Both stress and big flashlights can show reality to those who are living in another world and dimension. In this case, it is the Euro weenies who are all about continuing the Never-Ending-Ukranian War – even as they’ll only fight if the US is involved:
-Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Poland
The EU was first formed as an economic aggregate alternative to the US. That hasn’t worked out for them as their GDP rate of growth has been lagging the US almost from the get-go, even as they shucked off their military responsibilities. Effectively, they sat back into their Lazy-Boy rockers, thinking that “go git’em, US” was always going to work. And it was…
…until it isn’t. Even though they’ve collectively agreed to raise and spend 800 Billion Euros for up-ticking their militaries, that isn’t going to happen for a long time.
Except for Poland. Trump went after the EU in his first term just to get them to spend 2% of their GDP on their militaries without much success. Poland, knowing the danger from Russia, is at 4.12%. It is now the powerhouse of the EU, far exceeding Germany, Britain, and France with respect to actual capability.
While it seems that I’ve been ripping Lloyd Alter over at Carbon Upfront! lately, we are doing some back channel comms; I’m trying to lower his blood pressure over “the US imminent threat to attack Canada.” In fact, one of the reasons why the newly unelected Prime Minister Carney (appointed by his Labour Party to replace the smarmy, snarky, fascist Trudeau) hasn’t called Trump is that he’s gone running to get military aid to protect against the US invading Canada.
Seriously! He needs to learn from Selena Zito, who said, “The media takes Trump literally but not seriously. His supporters take him seriously but not literally.”
While there are many with TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) who will hate him even if he had a cure for cancer tomorrow, there are a lot who just have no idea how to take him. That seriously/literally, I believe, is one of the biggest problems that people have – it’s the Shiny Objects versus what he’s working on at a 4D chess level. People just don’t have the sense to sit back and study him to see how he really is operating. It’s hard – he has so many things going on at the same time.
I bring up Canada as it leads back into the Blogline of the Day. Alter sent me to another hysterical Canadian that believe that Carney can create Canada, a country with a large land mass but a small population, into a Superpower.
Let that sink in for a moment. A Superpower. With a $3.4T GDP with a lowly 86,700 men under military arms. With an estimate of a 1 to 10 “pointy end of the spear” to support personnel, that’s only 8,670 fighters and is already 20,200 short of authorized strength. Add to that this poll:
Only 39% of Canada’s Young Adults Willing to Defend Country from U.S. Invasion Nearly two-thirds of Canadians are seriously concerned about President Donald Trump’s suggestion that the U.S. should annex Canada – but only 39% of the nation’s young adults say they’re willing to fight to prevent the U.S. from doing it. According to a survey conducted March 1-2, 2025 by the Association for Canadian Studies, 63% of Canadians surveyed think “Trump’s expressed interest to make Canada the 51st American State must be taken very seriously.” Just 25% say it shouldn’t be taken seriously, while 12% don’t know… Words are one thing but willingness-to-do is another.
Only 4 in 10 of those of prime fighting age will pick up a rifle. A superpower, eh?
It will be interesting to watch this process, especially as two of those countries that he will be going to, Britain and France, are already broke. Britain is down 30% of its required jet fighter pilots (blame the Air Marshall for putting in woke quotas that failed badly) and just mothballed perfectly two good warships because they don’t have the sailors to man those two AND the new frigates that just came online. Their GDP is headed down and the new Prime Minister, after just a couple of months, is watching his approval rating circling the drain.
France is in the same boat – its military is teetering and its government is also bankrupt. Macron is also on his way out the door just like Trudeau. GDP isn’t exactly lighting fires underneath anything (but at least it has its nuke fleet for energy).
But here’s for hoping for your new Prime Minister. Like I said, “may you live in interesting time”.
“…increasing military partnerships with European allies will solidify Canada’s sovereignty.”
Have you done ANY research into how bad ALL of the EU’s militaries are (with ONLY one exception – Poland)? Here they are, puffing their chests out about continuing to support Ukraine against Russia. All they REALLY want is to continue to attrit Russia (re: that old joke about that I only have to outrun YOU instead of the bear) – they really don’t care about UKR.
It’s a good thing that Russia is in such a bad shape as it is in with respect to conventional weaponry as the EU collectively couldn’t field anything more than for two or three weeks. Trust me, the EU can no more buttress Canada than it can itself. And if China decided to take Canada, IT WILL TAKE CANADA. You won’t be able to defend yourselves against the Chinese.
And given what Canada is saying against the US and the opprobrium, why should we then lift a finger to help. You want the EU – you can have it.
Thus, the image you put up is correct, but a duopoly of Greenland and Canada is far insufficient to protect itself. Heck, the Danes can’t even defend themselves from an Eastern attack. The $1.5B USD they said they were going to spend on Greenland is merely a drop in the bucket that will be necessary for a real conflict.
And how much is Canada going to spend on its military along with all the trains you want built? What’s that financial loading going to look like all in? Now add in all of the rest of the infrastructure financing you would need within a couple of years just to START being a superpower (that would take Canada a few decades to reach – if ever).
If China decides to light the fuse on taking Taiwan, all bets are off. Canada would be tying off with the EU that is wanting to continue the wrong war – the “right” one hasn’t even started yet and it will be an all-fronts war (and I don’t just mean geographical fronts).
You’ve noted that Trump has talking about the truple of the US, Canada, and Greenland. It will take the land mass near the Artic of the latter two (and US Alaska) as a protectorate buffer. It will be primarily the US that have to do the fighting but with just 53K people of the latter and less than 40% of the second, who else is left? And things, if you follow Trump’s reasoning, will have to be done FAST – why else is Hegseth stripping down our military NOW to just “killing people and breaking things” mentalities? Why ELSE do you think he willing to undergo the political ramifications of doing the DOGE financial govt slim-down?
To have the resources to fight such a war on multiple domains (air, sea, land, geographical fronts). And he realizes that, like Churchill back in the 1930s, he has little time to fix the brokenness of our military over the 12 of the last 16 years. He realizes that the manufacturing might of the 1940s US must be duplicated quickly as he knows that China now does about 80% of the world’s manufacturing – and has aligned it all to be dual-purpose.
So there, THAT’S his vision and it isn’t for him, it isn’t for Musk. It’s for us. So there, that’s what you haven’t been seeing, in part.
I watch very little TV nowadays – most of it is absolute dreck. But one show I watch is “Shifting Gears” with Tim Allen. Either last week or the week before, his character realized that to get to the desired goal of getting his “returned home in shame” daughter and his young granddaughter to stop fighting each other, he had to do something that most grandfathers NEVER want to do.
Instead of letting them fight it out and ruin their relationship far too soon, he created a situation by which they forgot about their squabbles in the moment and he deliberately became “the enemy” of them both instead of them being enemies of each other. And when he accomplished it, without them knowing it, he beat a hasty retreat. But the last camera shot was him smiling to himself – mission accomplished and the daughter and granddaughter’s relationship was saved. A writ small version of what I’m trying to get across.
Of course, being a TV show, the daughter, although being unlucky in love, was no dummy and realized what he had done and why. Gratitude.
Look, I’m not saying that a TV show maps to what is going on the world’s geopolitical stage. I’m not even sure I’m close. But it is a way to get people squabbling, realizing they’ve got to spend the $$$$$ to rearm after 80 years of laziness, stop being stuffed shirts, and get that cold glint in their eyes understanding that the world is about to get FAR more dangerous than it is now. Otherwise, PJ Melton’s wish for a complete collapse may well come around. What a dingbat idea that is (and yes, I answered her).
But what do I know – I’m just a lowly engineer that’s just trying to calmly put data points together in some sort of pattern instead of going nutty over lots of what-ifs that just don’t make sense. Again, take him serious but not literally. Just know that what he’s serious about isn’t what he’s literally talking about. The Japanese talk about their inner hearts of hearts (read Shogun if you haven’t)? Yeah, that.
So Instapundit has a post “What could POSSIBLY go wrong?“. This is amusing: a new Maginot line (by Canada’s wannabees newest protectors-to-be)?
“Macron delivered a very important 15 minute speech to the nation tonight in which he announced he will offer France’s nuclear weapons umbrella “to all allies on the European continent””
What possibly go wrong is a correct WAG! If your new Prime Minister asks, do you think that France, with its 290 nukes would protect Canada against the US with its 3,700, as its new military partner? Britain’s 225?
Asked somewhat tongue-in-cheek over this nonsense of the US going to war. Does Carney like black glass?
So I did another dive, just for the heck of it (I’m an engineer/political blogger, what can I say)? Canada has an authorized strength of 86,700 men under arms. It is currently 20,200 under strength (again, note that only 4 in 10 survey – the prime fighting age of a country). Thus, with a ratio of fighters/support of about 1:10, that means that Canada only has 8,600 “tip of the spear” fighters.
By the same measure, starting with 1,300,000 troops, that means a tip of the spear result for the US (my son was one of them – 101st Airborne; my other son was Marine support on fighter jets) is 130,000. Russia has 1,500,000 under arms. They are AWFUL and extremely poorly armed and trained (except for UAVs). Guesstimate only 40,000 competent and battle ready (really, that bad).
CommChinese military is about 2,350,000. Can’t find any similar fighter/support ratio so guess 1:10. Thus, 235,000. They march fairly well in parades but haven’t fought in a war in decades (Viet Nam beat them up in the last battles of note; they do seem to win skirmishes with India). Lots of new equipment but not well trained in integrated mobile arms deployments.
Put the numbers together: if both Russia and China crossed over, what chance would Canada stand? Shouldn’t THAT be the possibility to watch instead of the US crossing over to annex Canada?
Which would you PREFER? Again, very doubtful the US would but what would Canada do?
And remember, ALL of the NATO countries that MIGHT come to your rescue have little to no long range heavy logistics capabilities. That’s why they will only go defend/peacekeep in Ukraine IF AND ONLY IF the US participates – the ONLY nation that has such capabilities worldwide.
Why do I mention that? Amateurs talk tactics and strategies; professionals talk about logistics. How would they get to Canada?
Short answer – they won’t. You’d be on your own due to really bad decisions.
Lloyd admitted: “You are not going to get much help out of civilians either, I am 72 and I have never held a gun in my life, let alone know how to use one. I am not alone in this.” I already told him that US civilians have over 400 million guns and over 12 trillion rounds. And reminded him of the WW II Yamamoto quote once again.
I then closed my chat with this in letting him know that Carney isn’t going to get much out of the EU – there just isn’t much there, there. The EU couldn’t even defend itself.
That’s what happens when you decide that your militaries can take a 50 year siesta.
And just to remind you all, dear readers, OUR military is seeing a BOOM in recruitment now that Trump is President, Hegseth is trimming the weeds (DEI and otherwise), and equipment of all kinds is getting a redo.
And best of all, all those DEI Flag Officers and senior level officers are being shuffled off the board. Lincoln did it, FDR did it (one of the few things I can say good about him) and now Trump.
So yes, I’ve combined two of Trump’s headaches into one post. Only time will tell if any of them figure out his modus operandi of a MOST unconventional President.
I have very large doubts that they will. After all, the EU doesn’t even understand that the invasion to take it over has been going on for years – and they invited the hostiles in with open arms.
(H/T: Instapundit)
