As cool as the concept is, and demilitarization definitely being the long term goal, the Eastern Bloc will need to demilitarize, first, or simultaneously.
Anything else is idiocy, waiting to be slaughtered.
Yes, there’s a very clear difference between the political posture of our present rearmament and the investment in the military that took place in the mid-2000s. The latter was driven by a desire to align with the US on foreign policy objectives. They were there, so we needed to be there too. This was both an extension of a long-standing policy of Canada as global peacekeepers - a way to build our soft-power by establishing presence as a neutral power - and an extension of our desire to align with and support the US as our closest ally (that these two goals directly conflict is a big part of what went wrong with Afghanistan).
Our present rearmament is driven by the exact opposite impetus. Rather than aligning with the US we are seeking to detach from them. Rather than extending our reach into the world, we are seeking to protect ourselves from the reach of others. And in doing so we are working to protect those who cannot. I can tell you that the people of Latvia are deeply grateful for the Canadian military. They know first hand the threat that Putin presents, and we’re what’s stopping it.
I don’t want to live in a world where any kind of military is necessary. But as long as it is, we have to be pragmatic.
And more importantly, we have to recognize that it is not the military, but the use of the military that matters most. When we allow our politicians to take a practical tool and turn it to impractical or immoral ends, that is when tragedy happens.
Simply hating the military in all its forms, and arguing against any kind of military spending, is a very easy position for leftists to adopt. It requires no thought, no nuance. It’s a thought terminating cliche. Military bad, end of statement. When asked why, people gesture at all of the bad things militaries have been involved in and treat that as evidence. And when people on the right turn unthinking adoration of the military into a shibboleth for their beliefs, it only reinforces the pattern. “The right loves it, so I should hate it.”
It takes a lot more work to actually examine the military as an extension of our political policies, as the means by which a great deal of our politics is enacted, and as a tool that serves many purposes including self-defence and the defence of others, but that work needs to happen if we’re ever going to start addressing these topics rationally.
Seems to be in context of Afghanistan. While that can indeed be a turning point in Canadian militarization (Yugoslavia was still the same issue), the core issue with Afghanistan is amplifying US narratives that lone cave dweller is responsible for 9/11, and puppetting Canada’s military to US subservience. The military mission of serving US imperialism exists still today, even as the explicit diminishment of Canada as a lower pawn in that empire is US policy.
