The US-Canada Trainwreck and the Limits of American Power
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45 replies
It's absolutely insane how USA is trying to treat Canada as if they were some vassal state.
Canada has been the strongest supporter of USA in just about every relevant situation since before WW2, that's 85+ years now.
Where Canada has supported USA even in wars at great cost. Canada has been a trustworthy ally, and a respectful trade partner for 85 years now. It is not Canada that has asked USA for help, it has always been Canada helping USA!
And this is how USA want to treat their closest friend and ally?
USA is a despicable country, there is zero return of favors, there is zero respect for either law or tradition or for the independence of other countries.
Fuck USA!
Very well said, let them come for us and they can find out what we are made of.
Fuck USA indeed!
Ask not what the US of A can do for you, ask what you can do to fill Trump's pockets!
I mean, from what you're describing it sounds to me like Canada was a vassal state. Independent states are not known for engaging in aggressive, criminal wars "at great cost" for the benefit of another state.
What is happening now is that trump has finally overplayed his cards. A weakening US is not in a financial position to demand more control over its vassals. Carney felt it and is calling the bluff, hoping to reduce dependence and concentrate more control in the hands of the local oligarchy (of which he is part). Don't get me wrong, local oligarchy is probably still better than the murderous US pedophiles, so I'm on carney's side here.
The question now is whether trump is crazy enough to use military intervention to resolve this and get the US (temporarily) back in control. It would be absolutely disastrous for everyone involved in long or even medium term, but hey, that's the logic of capitalism and imperialism for you.
No they weren't, you obviously don't know what it means.
Canada being an ally doesn't make them a vassal state.
Canada wasn't a US vassal in the narrow feudal European sense of the word — Canada doesn't even have a lord and never sworn vassalage to any suzerain. But it absolutely was a vassal state in a more generic sense, namely "any state that has varying degrees of influence, but is obligated to a superior state or empire". By that definition, any close alliance where some members are significantly more powerful than others will have some characteristics of an empire-vassal relationship.
Since "the purpose of a system is what it does", the system of Canada-US relationships could be described as that of weak vassalage, with Canada providing a strong preference in trade and military support for aggressive wars, in exchange for military protection and/or not being invaded and/or a privileged position in the wealth extraction structures that US is maintaining.
Now that the last point is being dismantled and the first point doesn't inspire much confidence after the Iran debacle, it makes sense that Canada would try to pull out of the relationship and demand more equal terms.
Or any other sense of the word.
I don't see how this has anything to do with Iran, except Trump is butthurt that none of his allies want to help him with his stupid illegal war.
He has to beg just ti fill up planes and ships at European bases.
This proves that neither Canada or any European countries are vassals to USA, but are independent free countries.
It doesn't really matter what the clown says in public, what matters is that most european countries immediately rolled over and provided their airfields and ports for a war that is not only aggressive and illegal, but also directly detrimental to them. US has Europe by the balls, militarily, technologically, and energetically. The only countries which even remotely stood up this time are Spain and, to a small degree, Italy. I agree with you that this needs to stop, but currently the situation is clearly that of vassalage.
USA just demanded a total political and economic subjugation of Canada, and yet Canada still has an active order for 88 F35 strike fighters and contracts with Palantir for intelligence services. The only tangible thing Canada threatened in return is tariffs - in the absence of alternative supply chains for many items, basically a tax on their own people. This is not "independent free country" behavior, it is a vassal trying to demand more equal terms while keeping the mutual relationship active.
No that's not true, even UK has heavy restrictions on their use. And this is under 2 Prime ministers!
And Trump has been absolutely flabbergasted and pissed about it.
Afaik there is zero cooperation from France and Spain, and Germany has been difficult enough that Trump has threatened to close the Rammstein base, which is the biggest air base USA has in Europe.
Yes unfortunately it's much the same many places here in Europe.
Personally I've been screaming and shouting on it on media ever since it was decided to buy F35 back when Obama was president.
It was such an obvious corrupt political scheme that made no sense, but it was to help Obama because Obama was in trouble over the F35 program for some reason?
Some reason being budget overruns again, but AFAIK it wasn't his decision in the first place. IDK why we helped Obama, but I do know that deal was manipulated to high heaven to look like it cost only half the actual price. I still think we should cancel the planes that haven't been delivered, dump the ones we got in the sea, and buy Saab instead.
What I see instead is that UK is allowing US bombers to make multiple bombing runs on Iran from its bases.
This is mostly true for Spain, even then there were a couple of military airplanes in support roles landing and taking off from Moron. So it seems the claimed airspace closure was more of a gentleman's agreement rather than a strictly enforced prohibition.
But France and Germany absolutely did allow support airplanes in support roles to use their airfields. The exact nature of the operations is not known but it's probably to do with recon and maybe refuelling. The reason bombing runs were not on the table is mostly because these countries don't host any US military bases with suitable runways to support heavy bombers.
Greece allowed a US carrier to dock and repair in between combat operations.
Bulgaria and Romania explicitly allowed the US to use their bases for refuelling and recon.
All of this for a war that is poised to inflict heavy damage on European economies via skyrocketing energy and fertilizer prices. If European countries truly were "independent and free" allies of the US, they could just say no, like Spain - after all this is clearly not a defensive war and doesn't benefit them in any way. Instead we got a bunch of face-saving claims and a permission to perform whatever support operations are needed.
It depends on how pedantic we want to get.
Technically, Canada was a vassal of the UK until fairly recently. The laws dismantling that technicality started in 1926 and were mostly finalized in 1982. They still have an odd vestige of that where the Canadia monarch is defined as whoever happens to be the British monarch at the time.
For all practical purposes, the Brits haven't held sovereignty over Canada in ages.
While the US was never officially Canada's suzerain, the vast differences in economies, militaries, and populations mean that diplomatic and trade negotiations are tilted in the favor of the US.
The whole advantage of soft power over hard power is that it enforces vassalage without looking like it's enforcing vassalage.
No they absolutely weren't. Commonwealth only worked to promote cooperation between member states. It was not like it had any real power over any of the member states.
No because if they tried, it wouldn't work. Which makes Canada NOT a vassal state. And it wasn't not even in theory.
How would you categorize the status of Canada vis a vis Britain before the Balfour declaration?
Do you realize that's exactly what, "For all practical purposes.." means?
Not relevant, that's 109 years ago.
Right. I forgot that Americans think anything older than 100 years is ancient history.
Yeah, fuck USA, and fuck Canada for being a despicable partner in crime for 85 years, may the empire's fall take down all who benefited off the backs (and the literal slaughter, in many cases) of the rest the world.
"Funny" thing with all that is that what makes the US debt bearable is the dollar being held up by US soft power. Thanks to Trump everyone is slowly (or quickly for some) reducing their dependency on the dollar. Guess what happens next?
It's almost like donnie is doing everything possible to destroy America.
Though I'm told by the moral scolds and the Tone Police that Russiagate is a "hoax".
Honestly, look at the people who voted for him and look at his dementia and his general contempt for anyone but himself. The Russia thing may or may not be true, but either answer does not absolve US citizens of their responsibility in how this has all unfolded.
The dollar collapses, the people lose trust in the dollar, and the capitalists come up with a genius new idea: corporate backed currency! Walmart cashiers get paid in wal-bucks! (redeemable only at Walmart and walmart-operated businesses).
You mine sixteen tons, what do you get? Freedom from government-backed currency oppression, that's what!
Wheelbarrows for bread
The demise of the average American's economic power wasn't brought on by any of the outside Allies. It was completely designed and carried out by US CEOs to create and then enrich the billionaire class. It wasn't a 'nasty' Canada or 'helpless' EU that caused the problem. It was a US government backed creation and building of the Oligarchs that has purposely destroyed American people's wealth so a select few could become super rich and therefore politically powerful in the bought and paid for American 'democracy'.
Like it or not, those who the US elected into power feel no shame or embarrassment, and are the representatives of the US to the rest of the world.
So while I have no doubt it is a source of shame and embarrassment to many Americans, to the United States it’s just another untreated self-inflicted wound.
We don't even know that he was actually elected.
And even if he was, it was a minority of people who voted for him. Representative democracy my ass.
The United States is defined by its laws; if Americans don’t like the result, change the laws. If the currently elected lawmakers won’t do that, change the lawmakers. If they refuse to be changed, forcibly (but as peacefully as possible) remove everyone complicit from the equation. Even if that involves dumping NFTs in Boston Harbor.
So they elected a 34 times convicted felon, again.
It's a nation of laws and if that fails we need to break the law? I can't say I disagree on the latter but that seems to negate the former.
People who don't vote don't matter. Sorry not Coting was a vote for Trump.
And that's how our system works. Ain't it grand?
This acknowledges colonial structure language. The obvious is that you get more colonial servant loyalty by not needlessly publicly humiliating the servant and his people, to be able to ask for important favours that are dutifully executed. Extra dumb to attack countries you have a trade surplus with.
The mistake of the Iran war could easily have been avoided if smarter allies than Trump could have explained to the dotard that it wasn't going to work. The surprise attack did 0, and was a complete embarrassment. But the weak lashing out of no one jumping in to help while telling all their help would be useless, should be a private embarrassment of being told no beforehand.
Another painful war of choice the child rapist president of the USA started for no reason…
Enjoy the day you voted for America, we won't soon forget this curse you released on the World
The reason is to distract from the Epstein files
USA has proven they do not care about the Epstein files. Even if those files were released unredacted, it would not make any difference.
Not the USA, but MAGA. MAGA is in control now, but when the new Democratic Warriors take over, things will be changing. The next wave of Dems are not going to be the same weak, insipid, cowardly, POLITE Biden/Schumer Democrats that got us here, they are going to be angry, and nasty, and vindictive, which is LONG overdue.
Dems are going to have to get used to their elected representatives being brutal toward our MAGA enemies. Don't expect politeness.
are those "warriors" in the room?
Oh boy, I hope so, but I think I've heard this one before. Far too Democrats falling back on "civility" and Murc's Law horseshit and just general bothsiderist awfulness.
It's almost like they haven't noticed that the Republicans have been working to divide America and be more nasty and partisan since the 90s (see Newt's GOPAC and "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control" for the smoking gun for any Enlightened Centrist (TM) that wants to argue otherwise).
while we're dreaming, here's the Easter Bunny....
Democrats are in government, and they have proven as useless as a bible in the Whitehouse.
Haha nice one.
Nero fiddling and dancing while Rome burns.
Let it burn to the ground.
At least Nero had some musical talent. trump's only instrument is the tween.
Nobody ever thought this was included in American power. This is the result of a pants-shitting sack of pathetic