Sunday, February 16, 2025

A Strange Brave New World: The International Relations of Captain America

 I went to see the new Captain America movie last night in Berlin.  It is the Berlin movie festival, but, nope, this movie was not part of it.  The last Marvel movie that had this much international relations was probably Captain America: Civil War [unless one counts Black Panther 2 which had some truly dumb alliance politics] since the focus was on the UN facilitating the Sokovia Accords (another genius move by Thaddeus Ross), so I wanted to apply a bit of ye olde IR analysis to it.

 Before I get to it, just a few notes on seeing the movie here:

  • 3D glasses are a Euro, and I had to ask people to find out where they were--not intuitive at all.
  • the audience was super patient--even more ads than in a North American theater (including one for Bundeswehr recruitment!),  AND it was a lot of credits to get to the post-credit stinger, which was meh.
  • they apparently don't clean between screenings and the previous folks were messy.   

Applying my 30 plus years of IR scholarship after the break so that I don't spoil the movie:

Thursday, February 13, 2025

More Unforced Errors, NATO Edition

The only really surprising things about Trump 2.0 has been its pace and the Musk of it all.  But resegregation efforts at home (the anti-DEI stuff) and selling out Gaza were quite predictable.  Alas, so too is the destruction of NATO and the abandonment of Ukraine.  Let me focus on NATO since, yes, I co-wrote a book on it that may no longer be relevant (still my fave book).

Super unqualified and disqualified SecDef Hegseth made it clear to all at his first international meeting:

“I’m here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States from being the primary guarantor of security in Europe.” US Secretary of Defence, February 12, 2025. Everything changed today.

[image or embed]

— News Eye (@newseye.bsky.social) February 12, 2025 at 7:43 PM

 To be as clear as I can be, there is no stark strategic reality preventing the US from being the primary guarantor of security in Europe.  Sure, the days of US national strategy documents aiming for the US to be able to fight two large conventional wars and do other stuff as well are long gone.  But guaranteeing European security does not require the ability to fight Russia and China at the same time.  It requires the ability to deter both, and that is something quite a bit different.

Going in the wayback machine, for much of the Cold War, especially the 1970s and 1980s, the US's commitment was not to defeat a Soviet invasion (only Tom Clancy's fiction suggested this), but rather that the presence of large numbers of American troops would commit the US to being at war immediately, and that possibility of that war escalating to a nuclear exchange would be sufficient to deter the Soviets.  

And it worked, as far as we can tell--I haven't looked at the Soviet archives or read post-Cold War stuff on this, but we have more recent evidence: that Putin has not engaged in any conventional attacks on NATO countries despite the flow of heaps of arms into Ukraine.  The US strategy has always been to interdict the flow of arms into the conflict zone--that is what bombing and invading Cambodia and Laos were all about.  But Putin has been restrained--that any conventional attack on a NATO ally would quite likely lead to an American response that might then lead to a process that ultimately could get out of control.  

The strategic reality that changed yesterday was not that the US can't do this anymore (indeed, defense spending is going to go up).  No, the strategic reality that changed is that the US is now led by a guy who wants to be a dictator and is far more comfy hanging out with autocrats than being in a club of democrats.  It is a matter of will not, not cannot.  And, yes, this was predictable--I made a bet last year with someone (I forget who) that NATO would not survive Trump 2.0.

Sure, the Europeans should spend more on defense, but the ironic key to collective security was depending on a single actor's credibility, the US, and not really on a collection of countries with their own convoluted dynamics.  NATO credibility/deterrence was based on a single player.  Can Europe provide a similarly convincing deterrent?  As to misquote Kissinger, who picks up the phone when you call Europe?  The statement that came out yesterday was good, but can the Baltics and the Finns and the Poles count on the resolve not just of Germany or France or the UK but on their remaining simultaneously and continuously resolved?   Oh my.  

While Hegseth is making my 3 months in Europe this winter/spring more interesting, I'd rather it not be so.  None of this was necessary.  I keep saying it didn't have to be this way.  So, one element of the tragedy of all of this is that it is entirely optional, despite what Hegseth claimed.  Indeed, the one thing this thing demonstrates is that a government of Bad Faith cannot be a good ally.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Outlandish? Hell Yeah


 I saw this and got a bit miffed:

NEC Director Kevin Hassett on Trump seriously wanting to annex Canada: "When the US was founded, how many states did we have? And how many do we have now? And so, is it outlandish?"

[image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) February 10, 2025 at 5:02 PM

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/
A-map-of-the-historical-territorial-expansion-
of-the-United-States-of-America-
Source_fig1_330787808
This economist is a crappy social scientist.  Yes, the US started with 13 states and is now at 50, so it is not outlandish that it could grow further, adding new states.  Indeed, I have been advocating statehood for the District of Columbia and for Puerto Rico (if the folks there want to do so).  But the context here is, of course, Canada.  I have already discussed the Trump 51st state bullshit, but since economists are spouting dumb things,* it is my duty as a political scientist to remind them that politics is a thing.

First, a quick dance through history and how the US got from 13 to 50 states:

  • A good many states came from the original territory the US got as a result of the Revolutionary War--the way west to Wisconsin, Illinois, Tennessee and Mississippi.
  • Jefferson violated his own principles because the amazing opportunity to buy the Louisana Territory appeared, so the US bought that vast tract of land from France.   This would be the best Greenland analog if not for the fact that Denmark ain't selling or ceding.
  • The US got an even better deal when Spain wanted to get out of Florida (a pretty smart move).
  • Texas.... is a complicated story leading to Six Flags parks (ewwww, I just learned what the sixth flag is).  Settled by Americans, first they tried to be independent, seizing land from Mexico, and then the US defended Texas from Mexico and got most of Texas and some chunks of a few other states as well.  
  • Shortly there after, the US-Mexican war led to the US getting much of Mexico--the southwest US as we know today (if Utah and Nevada count as southwest).
  • Another good deal--US bought Alaska from Russia.
  • And then the conquest of Hawaii

So, much of this was European settlers giving up their claims to the US.  Is the UK going to give up Canada to the US?  Nope, it can't thanks to the UK giving up its claim to Canada (a Canadian historian can tell you better when this happened, but I believe it happened several times).

Of the cases above, the closest that comes to a pre-existing independent country was Texas.  They sought/agreed to annexation because of fear of Mexico if I remember correctly.  Is Canada so scared of Russia that it would rather give up independence?  Um, no.

So, the other model is conquest a la the southwest or Hawaii.  Yes, the US military would defeat the Canadian military in days .... if the US military followed orders to attack Canada. But controlling Canada would be hard--while much of the huge country could be ignored, controlling the cities along the border and, yes, the pipelines, would be tricky.

One of the things that is widely ignored is that most states became states only after having referenda or ratification of the state constitution (Check out this handy guide).  How would such a ratification vote go these days in Canada?  It would fail miserably as most Canadians reject the idea.

What Trump and the economist get wrong is that countries have their own domestic politics.  Being annexed by Trump's US is wildly unpopular in Canada and in Greenland.  Politicians contemplating such a merger would be risking their own careers in a big, big way.  No Canadian politician is going to advocate for merger--not if they want to have a political career in Canada.  Plus it would involve federal-provincial politics and Canada-Indigenous People politics.  Good luck sorting that out.

Oh, and the only way to make it at all imaginable is to turn Canada not into the 51st state but into states 51st-60th (or more).  No way Quebec is going to lose everything it has demanded over the years to join the US.  While one state might upset the balance of things a smidge in the electoral college (if there are ever free and fair elections again), adding 7-8 likely Democratic states is something no Republican would go along with.  

Oh, and, yes, the norms of conquest and selling territories inhabited by people have changed over the years, so the international context is very different.

So, all this 51st state is beyond outlandish.  It is ridiculous, but it will live on because Trump likes to troll people and because ideas enter his depraved, demented skull and then get stuck and mutate.



* To be fair, any person working for Trump is going to be asked to justify the most batshit, the most cruel, the most self-destructive policies, so they are usually quite desperate and have only weak responses.  Of course, no one is forced to work for Trump, so the fact that they are stuck in a crappy position is entirely on them.  My new slogan for Trump 2.0 is "Empathy for Everyone Except Trumpers"





Sunday, February 9, 2025

Second Time As Good As The First

Hertie bear
 I am back in Berlin for the second half of my Humboldt Award-sponsored time at the Hertie School's Center for International SecurityLast year, I was here from mid-February to mid-May.  This time, I am starting a couple of weeks earlier and going until the end of April.  I have successfully cleared the decks as we submitted the two major grant applications and the edited volume is now under review.  So, what will I be doing this year?  Mostly more of the same but more of it with a few key differences:

  • Final stages of production of the book on parliamentary oversight (last year, we were still in the revising and submitting process).
  • Continue interviewing German experts, MoD officials, and military officers for the next book on the relationships between defence agencies and militaries.
  • This time, I am headed to Sweden and Poland to do interviews for this book.  Last year, I went to Finland.
  • I need to write up the case studies from last year--Germany and Finland, while doing a better job this year of keeping up with the new case studies.
  • Get a sense of how Europe is reacting to Trump 2.0.  Last year, I was more focused on how the Europeans were viewing the war in the east.
  • Skiing the Alps.  Last year, I went to Austria for my first real Alp-ine experience.  This year I am headed to Zermatt and the Materhorn.
  • Watch the German election up close.  Last year, there was an EU election.  This year, the stakes are probably more significant.  I keep getting approached at the Saturday street markets by reps of various competing politicians.  I just smile and say, "I don't think I can vote here" and move on.

The Marxist-Leninst Party
steals from Trump?

Olaf Schmidt is scary

The CDU messed up their whole
"choose stability amid the chaos"
thing by bring the AfD alongside for
an anti-immigration vote if
I understand it correctly.

 I am staying in a different place--much nicer, but less convenient.  It requires a 15 minute tram ride rather than a three minute walk to get the the Hertie Center for International Security.  It requires a 20 minute walk to get to the closest gym.  I am probably a 30 minute walk from the fabulous bakery, so the gym may actually help me lose weight rather than just maintain.  It is a very different place than last year--much bigger, in a very stylish building, the average age is much younger. 

the washer is
in a cabinet so it projects
the time left in the cycle
onto the floor
The apartment has been a bit of a mystery as it has very modern appliances, which have non-intuitive controls.  I eventually realized that one turns the hood fan and light on by pulling it out to get to the controls.  The place did come with manuals in German, French, and Italian, so Google Lens has been my friend.  I still haven't figured out how to turn on the under-cabinet lights in the kitchen.  Still, it is a bigger space with a desk, so I can get work done here or at Hertie, and the kitchen sink is actually large enough to hold a pot.

Disappearing controls.





 

 I have pretty thoroughly explored Berlin in previous visits so I will have to figure out which areas I have yet to visit.  As it is my second three-month stint, I will feel less obligated to eat German food and enjoy more of the foreign food that is all around me--Turkish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Georgian, Italian.  I also repped myself at a bunch of Humboldt events last year, so I will not be doing that as much this year.  

And I will still take note of signs that amuse me:




Propaganda means word of mouth?
Best sign for a dentist's office






Sunday, January 26, 2025

Why This Time Will Be Worse

 Jeez, what a week.  And it will only get worse.  It seemed so obvious to me last summer/fall that Trump 2.0 would be worse and that enough people had memories of how bad Trump 1.0 was that enough people would vote against him.  Wishful thinking.  Anyhow, just one item typifies how bad this is and will get: the complete blocking of everything the National Institutes of Health does means cancer patients are already having their treatments stopped.  Trump's first week is already going to kill people who didn't have to die.  So, why will it be worse this time?

  1. Trump is angrier and more resentful this time.  He has always been motivated by greed and grievance, but he is so much more pissed off at having lost four years ago and having to go through very humiliated legal proceedings (even if he didn't get the jail time he so much deserved).  
  2. Trump and those wanting to use his power have had four years to scheme and much of this was done in public--Project 2025 is a checklist that they have been pretty damned faithful to in just one week.  If you want to know what this administration is going to do, skim it.  I assigned pieces to my US foreign policy class, and, yeah, it is a blueprint for doing awful, cruel things.
  3. Trump thinks he has immunity and why not?  The Supreme Court protected him from being prosecuted for January 6th, judges he appointed protected him from the documents stuff, and so on.  I don't think he really was deterred by fear of consequences last time (it was always someone else who has paid for Trump's behavior), but this time, he has the green light.
  4. Speaking of the courts, there will be much forum shopping to make sure the 5th Circuit gets the most important cases, and I think Trump is right that he can count on the Supreme Court to not get in his way.  The Birthright Citizenship case will be an early test--if the Court reinterprets the 14th amendment this time as badly as it did before over the Insurrectionist stuff, then we will know for sure that the Court will be helping Trump make everything worse.
  5. Last time, various actors, such as Canada, used the American political system against Trump.  They threatened and enacted responses to Trump that would hurt key districts and states, forcing their Governors, Senators, and Representatives to put pressure on Trump and to vote against some of the worst stuff.  This time?  Those folks fear Musk and other actors that have lots of money to burn on primary candidates that oppose incumbents who might resist some of the Trump agenda.  As or more importantly, these politicians fear violence.  The pardoning of the J6 criminals sends a clear signal that actors can use violence on Trump's behalf and get away with it.  He has long signaled to his cultists to use violence against his opponents.  Now that he has immunity and is much more willing to pardon those who abet him, we live not in fear of the threat of political violence but we live in the reality of political violence.
  6. Have I mentioned a thoroughly weaponized DoJ and FBI?  Oh my.
  7. The media is not going to help much.  The LA Times and Washington Post have supplicated themselves to Trump's reign.  Social media in the form of Facebook and Twitter are doing Trump's bidding. Mainstream tv news just has no clue about how to handle this stuff.  Last week's SNL was on target--the media will chase every single crazy utterance and largely ignore the real harm Trump is doing to real people, including Trump voters.
  8. Universities and corporations are obeying in advance despite scholars telling them that is the last thing they should do.

Damn, this is bleak.  Where is the hope?  What can we hope for?  MAGA assholes are not the only ones who learned from last time.  There will be plenty of resistance.  The economic pain and the failure of government services might just cause divisions within the MAGA universe.  Countries are not going to bend the knee as much as Trump thinks.  

But Americans are not used to autocracy, and we don't have a good playbook for responding to this stuff.  I will look to the scholars and activists who are building on the experiences of other countries and on the past, where American democracy was pretty limited.

So, this post is just about why things will be worse.  I hope to learn enough over the next few months to have a post on why things might get better.  But I am not in that headspace yet.

 

 


transmission belt

media

Friday, January 24, 2025

Five Percent? What the F?

 I am not going to address everything Trump says every day because that would be a waste of everyone's time.   But this 5% thing needs some discussion.  Trump is now saying NATO countries need to spend the equivalent of 5% of their gross domestic product on defense.  No one, not even the US is anywhere near that (from NATO):


Yes, NATO countries have agreed to use a crappy metric to urge each other to spend more (tis crappy because input measures suck--you can spend a lot and not get a lot of capability--ask the Greeks).  The last summit urged NATO to consider moving from 2% to something a bit higher but not 5%.  This would require NATO countries to double or even triple their spending, and that is not going to happen.

So, what is Trump thinking?  First, he is bad at math, so he may not understand what he is asking for.  Second, every conversation with Trump about NATO indicates that he thinks of it as a protection racket--if countries pay, then nothing bad will happen to them.  He seems not to understand that the 2% or 5% does not go into the US's pockets or into NATO's bank, but that the money is just more money spent in each country on their respective militaries. Third, is he doing this because he thinks it will lead to these countries buying more American military hardware?  Not sure but most of these countries are already standing in line for F-35s, HIMARS artillery systems, and much of the latest tech made in the US.

I think there are two possibilities here:

  1. Trump thinks every deal anyone makes is exploitative, so he is seeking to revise the NATO deal since it must have exploited the US.  Any deal Donald Trump is not involved in is a rip-off.  So, his resentment engine kicks in.  Remember how upset he was at NAFTA?  Canada and Mexico agreed to a new deal that Trump proposed--since Trump was involved, it could not possibly be exploiting his side (even though the new deal didn't really change anything all that much).  
  2. Alternative, Trump is setting up NATO to fail.  There is no way that NATO countries will get to 5% in the next five years, and most won't even promise to do so.  This will give him the pretext to undermine the alliance further and even pull out.  

I was flummoxed long ago why Trump ran against NATO in his 2016 campaign--did this really win votes?  NATO is popular in the US, more popular now than 10 years ago.  But it turns out that being a populist who seeks to undermine all institutions means attacking NATO.  I don't think Trump is doing this because Putin wants him to do so (Putin wants him to do so), but because Trump senses that his base likes him shitting on international organizations.  He's pulled out of the WHO and out of other international agreements, and it is only the first week of his second term.  

One last thing: three things motivate Trump: attention-seeking, greed, and resentment.  This NATO stuff really hits the first and the third--it always gets headlines, and Trump is still pissed off at those shots of leaders mocking him at past NATO summits.  

I have already bet that NATO won't survive a second Trump term.  I think this move to focus on 5% is the start of a campaign to pull the US out.  Folks might say that Congress fixed that with legislation, but Trump is immune, remember?  What laws have constrained him thus far?  

I hope I am wrong about this, but I tend to be better about predicting consequences than predicting elections...



Wednesday, January 22, 2025

My Happy Place

Susan got me this helmet cover so that she
could spot me on the trails.  My coat/ski pants
are pretty generic.  Turns out one other guy
had the same spikes this weekend!
 I was not that clever to organize a ski trip during the time that Trump returned to the White House, but it was a happy accident. I could be blogging about how dire things are, that Trump's first day was so very awful, but I'd rather just think about the weekend.

My sister's guy is renting a place at Whistler for a month, and I was invited to join at a time convenient to me.  Since I am heading off to Berlin at the end of next week for three more months of Humboldt-Hertie fun, this was pretty much the only time I could go.  I was afraid that there would be long lift lines since it was a holiday weekend in the US, but other than no fresh snow, the timing worked out great.

Whistler is definitely my favorite place to ski (although another Eurotrip may challenge that).  It has a wide variety of terrain, there are so many blue cruisers that I didn't manage to do them all in two full days and two half days, the scenery is just amazing even if the trees were not topped with snow, and a pretty swell village at the base.  

This was my fourth time:

  • My first taste of Harmony Ridge
    In 2014, my daughter and I stopped by while she was checking out UBC for her undergraduate studies.  She developed sore shins so she stopped after one run.  I told her to hang out for two hours while I tried as much of Whistler as I could.  That was a great two hours--super blue skies, hardly anybody on the slopes.

 

 

 

  • The wet first day
    In 2016, I gave a talk at UBC on my latest book, Adapting in the Dust, and used that as a chance to get up to Whistler for two days.  It rained/snowed the first day so I only could do the bottom half of Blackcomb.  The second day I learned that I suck at skiing in deep snow.  I did get to the top of Whistler and then proceeded to fall into deep deep snow on the Peak.  I had to then stick to groomed runs.  I should have gotten rental powder skis (a recurring lesson that I have yet to follow).  

 

 

  • Blue Line: Great views,
    super fun challenging blue
    In 2022, my sister crashed my anniversary trip with Mrs. Spew.  The weather was great--blue skies again--and my sister sprung for a lesson for the two of us.  That mostly kept us mid-mountain on Blackcomb one day, and we did the top of Whistler the day before.  At the time, my sister was quite nervous about relatively narrow slops, so she did not love one of my fave runs--Harmony Ridge.  I had one morning by myself to hit slopes I had never skied before--the higher up stuff on Blackcomb.  People had told me Blackcomb was better than Whistler, and I couldn't believe it, given my love for Harmony Ridge and the other fun blue cruisers over there.  And then I did Jersey Cream, and it was the best run.  But then I went higher up on the Glacier lift to do Blue Line and it was the best run ever.  Challenging, steep, a bit narrow in spots, but a fun, fun, long run.  

 

This year, I had a half day, two full days, and a half day.  I took a 6am flight that landed at 9 local time, and then I got a shuttle that got me to the mountain at 12:30.  This gave me time to change (the whistler baggage storage at the Hilton was super helpful and well located), and get on the slopes before the lifts at Harmony and Symphony closed.  I did what was then my fave run--Harmony Ridge.  I then went over to the Symphony area via my now favorite green run--Burnt Stew.  It just had a nice pitch, great views, and I could get into a good rhythm.  It really was a blast to ski.  Indeed, the greens at Whistler/Blackcomb are super fun, making the last ride down the mountain at the end of each day a heap of tiring fun.  I did one of the best named runs--Jeff's Ode to Joy--which was full of joy.  And then as the Symphony lift closes at 2, I took Burnt Stew back to Harmony, skied out to the central part, took a lift up to the Peak and did much of Peak to Creek, a very long, steep run that was a heap of fun.  Not a bad way to start a four day weekeend at Whistler.

I skied with my sister the next 2.5 days--hitting the Whistler on Friday and Sunday and Blackcomb on Saturday.  She's gotten much better, keeping up with me quite well, and being far more comfy with steeper runs.  And my new skis have jets on them--I was flying.  Oh, and we occasionally crossed paths with her guy and his other guests.  

I am now, alas, confused as to which is my favorite part--Whistler or Blackcomb.  Whistler has Burnt Stew and the fun runs off of Harmony and Symphony lifts--Ode to Joy, Adagio, and some fun easy glades.   Blackcomb has heaps of great blue cruisers off of Crystal lift, the awesome runs off of Jersey Cream, and Blue Line, which is just a blast.  I guess I don't have to decide.  The snow could have been better as it was mostly hard pack.  The grooming was excellent.  The only real risk we faced was collision at the end of each day as we threaded the masses of skiers on the runs out of both sides.  Otherwise, despite being a holiday weekend, it really wasn't crowded.  We were able to ski right onto most lifts, and only found a few lines of 5-10 minutes on Sunday.  

I am so glad my sister found skiing again, as she is a great ski buddy.  I won't be skiing with her until next year, probably, but I am sure we will find another few fun days on the snow somewhere.  

I was supposed to ski near Kelowna before my talk at UBC-O, but it didn't work out. That's ok, as I had a heap of fun out west.






 

Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Enough with this Trump Bullshit

 We face a difficult challenge now.  No, not the risk of the US actually invading Canada but how to talk about Trump's demented and depraved bullshit about coercing Canada into become part of the US.  A friend posted this pic on facebook, and it speaks to me because of a picture (slightly inaccurate, sorry, Kaliningrad).  






What should we do about this bullshit?   And, yes, there will be much profanity because all of this is so unnecessary, all of this is bullshit, and it is going to lead to a lot of folks wasting time, energy, and, yes, blog posts.

On the one hand, an invasion and annexation are unlikely.  On the other, I have no doubt that Trump is going to try to extort Canada.  Why is he so miffed at this friendly neighbor?  Because Trump is a greedy narcissist who is increasingly losing his shit.  This didn't come up last time, but last time, he was not as demented and he was not as immune.  

First, a clarification: as a dual citizen, I feel doubly angry about this.  As someone born in the US, I feel betrayed by pretty much everything Trump does, but this in particular as the US and Canada have had a pretty great relationship for quite some time, and it is shameful that the US would now use its power to coerce its friendly neighbor.  Indeed, this is fucking embarrassing to be led by such an asshole.  As a Canadian, well, there is nothing we did to deserve this treatment.  Being bullied sucks, being bullied by a supposed friend sucks worse.  Canadians are not going to line up and support any politician who would go along with this.  Indeed, this is going to be a big test of the right wing politicians and media outlets--if they try to go along with this, it might just prevent the widely expected Conservative landslide victory in the spring.

Ok, as an international relations scholar, this situation is both normal and abnormal.  Going back all the way, yes, the strong do what they want, the weak do what they must, and the power asymmetry here means the US can bully around Canada.  However, the economic interdependence folks will have a point here--any real trade war or worse here will hurt the US.  Trump complains about the trade deficit--what is America buying from Canada?  Oil and electricity.  Canada can turn the lights off in the northern US.  In winter?  Yeah.  As Kelly Greenhill has taught us (among others), weaker states can be imaginative in how they can hurt stronger states.  

This raises a key question: what is the domestic constituency in the US for coercing Canada? Is this what people voted for in November? Is this what the tech broligarchs want?  This bluster has no real force behind it in the sense that there are no audiences clamoring for it other than Elon Musk.  This is just a stray idea that Trump has become obsessed with, so most of our theories of international relations can't really apply.  This isn't about the security interests of the US, this isn't about the economic welfare of the country.  Indeed, this is a great exemplification of the reality of a Trump Presidency--it is never, ever about the national interest.  It is about Trump's own fixations, resentments, and grift.

As a civil-military relations scholar, of course, I am most curious--is this the thing that would cause a mutiny.  Not a coup, I am not saying the military would overthrow Trump.  But would the military follow orders to invade or bomb Canada?  Note that he is only talking about economic coercion, so maybe somewhere in the recesses of his broken mind, he understands that would be an Ambassador Bridge too far.  He speaks only of economic coercion.  

Anyhow, we are outraged.  The question is do we take this literally, seriously, or both?  Because it is now a daily thing with Trump, we can't ignore it.  That sets him apart from the crazed relative you can block on facebook or refuse to invite to Thanksgiving.  People are worried that Canada currently has a prorogued Parliament (which means it won't sit until March), but I am less fussed about that.  The Prime Minister, yes, Justin Trudeau, until he gets replaced by his part, can act without any acts by Parliament.  So, if Trump wants a trade war on January 20th, Canada can respond immediately.  So, yes, we need to take this seriously if not literally.

The big question really is what is the token carrot that Trump can take home and declare that he won this battle of North America?  A bit more spending on the border? Trudeau apologizing for making jokes about Trump at NATO meetings?   Damned if I know.  But it is all about Trump's ego at this point.  There is no real policy substance to this--there is no real grievance that warrants this hostility.

So, I guess I am asking Canadians not to panic but to get ready for some real inflation, just as the Americans will be paying for this trade war with a jump in oil prices and electricity bills and the rest. And, yes, Canadians should mock Trump as much as they can.


PS  No, this would not count as irredentism as there is no lost ethnic kin, no lost territory in the American imagination.  People can try to make it so, but it ain't.

Monday, January 6, 2025

Regrets, I Have A Few

 Today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau finally announced he was stepping down.  In that process, he indicated a regret, and I had a quick take on it:

If I were Trudeau, my biggest regrets would be: 1) not finding a way to undermine or at least challenge the premiers who are doing so much to fuck up Canada--the health care system, the educational system, transit, etc. 2) there is no #2 that comes close

[image or embed]

— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman.bsky.social) January 6, 2025 at 11:26 AM
One of two times I was in the proximity of PMJT

Seriously though, looking back at nearly ten years in office, we can think about what Trudeau did well, what he did poorly, and what opportunities he missed.  To be clear, I am neither a Trudeau lover or hater.  He wasn't bad, he blew some opportunities, but he was probably above the replacement level PM.  And, yes, his value above replacement PM (VARPM) declined over time.  And, no, I am not an expert on  Canadian politics, Canadian public policy, or the history of Canadian PM's.  But I do have lots of opinions and this blog is, of course, by definition half-baked.*

So, what did he do well?

  1. Child tax benefit--a lot of kids were elevated out of poverty.  That is huge and underrated.
  2. He protected Canada from Trump during the first administration--that was no easy task and required a sustained, well-organized effort.  That same kind of effort paid off with the next crisis
  3. Canada did pretty well compared to other democracies during the pandemic.  Canadians didn't have to line up at food banks, and the death rate was far lower than its neighbor's.   People mostly vaccinated, at least the first time.  
  4. This will contradict one of the regrets but the agreement (I'd say coalition but that is a curse word up here) with the NDP led to dental and pharma policies that help fulfill some of the promises of the, um, overrated national health care system (of course, much of the blame for the decline of that system is in the provinces's hands).

What bedeviled Trudeau?

  1. Awful leadership at the provincial level across damn near most of the country.  They subverted the pandemic effort.  They took billions of pandemic relief money and didn't spend it on ventilation or testing but on tax cuts.  The far right wing protests that punished Ottawa and elsewhere were mostly a provincial responsibility, so the emergency Trudeau invoked was less about the provinces not being able to handle the problem but not willing to do so.  
  2. His arrogance.  Most of the scandals and most of the alienation of his own party was the product of Trudeau's own sense of himself.  The scandals were so incredibly .... dumb.  How does one handle the most corrupt company in Canada as it is going through judicial proceedings?  Stay the fuck away.  
  3. The Mideast.  He waffled a great deal in the face of a difficult situation, but he could have stood by the international institutions that have been challenging Israel's war crimes.
  4. Pipeline politics--Canada is really a strange country as it has a diverse economy, but oil plays such a dominant role.  So, the country can't make much progress on climate change, and it impedes reconciliation with the Indigenous peoples of Canada. 
     

  What did he overpromise and underdeliver?

  1. Electoral reform.  This really pissed off those who crossed over from the left.  He could have imposed a system since he had a majority, but having a thin majority (the joy of first past the post turning minorities into majorities) does not really give one much legitimacy to make massive changes to the rules.  I really don't blame him for not making much progress here, as the rules would have been seen as very self-serving.  However, it might have kept the Conservatives from moving too far to the right or punishing them for such moves, so, yeah, not great.
  2. UN stuff.  No, Canada was not back at peacekeeping.  One temporary minimal mission didn't make Canada back, and refusing to extend a bit undermined whatever political capital that was gained.  UN Security Council?  Talk about arrogance--Canada was way late to the process and underprepared.  Trudeau should have waited for a different competition.  Oh, and he should have cleaned up Canada's record not just on peacekeeping but aid money.   
  3. Reconciliation.  Lots of words, some action (fewer Indigenous communities have water advisories), unmet expectations. 

 What are the biggest unforced errors, other than the scandals?

  1. Oh my, the India trip.  Pandering to Sihks and dressing up as a bollywood dancer was not great. Canadian-Indian relations were going to suck anyway because a Hindu nationalist party was never going to get along with a country that gave Sikh Canadians prominent positions.
  2. Keeping a truly awful Defence Minister around because he was politically important.  Whatever tatters Trudeau had in terms of being a feminist prime minister, favoring some votes and some campaign contributions while keeping a Defence Minister who failed to get rid of one chief of defence staff who engaged in sexual misconduct and abuse of power and who then replaced that guy with another who lasted a month ended any seriousness of Trudeau is a 21st century politician.
  3. On the defence file, which is where I have read/heard about the most, the delaying of the defence review and undercommitting to 2% meant that the eventual move got no credit. 

Biggest regrets?

  1. The obvious one: lasting too damned long.  He could have left after the 2021 election (which was called at the wrong time), after the pandemic ebbed, declaring victory over the disease and getting the country through the crisis. What did he accomplish over the past four years besides antagonizing many folks who are tired?  He ended up burning out a bunch of good Liberal politicians while perpetuating his rule. The party is now poorly prepared for the next election.
  2.  The move to cut the federal budget because the Conservatives argued that the spending caused inflation.  No, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the pandemic caused inflation.  Canada had perhaps the second best economic recovery--inflation is down even if prices have not been reduced to the levels before the pandemic (that would require a nasty recession).  Instead, Trudeau decided to fight on the Conservatives' turf and cut spending, which then hurt the military and the rest of government.  Focusing on delivering good government rather than on Conservative priorities would have been the right stance.  As Harris's loss indicates, incumbents were going to wear inflation no matter how well they performed, so one might as well stay true to oneself.
  3. Which leads to the housing crisis.  Again, mostly a provincial problem, but Trudeau allowed it to foster xenophobia--that it was runaway immigration that did, and the way to handle that was to limit student visas?  While the problems of most universities in Canada can be put at the feet of their provincial leaders, the increased dependence on foreign students meant that federal policies on visas have much bigger impacts.  So, this may not be Trudeau's biggest regret, but it may be mine.  

Overall, the Liberals of the past ten years did ok.  Their corruption scandals were modest, their impact on the lives of Canadians were most positive and in some cases very positive.  The Liberals overplayed their hand internationally while accomplishing the most important goal--defending against Trump 1.0.  

Trudeau is not the hero that his fans think he is, but he is also far from the villain that the haters have portrayed him to be.  Ultimately, Trudeau was a pretty good disappointment.   

 

*  I will absolutely miss the Trudeau Administration as I had the best access to those in and near government in my career.  I got an early look at the 2015 Liberal Defence Platform as I trashed an early effort--which led to an ongoing acquaintanceship with a top operative.  I had a mostly twitter friendship with someone who became a Minister, which led to some interesting conversations, including at a party last month in the aftermath of Freeland's departure. I interacted with a defence minister who sought out those who had some civ-mil expertise, which led to her appearing in my class twice and on our podcast. So, yeah, I will miss this government even if I was not really part of a Liberal conspiracy to cancel a retired general.

 

Thursday, January 2, 2025

Addressing the Backlash: Houston, There Really Was a Problem

 One of the consistent tendencies of 2024 was that posts here and conversations elsewhere on online about the Canadian Armed Force's command crisis was the claim that it was really a moral panic, a non-controversy as most of the generals and admirals who had been accused in 2021 were exonerated since then.  One thing I wrote in 2021 was that the opponents to culture change, to addressing the abuses of power and sexual misconduct, had few allies since it was hard to ally with these tainted officers. With the various court cases having been played out with one officer pleading guilty and the rest being found not guilty, the fans of the old ways now are aggressively putting forth the idea that this was all blown up out of nothing.  So, first, I'd like to address this concept of exoneration, then go through the three most important cases, and then conclude with what it means for policy and for Canadian civil-military relations.

First, folks have claimed that the various generals and admirals have been exonerated.  This reminds me of a classic meme:

To exonerate does not mean that a jury could not be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt.  To exonerate means: that there was new evidence that essentially proves that the accused could not be guilty.  From one legal website: "The difference is that just because you were found not guilty [an acquittal] doesn`t mean you were not guilty; it means that the State was unable to find enough evidence to convict you. Whereas, an exoneration means, the court has overturned, and dismissed all charges, based on new evidence."  In none of the cases and especially the top three was there any new evidence that proved that the generals and admirals could not have committed the crimes of which they had been accused.

Instead, what happened was that either investigators or courts ruled that there was not sufficient evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that these individuals (except for one) to convict or further investigate them.  To be clear, that is a high bar and an appropriate one for when one could be jailed.  It should not be the standard for appointment to the highest positions in the military (or the Supreme Court). It also means that if a court can't find someone guilty, that does that mean that there was not sufficient evidence to try to the individual.  In these cases, there were other factors at work that can also cause us to be at least a wary of thinking that these folks were treated unfairly: the well-documented criticisms of the military justice system by a series of reviews including the most recent by former Supreme Court Justice Fish and that it is very hard to try someone decades later.  There is also the canard that women are so willing to make false accusations--when the opposite is true.

Ok, let's get into the three cases, starting with the Mulligan Man--Vice Admiral Hadyn Edmundson.  He had been accused of a variety of forms of sexual misconduct and ultimately rape.  His court case ended with a not guilty verdict.  This was not the clear, decisive vindication that his lawyer suggested, but instead a problem common to many rape cases--of there being no other witnesses or corroborating evidence. This case is important because Edmundson had an established reputation as being problematic on sexual misconduct issues--his nickname of Mulligan Man--when General Jon Vance named him to be the head of personnel.  To put a man with such a tainted past in charge of personnel at a time where the military was supposed to be addressing sexual crisis in the aftermath of the Deschamps Report speaks to Vance's commitment to addressing sexual misconduct.  It also speaks to the failure of then Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan who should have been overseeing such important appointments.  Chief of Military Personnel should be integral to any effort to fight sexual misconduct since recruitment, retention, and promotion are just a wee bit central to damn near everything including making sure that sexual misconduct is disincentivized.  Plus there are the optics.  More on that below.

The second case is Admiral Art McDonald, who made it to the very top of the Canadian Armed Forces, serving one of the briefest terms as Chief of the Defence Staff.  He was accused of sexual assault at a post-exercise party, and the military investigators essentially said: everyone was too drunk at the time to testify.  Maybe that is what Art McDonald considers to be exoneration, but that ain't exoneration.  Of course, McDonald then demonstrated that he was unfit to serve as CDS since he completely misunderstood civilian control of the military when he sent a letter to all of the Canadian admirals and generals claiming he was coming back to command the CAF.  His replacement, General Wayne Eyre had it exactly right: "We must remember that in a democracy the military is subordinate to our duly elected civilian leadership. This fundamental is paramount to our profession." That Sajjan advised the Prime Minister to appoint a man who clearly out of touch with proper civil-military relations and also having this stain in his past is another strike against Sajjan--that the PM should have turfed him after McDonald was suspended.  Rule #1 of Minister-ness--take the blame for big mistakes on behalf of the PM (who should have also done his homework on McDonald).  

Of course, the case that started the cascade is General Jon Vance's.  In multiple comments on my blog, folks have said that I must be some kind of puritan to be upset by Vance's consensual relationship.  These folks cast many aspersions at the primary (but not only) target of Vance's attention: Major Kellie Brennan.  There are many responses to this, and I will focus on two: first, if there was no problem with this relationship, why did Vance seek to obstruct justice by telling Brennan to lie about their relationship?  Second, relationships between superiors and subordinates are fraught, which is one why norms eventually developed against professors having sexual relationships with their students (which do get violated from time to time).  That Vance preyed upon his subordinates at a time where he was supposed to leading the charge against sexual misconduct showed as much about his judgement and his sense of double standards and abuse of power as his appointment of Edmundson to chief of military personnel.  (Some have said that no one was convicted, but the guilty plea is very much the equivalent of a conviction, even if a judge was willing to ignore years of Vance violating his oath when he slapped him on the wrist)

Over the course of Vance's historically long term as CDS, I talked to multiple CAF officers about Operation Honour--the effort to address sexual misconduct in the aftermath of the Deschamps Report.  I repeatedly heard: "yeah, but that's led by Vance ...."  I never got specifics until Mercedes Stephenson broke the story.  The key is this: Vance's reputation, either from his preying upon subordinates or from his promoting an officer who skated past previous accusations of sexual misconduct, undermined the legitimacy of the effort to deal with sexual misconduct.

So, what should we make of those who argue that this is all overwrought?  What are the policy implications of dismissing the 2021 accusations against an entire command cohort?  It suggests we should toss out the reforms, I guess.  That is, rather than having civilian oversight of promotions and rather than having anonymous reviewers for the 360 degree reviews of senior officers, we should go back to the days where those seeking promotion got to pick their reviewers.  Sure, that's a great recipe for an old boys network, but wheres the harm in that?  Oh, these accusations led to a military that is too woke, too concerned with including Canadians who are not the traditional suppliers of personnel to the CAF: women, LGBTQ, religious minorities, immigrants, etc.  So, in a time of a steep personnel crisis, we should not worry about alienating the 70% of the Canadian population that have generally not been the target of recruiters?

From now on, when I hear folks dismissing the seriousness of the 2021 scandals, I will ask them--what reforms do you want to do away with?  And if they come back with the bullshit that there are quotas limiting white dudes from joining or from being promoted, I can walk away knowing that they don't know what they are talking about.

On to civil-military relations, what can we learn from both the "exonerations" and the backlash?  First, efforts to reform military justice need to continue. If people had more faith in the system, then it might serve as a greater deterrent to those who might abuse their positions and it might also serve to reassure people that they have recourse within the system or a pathway outside the system if they face sexual misconduct. Second, we need to have politicians actually care about their responsibilities as stewards of the military.  That Sajjan messed up his job in so many ways and was kept around in that position for months and months afterwards says a lot about how Trudeau viewed his role as the chief civilian in charge of the CAF.  This leads to a third implication: that civilian oversight of the CAF needs to be the job of more than just one person, more than just the Minister's job.  It should be the job of the Department of National Defence.  DND should not just be a supporter of the CAF but an overseer.  The job is way too big for one person, and, no, the parliamentarians don't think it is their job.  

The 2021 scandals were not just the fault of a handful of senior leaders abusing their power--it was also the fault of a broken system of civil-military relations.  Both civilian and military leadership failed the CAF and failed Canada.  The structures at the time facilitated and incentivized this failure.  Some of the structures within the CAF have changed, but, alas, little has changed on the civilian side.  Denying the problems and wishing for a glorious past where abuse of power and inappropriate relationships were seen as the benefits that came with those positions says much about those making those claims and can only lead to yet more crises down the road.