Canada and Golden Dome: A Trump Trap

Trump is putting his most expensive fantasy into the 51st state bullshit machine.  This is quite predictable, even as the US Ambassador to Canada is doing his best to alienate Canadians by portraying the US as a victim in all of this.  Why is the Golden Dome a trap for Canada?

To be clear, this is no longer about being pro or anti ballistic missile defense.*  Canada didn't join ABM in the early 2000s because George Bush Jr. was violating an international agreement, and Canadian leaders didn't want to be on the side of tearing down the international order.  This meant that NORAD became a difficult place, as the binational arrangement meant that Canada was providing sensor data to the Americans but couldn't be in the room where the defense stuff was being planned/operated.  The political salience of ABM has declined, and the treaty is now mostly dead.  So, it is no longer as much of a constraint on Canadian policy-making, nor does the Canadian public care that much.

But Golden Dome?  Oh my.  I had been suggesting it was a trap before Trump issued his social media blast that it would cost $61b if Canada didn't become a 51st state.  Why is it a trap?  Because Golden Dome is incredibly expensive and, yes, it is a fantasy.  It won't stop the US or Canada from being devastated in a first strike by China or Russia.  It probably won't be able to stop a North Korean attack either, and that has long been the default excuse for missile defense fans when it becomes obvious that their magical thinking hits reality--that a big nuclear power can always get enough nukes through in a first strike.   

But the trap really snaps when the US demands that Canada pays its fair share of this incredibly expensive, doomed to fail project.  Lo and behold, Trump has randomly decided on $61b as the price tag.  Canada has already committed to spending nearly $40b on modernizing its share of NORAD--mostly the sensors that would detect all kinds of attacks coming mostly from across the Arctic.  This is over a long time frame.  Is the Trump demand of $61b over the long run or a payment up front?  Canada and PM Carney can probably convince Trump that their already planned $38b or so is their contribution, that it is new money (Trump can't do math, isn't very aware of anything anyway) aimed at Golden Dome. An additional $20b?  Canada could say that it will be increasing the investment in these sensors by 50% in the long run--we are quite accustomed to cost overruns on major defense projects (see the ships).  In the long run, Trump will be gone and the promise can be broken.

But if Trump wants Canada to spend fast, to spend $61b now?  That is not going to happen.  That would crowd out all of the other defense spending, the stuff that is really needed right now to have a functional military.  Plus Trump is toxic and Carney came to power by promising to resist Trump.  Carney's first statement on this was: we will do what is in our best interests and we will look into this.  So, he is not going to realign Canadian defence spending to satisfy Trump.

One more thing: imagine a world where Trump gets his magic shield, do you think Canadians would be sure that Trump would use it to protect Canada?  No, not with this 51st state bullshit.

So, the trap has been set--Canada is screwed either way. Comply with Trump and distort the economy and the military spending or refuse to comply and kiss NORAD goodbye.  Waiting out Trump and hoping he gets distracted is probably the best bet.  That, or just lie to him while assuring Canadians (say it in French) that we won't be complying. 

* I try to be consistent and spell it defense when it is about the US, defence when it is about Canada, but when it is US-Canadian defense/defence stuff, I just go wherever my fingers tell me.

Anticipating the NATO Summit in The Hague: Ambushes and Canaries

 Today, we held an event at Carleton to discuss the upcoming NATO summit at the The Hague. We were asked by the Dutch Ambassador to do so, and it was our pleasure.  Both the Dutch and Polish ambassadors spoke about what they are hoping for, and the academics, encouraged or baited by me, largely focused on the Trump of it all.

Ambassador Vonno of the Netherlands spoke about the 80 years of freedom as we just passed the anniversary of Canada (and the US) liberating the Netherlands and of the important role of NATO in guaranteeing that freedom.  Ambassador Dzielski of Poland spoke of the Ukraine war and its impact on Poland and the need for NATO to stay steadfast in Europe.  

Amb. Vonno

The three speakers were Frédéric Mérand of the Université de Montréal, Aaron Ettinger of Carleton, and Stéfanie von Hlatky of Queens.  I was originally just the emcee but our moderator, Robert Baines of the NATO Association of Canada couldn't make it.  Each had a lot of sharp things to say.  Frédéric focused on more on the European dynamics, Aaron on the US-Canadian relations, and Stéfanie more on the NATO-ness of it all.  

Key points along the way:

• Frédéric:  
• Europe needs more contingency planning, 
• The French were right--that we can't count on the US.
• Aaron: 

• 

  Amb. Dzielski

  Time is a big factor here--how do we avoid wasting time.  That muddling through is an approach but it might not get us very far.
• Canada should continue to be "boring."
  
• We can't count on Trump being "transactional" as that is too rational.  He reneges on deals all the time. 
• The donut strategy may be what Canada has to do again--focus on everyone else in the US and their interests in/with Canada and not focus on Trump.
  
•  Stéfanie:
• The NATO summiteers will probably be focused less on advancing an agenda and more on protecting past agreements.  Try to keep various initiatives alive.  But Ukraine is probably not going to like the outcome as consensus on that will be very hard to reach.
• Maybe have fewer summits to provide Trump with fewer triggers.   

I mostly just asked questions, but I did chime in here or there, including arguing that Trump is an uncertainty engine and that NATO for so long reduced uncertainty ... until now.   I did discuss how the Europeans hadn't really taken the 51st state thing seriously, but perhaps they mi

ght see us as the canary in the coal mine--that Trump might have some limits to how awful he is.  But if he continues to beat up on Canada, then Europe will know that they have be far warier and be better prepared. The bad news is that canaries in coal mines are often ... dead.  So, Canada might end up paying a huge price before Europe gets serious and united on this stuff.

Finally, Hannah Christensen, who works for us but used to be the key staffer running SFU's NATO Field School (and she often co-runs their podcast), had some concluding remarks.  The big one: she noted that Vance essentially ambushed Europe at the Munich Security Conference, that Trump ambushed Zelensky in the White House, so they might set up a trap at the NATO summit.  Given that I see the 5% discussion to be a pretext to reject NATO, I can't say that Hannah is wrong.  I think she nailed it.  

And that will make for an interesting trip for Stef and me, as we are going to be going to the NATO Expert Forum, which is a side party that happens next to the summit. We have done this a few times before including Warsaw in 2016, Brussels in 2018, and DC last year.  So, look for a blog post or two in late June as we go into very blue rooms and watch as the communique comes out (or not?), specifying what gained consensus.

 

Oh, and the Dutch embassy was very generous with its gifts--orange stuff including chocolate in orange wrapping paper.

If Only the Golden Dome Were Just a Corrupt Grift

 The Golden Dome scheme is going to be such a disaster on so many levels that I am compelled to listicle:

1. It won't work.  That is, there can be no shield blocking all missiles.  So, what's the point?  How many nukes getting through would ruin your day?  The challenge of knocking down hypersonics is huge, and, yes, it is not like the US had solved the problem of shooting down the ballistic missiles of yore.  And, yes, the adversaries would invest in ways to fool the sensors, to evade the counter-fire, or just break the system via cyber attacks or anti-satellite attacks.
2. The good news is that having a partial shield is incredibly destabilizing.  Oh wait, that is bad news.  Deterrence in the nuclear age requires the major players to each have enough forces that can survive a first strike to heaps of   damage to their adversaries.  A partial shield might be handy for blocking someone's second strike--hit the other side first, take out enough of their weapons that their second strike is small enough that the defenses block most of the response.  This strategic situation would encourage each side to pre-empt rather than wait, so that an accident or a false alarm or a crisis might lead to a nuclear war.
3. It will be incredibly expensive.  The estimates are probably way too low, as the adversaries get a vote, and they would be responding imaginatively and intensely.  Which means that the US would then have to invest even more in countering their counter-measures.  Arms races are really, really expensive.  
4. It would be awful for the environment. Lots of space launches burning fuel in the atmosphere, occasional accidents in space creating yet more debris (does that count as an environmental disaster?).
5. It would fuck over Canada in a huge way.  Why?  Because Trump expects Canada to join and then pay how much?  At a time where Canadians detest Trump and find him to be thoroughly unreliable.  Would he protect Canada?  Probably not.  So, Canada is screwed either way.  Participate and spend a shit ton of money on stuff that won't work and won't be used for your defense OR don't participate and face Trump's increased wrath.  Lovely. 
6. What is it with demented Republicans imagining magic space shields? This is the Strategic Defense Initiative all over again.  The billions spent on SDI led to what exactly?  Definitely not a sound nuclear defense system protecting the US.  If you want to argue that it helped spend the Soviet Union into oblivion, who is the Soviet Union now?  And, yes, this President is the same guy who thought stealth planes are as invisible as Wonder Woman's jet.
7. Would divert defense spending from areas where it is needed, like developing local defenses against drones.   

It sucks that there really is not a good solution for replacing mutual assured destruction, but wishing it away through massive defense spending on magical thinking is not the way to go.

 

There Can Be Only One .... Litmus Test

 The friends of Tapper are doing their best to promote his book, even suggesting that the Dems will be evaluated in 2028 based on where they stand on Biden's health during the latter stages of his term.  If only those folks were not so self-interested and perhaps read a smidge of political science, they might not say something so outrageously stupid.  So, first, why this ain't going to be the litmus test and then what will be the litmus test for the Democratic nomination fight in 2028 (if we have free and fair elections*).

What do we know from social science? 

• Voters have short memories.  Did Trump's first term crimes and failures sink his 2024 election run? Nope.  Lots of reasons for that, but partly because people (voters and those who chose not to vote) either forgot how bad it was or discounted because we tend to discount that which is not in our immediate present (we discount both the past and the future).
• Scandals of non-candidates do not matter.  If this is a scandal at all, it is Biden's, and I am pretty sure he isn't running in 2028.  Sure, the media will ask each Democratic nominee about what they thought about Biden four years earlier, but the smart pols can dodge pretty easily.  If this matters at all, it won't hurt the governors or Congresspeople in the race, just those serving in the Biden Administration (Harris, Buttigieg).  
  
• Primaries matter a great deal.  Some might even say they select the nominee.  Are Dems going to outbid each other on who was quickest to realize that Biden was declining and did something about it?  Oh wait, nobody but Pelosi did much about this, and I am pretty sure she isn't running either.  

Speaking of outbidding, what will Dems outbid each other on in 2028?  How about resisting/fighting Trump and his team of far right arsonists?  Remember how much juice Cory Booker got for filibustering for over a day?  Oh wait, the same Cory Booker just voted to confirm the Ambassador appointment of Jared Kushner's dad. You know, the guy who was corrupt AF and even hired a prostitute to set up his brother-in-law.  So, Booker, in one incredibly dumb move, destroyed whatever cred he had.

I don't know who will win (I am bad at predicting outcomes), but I can guarantee you that the focus of the competition will be on who did the most to block the worst that Trump was doing.  Think back to the big nomination battles of yore:

• 1992: many of the Dems who might have run were constrained by voting against the Gulf War, leaving a field wide open for a guy who couldn't take that stand since he was not in the Senate at the time (that would be Bill Clinton for the youngsters, an important Semi-Spew demographic**).
• 2008: the key litmus test was who voted for the invasion of Iraq, helping Obama defeat Hillary.
• 2020: the outbidding was mostly on health care, but the key litmus test ended up being who was thought to have the best chance of defeating Trump.

A reminder to all the pundits: the folks who vote in primaries are not the centrists, but the extremes.  For Trump in 2016, that meant the racists, the misogynists, the xenophobes.  For the Dems in 2028, it will certainly mean the people most aggrieved by the harm committed by the Trump administration.  They will turn out the most as they will be the most passionate.  And they will not be voting for the folks who tried to work with Trump.  As much as the media likes for Dems to bend the knee (the Republicans are never really pushed to be bipartisan), the Dem primary voters will cut any such compromiser off at the knees.  Newsom is already a dead candidate walking.  Whitmer is on the edge.  Booker may survive this week's vote because confirming incredibly corrupt ambassador picks may not get much heat.  Who has got the heat now?  AOC, Buttigieg, Walz, and Pritzker.  Why?  Because they are speaking out against Trump and his band of autocratic criminals.  They aren't making any deals.  The good news for three of them, like Obama and Clinton before them, won't be in any position to cast votes for Trump's appointments or policies.  And I am pretty sure AOC won't be voting for any such stuff either.

Watch the elections in 2025 and see what the politicians do and who is rewarded for trying to work with Trump (no one) and who is rewarded for opposing him?  We have already seen some elections in the US (and a heap across the world) where those opposing Trump the most win.  Expect more of the same and expect the pols to learn from this.

So scoff at those who say anything else, including a Biden-focused issue, will be a litmus test.  There can be only one, and this ain't it.

 

 *  For those who think things will be swell, note that Trump's weaponized DoJ has started charging Democratic politicians with crimes.  My only surprise is that AOC was not first.   

** I am pretty sure the youths are not reading this.  If it were on tik tok, maybe.

Is the Rubicon One River Or Many?

 A friend on social media suggested that Trump has crossed multiple Rubicons, which got me thinking.

To start, the reference is to Caesar who sparked a civil war once he crossed the Rubicon river, which divided Gaul (France) from Rome.  So, when folks say someone crossed the Rubicon, it generally means they broke some major precedent, took an irrevocable step that challenges the existing order.  There is no going back, and it is the first step towards breaking the current order.

So, when did Trump cross the Rubicon?  He has taken so many transgressive steps that should have led to successful impeachment (except that does not work in systems where there are parties and the incumbent party has enough votes in the relevant bodies), to his not being on the ballot, to his not winning the election.   I think the focus here should be on transgressions that violate the constitution and turn the US into a competitive (or not so competitive) autocracy. 

So, we can quibble whether the following steps are crossing a minor Rubicon tributary or the main Rubicon river, but they are all transgressive enough that they do not so much cause the US to backslide towards autocracy but are actually pushing the US away from democracy (backsliding seems way too passive to me).:

1. Turning ICE into a secret police force that sends people abroad with no due process.
2. Impoundments.  Trump has taught us words that we did not really know (see emoulements), such as when a President refuses to spend money allocated by Congress.  I remember being shocked in Brazil when doing research there that their finance minister didn't have to spend money appropriated by their Congress.
3. Defying court orders.   
4. Emoulements galore.  Last time, Trump didn't pay a price for the modest (modest compared to now) corruption of foreigners spending heaps of money at his hotel near the White House. This time?  Oh my.  The Qatar Air Force One knock-off is so obviously corrupt and wrong, but the big money is involves insider trading and the crypto coin crap.
5. Empowering an illegal entity to close down government agencies, plunder the data those agencies save, and even destroy a so-called independent entity--the US Institute of Peace.  All of Musk's destruction is ultimately Trump taking a huge step across the main Rubicon river.  
6. Coercing law firms and universities to bend their knees.   
7. Firing senior officers because they were either not the right color or gender or because they were not sufficiently loyal to the man, not the office.   

I am sure I missed a few tributaries.  Pretty much all of these are impeachable offenses with the possible exception of the last one--as it can be a bit gray in theory anyway.  Which one is the widest Rubicon stream, that is the most irreversible, most responsible for turning the US into an autocracy?  It is a tough call, but the top two are definitely the impoundments for usurping Congress's power and the breaking due process.  

From here on out, there is no more crossing the Rubicon as Trump has crossed the river any way you, um, slice it.  He can and will do more damage, but we are on the other side now.  Not the side of civil war (although he is inciting political violence) but the side of autocracy.  We can go back, but it is going to be very, very difficult especially with so many actors (leading Democrats, the media, and the Supreme Court) not taking seriously what is happening.