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.