  And it made me realize, as much as our job of professing is to generate ideas and share them far and wide, a huge hunk of what we do is judging the ideas and arguments of others.  

It starts with, alas, yes, the literature review.  In damn near every academic publication, after we get through the intro, we start by evaluating the state of the field--what the relevant ideas and arguments are, where they fall short, so that we can show where our contribution is supposed to fit in.  Indeed, I used to joke that grad students are first trained in how to destroy and that the hard part of creating awaits them after comprehensive exams where again much of the effort is in criticizing.

Once we finish our phd and get a job, we are asked to assess and assess and assess:

• Grading: in ye olde days, I don't think we called the assignments assessments or assessment opportunities, but we evaluate whether the students understand the material, can apply it, have applied it, have done the research, and put together cogent, well-evidenced arguments.  Or whatever the assignment is, we assess it.
• Teaching: not only are we grading, but we are assessing the field's arguments so that we can present the material to the students.  We don't assign them craptastic reading unless we do so to make a point (Clash of Civilizations? Yuck but yeah).   When we present the stuff in our classes, we often assess it along the way or we encourage the students to assess it or both. 
• Reviewing: so much of what we do is reviewing.  
• We review manuscripts submitted to journals and presses--are the arguments original, is the research design appropriate and well executed, are the findings interpreted well, are the implications reasonable. 
• We review job candidate files--is the work interesting and well executed, does the person have potential for more good work, will they be a decent colleague, can they teach,etc.
• We review promotion/tenure files: has this person done enough research to make a contribution?  Do they have a good trajectory? 
• Discussant/Moderator/Commentator:  when we are on panels at conferences, our job is to assess the paper and the presentation, giving our take on the ideas and how they are executed.  
• Media: For those of us who engage traditional media, we are often asked to provide factual answers but much of the time we are asked to weigh in on competing claims, evaluating the competing ideas and those advocating them.

People often talk about the marketplace of ideas.  That analogy has all kinds of problems, but in any market, you have experts evaluating products (markets of stuff create markets of assessors?) which then may affect the demand for and consumption of some ideas.  In the marketplace of ideas, there are those who have much invested in the ideas they are espousing, including jobs, power, income, etc, and those who have much less at stake. We call the latter academics.  Sure, academics can get money through their advocacy of ideas and even power, but most are just doing their usual assessing and not getting much in the way of money or pay for it.  Over my career, I have made very little money doing media stuff--some here and there but not enough to buy me or even rent me--and no, it has not led to power, at least, again, not that much.  I absolutely believe it is important to have disinterested or less biased folks in any marketplace of ideas assessing what is bs, what is based on good science, and so forth.  We may not be listened to as bad ideas often have a greater elective affinity than good ideas.  But we try.  

In all of this, yes, professors are constantly assessing and judging.  It may appear that we are arrogant--that we think we are better than other people.  And certainly that applies, but it is not that we all think we are smarter than other people.  It is that we think we have been trained to make assessments, that we are professional assessors.  We should stick to our lanes of expertise, but, well, some of us (me) tend to drive outside our lanes quite a bit.   

This post is just a rumination of a different way of looking at my job and what I do.  That it is not just about creating knowledge (which always sounded a bit high falutin' to me) but judging ideas and arguments.   

When Episode Themes Get Stretched

 I posted this yesterday--the latest Guns and Butter. The inspiration was that two of the recipes/batches had hidden ingredient--caramel in one, marshmallows in the other.  But the peppermint brownie ones.... didn't really apply.

 

So, I guess I have throw a flag at myself:

 

 And, yes, my blog is one place for me to store the Guns and Butter Reels in case instagram gets funky (which has been lately).  

More Guns and More Butter But Less Threat Inflation

 Today's Guns and Butter Reel features Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies and my discussing threat inflation.  First, yes, I did invest in a phone mount that I can put on my wall so I can have a better angle on my baking.  Second, no, I am not hiring an editor or using any CDSN/CSIDS/NPSIA/SSHRC/MINDS/whatever resources for this.  This is too silly for any government-funded help, even if this does count as "knowledge mobilization" even if the knowledge is often a bit thin.  I am trying to make these shorter since instagram videos and baking videos and their ilk are not long.  So, I realized today that when I am recording a video, there is a small timer on the screen.  And the key is to focus on one topic, one quote, one thing, rather than trying to attack or address something from multiple angles (such as in yesterday's discussion of Jessica Green's book where I invoked both Machiavelli and the classic concentrated pain, diffuse benefits tale).  

I am trying to tie the IR discussion to the thing I am baking.  So, as I stuffed mostly chocolate dough with frozen mini-marshmallows and not overstuffing them while talking about threat inflation.  Why threat inflation?  Because I guest lectured about Arctic security this week.  I am not an Arctic Security expert, but I do call myself an Arctic Security Skeptic™.  So, I discussed how the government of Canada pretty deliberately raised concerns about the Chinese and Russian threats to the Arctic to get the public to support defence spending.  

My take:

•  Russia's Arctic investments are almost entirely due to their feelings of insecurity over their vast Arctic--that there will be far more traffic on their side, that this used to be the one direction that a frequently invaded country didn't have to worry about.  And, as Napoleon said, don't interrupt your adversary when they are making a mistake.  Putting a lot of weapons/bases/etc in the north is mostly a waste of money.
• China's Arctic threat is not military but economic and political--offering to provide internet for Inuit peoples, buying up mining firms, etc.  Not a random balloon or surveillance ship. What the hell is up there to surveil?  
• The US?  Actually, the US is on the right side of the Law of the Sea and Canada is on the wrong side.  The big thing with the US right now is NORAD modernization so I talked a bit about that.
• That threat inflation scares the folks up there, which ain't good.
• What is needed is more infrastructure/support for the peoples of the north so that our sovereignty claims are, ironically, maintained through them, not despite them or around them. 
• Climate change, disinformation, and cyber stuff are the key threats to Canadians in the north and everywhere else, and that stuff is mostly not military (and the military really wants not to do.emergency ops).   

I do think Canada needs to spend more $ on defence because of the threats elsewhere and because of the use of the military as an instrument of, yes, policy.  But not because of little green men invading the high north.

 

Anyhow, more cookie making and more of these reels over the next month as I prepare for the big cookie delivery of winterfest.  As always, baking is joy, cookies are joy, giving cookies is joy, and making videos about IR and baking is also joy, at least for me. 

We Have Liftoff! A Great Overseen or Overlooked Book Launch

 Last night, Carleton's Faculty of Public and Global Affairs held an Authors Meet Readers event at Irene's Pub for the Steve/Phil/Dave book: Overseen or Overlooked--Legislators, Armed Forces and Democratic Accountability.  I gave our origin story--how the book started from a surprising conversation with a Canadian member of parliament who sat on the defence committee.  His lack of information, lack of influence surprised me (not so much Phil) and got us started on this project.  Phil summarized our argument, dodging the invitation to discuss how hard it is to co-author with me.  Justin Massie, from UQAM, served as our discussant/commentator.  He asked great questions as did the audience, which was a good, engaged crowd.

 Our basic message--in most democracies, legislators and legislatures are not doing enough, and Canada's parliament is among the most blissfully ignorant.  Woot! 

Phil presented the argument of the book

Justin asked some very thoughtful questions
that produced an excellent conversation

Required post-event pic

 

You Can Meet Your Heroes: Inclusion Edition

 Last night, I had the privilege of attending the Vimy Gala to watch a truly outstanding person be recognized for a lifetime of making a difference.  Michelle Douglas has spent her life fighting for the inclusion and dignity of LGBTQ2S+ people after being kicked out of the Canadian Armed Forces for being a lesbian back when such folks were purged.  Her lawsuit ended the purge.  I want to share how this all happened and how Michelle did a great job of using her platform as Vimy Award winner to continue her fight.

The Conference on Defence Associations Institute is an interesting organization as the CDA part of it is essentially a combination of all of the veterans associations of Canada, with each one tied to a specifc speciality.  The Institute does some research, much engagement, and public education (and perhaps a smidge of lobbying?) on defence issues.  The CDAI is a partner of the CDSN, and I have been meeting up with its leaders long before the CDSN got going.  The gala is timed to coincide with the days leading up to Remembrance Day, and Vimy is a big hunk of Canadian history/nationalism/identity that someone else can explain better than I.  At each Vimy Gala they give a lifetime achievement award to someone who made a difference in Canadian defence.  Awardees have mostly been generals and admirals with some senior public servants and politicians.  Michelle very much is exceptional in every way including not being any of those folks.  

Gaëlle Rivard Piché is
in her first year as Executive
Director of CDAI and 
a NPSIA PhD!

I was asked to nominate someone as they were looking to get as broad a pool of candidates as possible.  I nominated Michelle with the help of several people: Artur Wilczynski (who did most of the writing of the nomination letter), Charlotte Duval-Lantoine, Luke Schleusener, Stéfanie von Hlatkly, and Jean-Christophe Boucher.  I was asked last night why I nominated her, and the answer was simply: I know of no one else who made such a big difference on the Canadian Armed Forces and beyond.  Her lawsuit and subsequent activism reshaped one's imagination of who can serve in the CAF: anyone, no matter their background, their sexuality, whatever.  As a civ-mil scholar, I can't help but note that militaries are more effective if they reflect the country they seek to defend and if those soldiers/sailors/aviators are included and treated well.  Michelle played a major role in making that happen in Canada.  

 

 

The biggest benefit for me in this process was getting to know Michelle better.  We had several conversations since she learned of the award, so I learned more about her, her history, and, most impressively, her positive attitude towards Canada and the CAF.  You will see below, where I transcribe some of her speech, that she has not turned to hate or resentment for her poor treatment, the upending of her career and her life.  Instead, she has dedicated her life to making things better, and she's still hard at work doing so.  So, yes, you can meet your heroes.

Hanging out with terrific people 
is a key part of the Gala

Michelle's award comes at a key moment in time. The backlash against culture change (efforts to make the CAF more inclusive, especially for women) is on, and, indeed, a previous gala was used by a Vimy Award winner as the platform for an attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion.  Candidates for office in the US and Canada (and elsewhere) have attacked the military as being too woke and have sought to exclude trans people from not just bathrooms but also from the military, from other careers, and, yes, from existence.  So, Michelle's fight is not over, and this speech gave her the chance to not just tell her story but to remind us of the cruelty of the past and the need to fight to keep those policies in the past.

Enough of me, what did Michelle say?  I will just list some of the highlights with some of my reactions:

•  She graduated at the top of her military courses, "my merit was obvious."  Note that those who argue against diversity, equity, and inclusion always falsely suggest there is a tradeoff between merit and efforts to improve diversity and inclusion.  By excluding her and others like her, the CAF was actually not promoting people by merit but discriminating against many qualified people for something that had nothing to do with their ability to shoot a gun, to fly a plane, to steer a ship, or to be an effective leader.
• Her discussion of her time in the Special Investigations Military Police unit which sought to root out espionage, sabotage, and ... homosexuals.  And, yes, this did remind me of Jack Reacher--Michelle is much smaller but also much mightier.
• The purge was not just about the CAF but also the RCMP and the federal public service: "the purge was cruel and traumatizing, was designed to harass us, sometimes criminalize us, institutionalize us, and always diminish us."
• The Canadian Museum for Human Rights: "the LGBT purge was Canada's longest running, largest scale violation of human rights of any workforce in Canadian history."  
• "The losses of the victims and survivors are tragic, the losses to Canada incalculable."
• "These were people who put up their hands to serve."
• "Never was one LGBT spy found. Not one.  The purge must surely be the most costly, least effective police investigation in Canadian history."
• She invoked Frederick Hardy, a gay soldier who died in World War I.  There have always been gays and lesbians and bisexuals and trans people in the armed forces (and in the world)--we just didn't know how many because these people were forced to hide their identities.  It is not that there are more LGBTQ people these days, just that they are freer to be their true selves ... for now.
• Re formal apology by PM Justin Trudeau: "Some say that Canada gives too many apologies, that they are empty gestures, signs of frailty.*  I can say that for those who experienced egregious injustice, having their pain acknowledged and hearing the commitment to change is deeply meaningful and is essential to reconciliation and healing. That formal apology helped many of us move on."
• "For thousands of survivors, justice delayed is still meaningful justice."
• "Ending discrimination by policy does not mean the end of discrimination in practice...."
• "Currently, in Canada and around the world, we see attempts to weaponize and politicize gender not unlike we saw in the past.  The purge should be seen as a cautionary tale."  She cited an international LGBT association: "that the purge should serve as a universal warning ... fear disguised as national security can become a tool to persecute minorities."
• "Supporting diversity isn't about wokeness or weakness, it is about dignity, fairness, respect, and strength."
• "As someone who worked for Canada, served Canada, sometimes criticized Canada, sometimes sued Canada, I have always loved Canada.  Canada is worth fighting for, our values, our democracy are treasured, special. ... So many have sacrificed everything in protection of these values and our democracy."
• "Quitting was not something I learned in the CAF."
• "We are better when we place respect, dignity, justice, and equality at the heart of all we do."
• "As I look around, I know I am not alone.  You think I am dreamer, I am not on the only one."

 Her conclusion with Imagine really hit home.  Michelle is more than a dreamer, she is a doer.  She made a huge difference.  I knew her speech would be terrific (she did talk to me about it ahead of time), and she delivered it so very well. I am guessing the tape will go online at the CDAI website.  It is worth a watch and a listen, as my list here does not do her speech justice.

I didn't do much besides organize a group of people to put her name forward, but still this is and will be one of things I have done that I am proudest of.  Her recognition, like the justice she poke of, is delayed, but very, very much earned.  And the timing is great given the forces at work to unravel what she and others have done.  

 

*  I had to explain to Michelle what subtweeting is.   

 

Still Reeling: Guns And Butter

 Last weekend, I was conferencing, so I am catching up this weekend on the baking.  So, I posted two reels of my baking and IR experiment.  This first focuses on humility and King Arthur apple cider snickerdoodles.  The second one focuses on Venezuela and gingerbread crinkle cookies.

 

Let me know what you think in the comments below or on the reels themselves.   

Cutting Edge Civil-Military Relations Amid the Carnage

 This weekend, I was in Reston, Virginia for my second IUS--the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society.  Founded by one of the biggest names in the earliest civ-mil era, Morris Janowitz, the IUS is the premiere American gathering of civ-mil scholars.  It ultimately led to IUS-Canada and I think the European Research Group on Armed Forces and Society--ERGOMAS--and maybe a few others. Folks were surprised it was only my second, but I started doing civ-mil halfway through my career and it took me a while to figure out the landscape.

And I am glad I did.  The civ-mil community and IUS in particular is just a hive of kindness, generosity, and insight.   Usually, when I go to a conference, I skip more than a few panel sessions as there are often timeslots where there isn't anything that engages me that much.  At IUS, I go to nearly all of the panels I can, and I get a bit frustrated when stuff is cross-scheduled.  This year, there were fewer conflicts in the schedule because, alas, far fewer folks attended.  Many scholars from outside the US were deterred because of Trump's border madness.  Most scholars from American professional military education places--the military academies, war colleges, etc--were either prevented from attending due to the shutdown or Hegseth's anti-academic engagement policies.  Some folks from outside the US and from PME places showed up anyway and brought a heap of insight and, yes, fun.

I participated in two panels--the first where I presented my paper about how joining NATO shaped Swedish and Finnish civil-military relations differently--and the second I will discuss further below.  I had a lot of fave presentations, but a few stick out.  Polina Beliakova of American University is simply one of the sharpest of the next gen of civ-mil scholars.  She presented a devastating bit of work--that many scholars keep citing that 3/4s of democracies have been felled by coups but if you take democracy seriously as more than just elections, that finding goes away.  Specifically, she focuses on a different coding of democracies, focusing not just on elections but on freedoms of press/association/speech and developed civil societies.  This is important because these might be the democratic equivalent of coup-proofing (we study more autocracies and how they coup proof by altering the ethnic balance of the armed forces, by setting up paramilitary organizations, by promoting due to loyalty and not merit, positioning party loyalists [commissars] next to senior military leaders] institutions/strategies dynamics.  Polina showed that if you include those kinds of measures, suddenly most of the places counted as democracies drop out, leaving very, very few (2) democracies being felled by coups.  Which means we need to look elsewhere for what might cause democracy to end.  Insert foreshadowing music here.

The second paper on that panel was by private citizen Lindsay Cohn, who has spent much time myth-busting Posse Comitatus.  She discussed the origins of PC and showed that it did not really reduce the use of US military forces in the US in law enforcement--it just moved it outside of the South.  That is, it was aimed at reducing the enforcement of Reconstruction against the racist people who wanted to deny civil rights to the newly freed Black people.  Her larger point is that using the military domestically is a political problem that the courts will not solve for us. I felt for Lindsay and Polina as both were doing vital myth busting that was compared to killing Zombies--that the arguments they were confronting have been attacked multiple times but are hard to kill.  Kind of like Huntington's stuff that has done a heap of damage both to civilian control of the military and to the study of civ-mil.  I pointed out after the panel that it is not that hard to kill individual Zombies, but it is hard to eradicate the Zombie virus.  

As a Brooksian, I should note that Risa Brooks presented a number of papers that all were super insightful and pushed me to think harder about stuff including one on accountability: 
 

 

 

 

 

 

The Kori Schake book panel was a heap of fun because Heidi Urben and Peter Feaver and Kori know each other well and like to give each other plenty of friendly grief.  Kori's book is a selected history of American civil-military relations (I haven't read it yet as the mail in Canada has been disrupted by strikes and always moves by ox-cart).  Heidi gave an incredibly sharp assessment of what the book adds to our understanding and what the book could have addressed better.  Peter asked a series of questions, many of which Kori claimed where poli sci and she's an historian (her degree is in Poli Sci).  It was just a delightful roundtable that raised a bunch of interesting questions.

The last panel I will highlight was one of the last of the conference: I was on a roundtable on what can we learn about American civ-mil from the comparativists and vice versa.  I was the chair and I started the conversation with a few slides.  I raised the question of whether the US example is relevant for the rest of the world:

Yes:

• Most folks including most militaries still rely on Huntington
• Most militaries want a heap of autonomy and think the civilians are amateurs
• Military effectiveness is hard to measure
• Principal-agency theory applies everywhere, and all militaries hate it despite the fact that they apply it every single day.

No

• The US model doesn't apply everywhere
• 
  It doesn't apply to the US
• I self-promoted by invoking our recent book 

I then suggested that the classic phrase of comparison being the thief joy is wrong. Envy is bad but comparison is joy.

I took inconsistent notes for the rest of the panel (sorry), but some of the key points:

Will the American troops fire on Americans?  Maybe, as it depends on such stuff as the ratio of protestors to troops (the bigger the protests, the less likely troops will fire); non-violence begets a non-violent mil response, is the crowd's composition (ethnic/racial) similar to the troops (maybe best for white folks to do the protesting?).   They also spoke on how Trump/Hegseth are trying to get an obedient military via ethnic stacking (making the military whiter), loyalty tests, counterbalancing by building up ICE, paying the military when no one else is getting paid, etc.

One scholar focused on militia-state relationships--borrowing from Staniland's work--will Trump's regime suppress the far right militias, contain them, collude, or incorporate.  We all voted on incorporating.  They also pointed out that we need to look at beyond the military to the ecology of the security sector--the balance of power among the various actors. Maybe the military will be left out of internal security stuff to marginalize it.  They reminded us that we civ-mil folks tend to ignore the National Guard (as does the regular military), so we need to think about them.  

Another scholar pointed out several lessons/warnings and a question: 

1. to deal with illegal acts is to take it to court, but this is a political problem, courts won’t save us, need political actors to take political steps—dems in Congress
2. how quickly norms can erode, failure of imagination about this regime, envision worst case scenario and then think worse than that
3. we focus so much on norms governing the military, we have not thought much about civilian norms, US case shows when civilians violate norms
4. we have to have correct concepts on the US case—Posse Comitatus for example.  We have to get this stuff straight, duty as a community to ensure that we are not spreading misinformation

Their question: have we lost the thread as a community of civ-mil scholars?  What are civ-mil norms for in democracies?  The norms serve a political outcome, at what point does the military become complicit for the fall of the republic by hiding behind norms?  

Which led to a conversation about what the military should be doing: the senior officers should be talking about what the oath means, that retired officers now have a reason to speak , don't comply in advance, governors should be getting legal advice about their national guard units and tlaking to them.

 The entire weekend was full of insight and camaraderie.  I am not going to say this community is more supportive, kind, and generous because it has more women in it than other parts of International Security, but I am going to imply that it does...  I am lucky to have found this field, mostly by accident. The work is fascinating and relevant, and the people are terrific.  It has made the second half of my career not just more interesting and more successful, but much fun as well.  The only downside is that IUS is biannual, so the next one is in 2027.

   

 

Yet More Social Media? I Am Reeling at the Thought

 Friends have been suggesting that I combine by two obsessions of baking and international relations by recording short videos, where I talk about international security/defence/etc while baking.  The challenge is that baking takes a fair amount of time, so I will have to be succinct and only narrate a part of the baking process.  And, I also will have to get my ideas together ahead of time as I don't want to do much/any video-editing.

 So, here's my second attempt and the first one that I put out into the world: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQAOI1wju1-/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D.

The next question is what to call it.  One person on threads suggested Guns And Butter, and I really like that is no tradeoff in this Reel--we get both baking and international relations stuff.  Half-Baked was also suggested and that goes nicely with the Semi-Spew and the reality that I will not be crafting perfect videos.  Any suggestions for names?

 Right now, I think the topics will be, well, topical--whatever is on my mind as I bake.  

The timing is both good and bad.  Good in that this is prime baking season as I plan to bake pretty much every weekend to create the many, many cookies I will be delivering at the start of Winterfest.  On the other hand, not great timing as I will not be baking next weekend as I will be in the DC area for a civ-mil conference.

And, yes, I am now eyeing the ads I have been fed that feature phone holders so that I can better tape myself mid-bake.  

Anyhow, let me know if you have a suggestion for a name for this thing.  And, yes, I need to go to Social Media Anonymous as I am aware I have a problem.  Since that is next door to Bakers Anonymous, I should be able to squeeze it in. 

Look for more reels of me baking and pontificating at my instragram account or on bluesky account or maybe here as well.  Ciao. 

 

 

NoKings in Ottawa? Sort of.

Canadians are polite, 
but the US Amb is a dick

 Tricky to keep the American name for an event about royalty when, yes, Canada remains a Constitutional monarchy.  Yet no one was too fussed yesterday about calling the protest NoKings.  King Chuck is not that popular here.  They called it No Tyrants in the UK and in other places with more popular kings (Sweden, etc).  Anyhow, I joined the festivities yesterday.  I haven't been to too many protests, and protesting Trump in Canada seems a bit silly.  But given that the US Ambassador to Canada is a relentless dick and that we live in the darkest of times and my vaccine side-effects hadn't kicked in yet, I went downtown to join the protestors.

Despite having no art skills and lousy handwriting, I managed to make a legible sign (at least on one side).  I tried to invoke the spirit of John Oliver on the other side--F.U., Make Me--but it didn't look that good and it didn't fit with most of the positivity of the rest of the signs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perfectly anticipated 
Trump's post last night.

The protest started at 2pm next to the US embassy, and I'd guess there were a couple hundred of us.  We eventually walked around the building and block.  For a while, we were stuck on the next street and it kind of felt like we were protesting the stylish restaurant across the street called Social. The signs were a mix of Canadian nationalism, fraternity with Americans in their time of plight, hate for Trump, and miscellaneous causes.  

We got a lot of cars passing by to honk at us, although Ford F-150s tended not to.  And notably, the pickup. from New York (NY plates) did not seem pleased to see us. 

 

 

The organizers had a weak speaker and didn't really have the best speaking voices, so I didn't listen to them much.  The most popular music of the day was Green Day's American Idiot. 

Canadians do very much feel anger and empathy at this moment in time.  While a defining characteristic of Canadian identity is not being Americans, it really is not an anti-American country.  But it is definitely an anti-Trump country, as the leader of the Conservative Party found out last spring (but continues to forget as he keeps plagiarizing Trump's rhetoric).  

At this moment  in time, Canadians can't do much besides boycott American products and refuse to travel to the US (well, except me, I am headed south for a conference later this week and then to family for Thanksgiving in late November).  So, what they can and did do is march in solidarity.  Again, very positive spirits among the crowd mixed with sadness and anger for all of the unnecessary cruelty and suffering.  Oh, and I don't think Trump is coming back anytime soon, as the protests for that would be ar larger. And he is such a fragile person. 

So, here are some pics I took below.

The walk around the embassy

One of several Star Wars-related signs.

We had a couple of frogs, one unicorn, one baby shark, and a triceratops.

More than a few Epstein references

Some aforementioned Canadian Nationalism.

He ain't wrong.

A common spirit--hey, neighbors, what is wrong with you?
We'd like to go back to our quiet contempt about your health care system 
as well as resentment for your domination of Stanley Cups.

Triceratops.  They might be extinct, but democracy isn't.... yet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Faux Civ-Mil Conflict Can Become Real: Canadian Edition.

 Twice in the past week, I have been asked by the Canadian media about a seeming split between the civilians at the top of the Canadian government and the military.  Last week, it was about how the military seemed to be moving ahead with Golden Dome and the civilians not committing to it.  This week, it is about the military moving ahead to be ready to receive a heap of F-35s while the civilians are still thinking about it.

To be clear this is mostly a comms problem, but politics is about comms and comms shapes politics.  The basic reality on these two things is that the military is doing what it is supposed to be doing--implementing past decisions.  The CAF is modernizing NORAD--the sensors Canada has to warn the US and Canada about incoming attacks--just as successive governments have promised and funded.  The CAF is preparing for the delivery of the first batch of F-35s, which the government of the day (the previous one) purchased.  In both cases, the preparation/work is for both the present day and the future deployments, and if the government changes its mind, then that future stuff will be wasted effort.  BUT the work has to be done and the military is not doing more than it is supposed to be doing.

 The challenge is the civilians are mostly trying to avoid making major decisions or announcing them about the future of Canada's contribution to American missile defense (called Golden Dome by the brand-focused President) and the future of the F-35 program.  Why avoid such announcements?  To not upset voters who wanted a more Elbow's up policy?  To hold onto some bargaining chips vis-a-vis the US?  Or just crappy comms?  That last one seems to be consistent with Liberal defence policy past and present. 

Alas, the media seeks the military seemingly ahead of the civilians and wants to catch them in a conflict.  This might have the impact of the military being less forthcoming when they are essentially doing their job, and that's bad for everyone.  It might also increase distrust between the civilians and the military, which is also not good.  

There are plenty of real civ-mil crises going around or in the future that we don't need to whip one up.  The bigger US-related one is that the military may be reluctant to follow the civilians' preferences of distancing from the US in other ways (see Phil's great piece).  Plus I do wonder how much oversight the new MinDef is doing.  

The larger point remains--the two big procurement projects of the moment (until the subs happen) are not causing tremendous friction between civilians at the top of government and the military... yet.  If the civs cancelled the F-35, then sure.  But the military is not doing anything inappropriate at this moment on these issues.  Sorry.