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There is not much point fighting the battle simply dollar-for-dollar, if that is what is proposed. Canada is on the wrong side of scale (population, outputs), and as always, tariffs are self-inflicted damage. (We can hurt ourselves greatly, without enough tangible effect, by proceeding...

"But I do believe that our [insert protectionist policy here] does benefit the country in a general sense and does protect our [insert industry here]." "Benefits country" and "protects industry" are overwhelmingly the two most common excuses for protectionist policies. Trump's tariffs are all...

Public order depending on principles of duty to retreat and proportionality is only sustainable as long as the public agencies to whom authority is delegated to interdict, pursue, detain, try, convict, and punish criminals can and are seen to exercise that authority sufficiently. Liberal...

Information and instructions should still be separable.

No-one has fought a battle with armoured formations supported by artillery formations supplied to the tune of 300 to 600 rounds per gun per day. Much of this sounds like the pre and early stages of WW II when people had what turned out to be excessive fear of bombers and tanks. They had...

NATO did not really emerge to generally prevent another war in Europe let alone to protect US interests; it emerged specifically to contain the USSR and deter/prevent any invasion initiated by the USSR. That is the premise from which everything else followed. Not only has the original...

Why should they? Proponents of the ideas of western civilization don't dismiss the pan-civilizational bases from which they are drawn. They just want those ideas to be emphasized and to continue to advance along a liberal vector. Those ideas have largely been secularized and no longer require...

Comparisons between workers and retirees making the same money are irrelevant. Pretty much everyone retired from some kind of ordinary work paid taxes to support someone else's OAS; some of them are bound to want their fair share back. This feeling is bound to be more acute among some of the...

Perhaps. But protectionism is protectionism, even with good reasons/excuses (eg. protect domestic industries). Doesn't matter whether it's defence, auto manufacturing, or dairy. I doubt my emotions are as intense as you seem to think. I appreciate having the USA as neighbours rather than any...

Sure. Imagine the long list of European countries that never play politics to favour their own defence industries.

Europe sure has been hard done by over the years. American Leopards, American LeClercs, American Challengers, American Chieftans, American Marders, American Gepards, American Typhoons, American Mirages, American Rafales...

Except for that time that they decided to participate in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, maybe.

France's complaints, viewed from another angle, amount to merely envy that NATO has never been French enough and that its position is approximately third banana (behind UK and Germany). What exactly is "European sovereignty"?

Are things bad enough that cannibalizing the cadet organization is really worth talking about?

Holding lists are a way of maintaining some attachment to people already usefully trained. A category of people trained approximately to a level at which they might reasonably not injure themselves in a military environment is something less.

That's not how the political structure works there. A party can control Congress and, without a veto-proof majority, be almost powerless in Congress. The executive can do (or try) whatever it wants to (eg. by executive orders), limited only by courts and with its back protected in Congress by...

Whatever. Other nations have had over 80 years to do more and thereby lessen US dominance, and it's useful to remember that it started because a bunch of important players - not just the US - wanted it to.

I understand that there are games that can be played with words and numbers in order to advance points of view. OAS has become a new whipping boy (in some mentions surpassing the deficit itself for first mention), but it works best if the biggest possible number can be presented. So we have...

So, wonder of wonders, we're not going to save $100 billion. People should not keep throwing that number out unless they advocate complete elimination of the program. So keep going. What happens at $81K, or at Canadian median income?

All fine. The US didn't - contrary to what many people think - ask for or seek the role of "world policemen". The US drew down its forces rapidly after WW II, and it was the realization - shared with some of its western allies - that there was no hope the USSR would not be aggressively...