With apologies for voicing an opinion rather than linking an external article.
I am of the strong opinion that Remembrance Day had become at best grandstanding, and at worst, completely meaningless. There are phases tossed around like “Lest we Forget” or “Never Again”. But when Russia invaded Ukraine, we have effectively done the opposite (or very nearly).
Sure, we can send ammo so Ukranians can fight back, or host some of their forces for training. But the reality is, we are only marginally involved. We haven’t mobilized. We aren’t on war footing economically.
The root causes are many. But a combination of NATO’s article 5 protection only kicking in if we are attacked (rather than joining an already existing war), and the threat of nuclear retaliation, means we are paralyzed politically.
At a minimum: I would support direct involvement, whether that’s ramping up our own military, deploying specialists, reservists for minesweeping, stationing our own troops (meagre as they are) in Ukraine to directly support the fight. I would actually support much larger actions, including naval blockades or airspace closures but wholly understand that Canada cannot execute those on their own.
We cannot allow genocidal wars to be pressed in the modern world. And we should be doing everything we can about it. Right now, we’re doing barely more than nothing.
To echo OP a bit, negotiate based on what? You can’t just “negotiate” aggression away if you have no leverage. A country with no military has no leverage.
Maybe you’re not a caveman, but plenty of people are, and being pacifists will get us killed.
Then you are bending the argument to extremes … I never said take your gun away to start talking.
In extreme situations when there is no longer any option, fighting may be necessary.
But if the world continually creates situations where everyone is led to only the option of death and war and especially when governments and industries and corporations can only understand that investing billions into a war machine is the only option anyone will consider … then we will only ever see death and destruction.
We’re no different with our mentality a thousand years ago … we just have better weapons now.
Well, I pretty much agree with that, then. NATO guidelines are to spend 2% of GDP on the military, and I think that’s reasonable. I’m certainly not suggesting >25% like some of the more militaristic nations in recent history.
Russia will be spending something on the order of 6% of their GDP on war this year. Obviously their GDP isn’t that high, but neither is their military cost per unit. If NATO were to spend 2% and funnel a fraction of that into Ukraine, the war simply could not be sustained by Russia. The combined GDP of NATO is insane.
However, there’s a caveat-- at some point, Ukraine will run out of soldiers to operate the equipment. Then what?
How many years are we willing to let a continuous conflict go by doing the bare minimum? Is it better to do very little and let a war drag on for years? Unlikely. The only people that benefit then are the arms dealers.
What happens if NATO is deadlocked on intervention because Article 5 is never triggered. Everyone sits around waiting while Russia makes slow gains in a war of attrition? NATO uses their increased funding to buy a bunch of fighter jets that’ll never see combat? We just give up Ukraine?
After a cursory review of available sources, Saudi Arabia appears to be the major country with the highest current military funding by GDP (there are some smaller states as outliers). They are at around 8%. Some projections suggest Russia might hit 10% this year.
For the sake of historical comparison, Nazi Germany was at 10% in 1936, and 75% in 1944. The Soviet Union was 5% in 1936, and 60% in 1944. I have a suspicion that Russia is so committed to winning that they’d be willing to follow those extreme examples. What do we do then? (The US reached 38% during the war.)
