As Canada is separating from the US, it is growing closer with China. This makes Canada a threat to the US. This makes the US a threat to Canada. This makes the US more likely to grab Canada's arm and pull it back in its circle by force. Canada just did a model of how long it could last against a US invasion and the answer was that its defenses would last 2-5 days.

It's all unnecessary and will just cause pain to end up where it started.

> As Canada is separating from the US, it is growing closer with China. This makes Canada a threat to the US. This makes the US a threat to Canada

But didn't you get the order of events precisely wrong?

Isn't it America who threatened Canada (become a state of the US)? Isn't America who threatened Canada with extreme tariffs? Etc.

yes, Tump did quite clearly

The USA has a long history of bullying Canada, long before tRump. He's just more blatant and obvious about it.

There is such a concept of carrot and stick. If the USA wants Canada to be a "good" (in the eyes of America) neighbour then for the love of God why don't they start using a carrot instead of the stick?

Unfortunately, the stick is still behind their backs.

> This makes the US a threat to Canada.

Don't fool yourself. The US of late has been making it perfectly clear that it's a threat to Canada regardless of what Canada does.

Military action would be brutal, but you can only say that it's unnecessary if the alternatives are better. If not now, then how many years down the line? The claims Carney are making are not light in their own right.

I guess, if your mental model is Command & Conquer.

It would be like Iraq, they would quickly have Trump fly onto an aircraft carrier with a “mission accomplished” banner, then the Canadians would commit to guerrilla warfare for a few decades.

Canadians would commit to guerrilla warfare? For decades? Have you met Canadians?

Yes, yes I have. I've known a lot of Canadians over the decades. They would totally commit to guerilla warfare to defend their nation, same as most other people would. They'd be damned good at it, too.

If you think there's something about Canadians that would stop them from getting down, dirty, and vicious, then you don't know Canadians very well (and have never seen a Canadian hockey game).

Could they hold out alone over the long term? Probably not, but maybe. Smaller, less capable nations have pulled off such feats.

But also, they wouldn't be alone. They'd have quite a lot of support.

Would be hard to do if the people aren’t alive long enough to do it.

I think Carney is an intelligent, well spoken, well educated, diligent, competent person.

Because of its geography, Canada reaps huge benefits from proximity to and friendship with America. That cannot be replaced by China and Europe.

I think Carney is pursuing a strategy based on economic models that have diverged from reality in important ways.

If you read his recent WEF speech critically these contradictory ideas are readily apparent. He surfaces some of those tensions in the text but does not end up resolving them.

> economic models that have diverged from reality in important ways.

Can you expand on this?

Postwar, Western governments used straightforward economic models based on the three-part identity between exchange, interest, and inflation rates, all mediated by growth. They did this in order to make market environments stable to facilitate rebuilding Europe (juicing the growth term).

Inflation, for example, is obviously not a scalar.

All models are approximations. As we reach the limits of these models we must extend them.

There's no contradiction to resolve, Trump decided CAN should no longer benefit from proximity. That's the geopolitical reality under current US admin. There's nothing left to do but hedge and move on or wait for new US admin. Ontario auto is 2.5% of gdp, Alberta crude is 5.5%, other exports to US is 9%... i.e. 17% of CAN gdp. CAN US imports is 16% of GDP - it's reasonably balanced, and TBH US got better deal since that 5.5% crude is massive discount, CAN could be selling it for more if US meddling didn't prevent CAN from refining for decades. But broadly those are Canadian exposure. Really all CAN can do if US doesn't to trade without retarded geopolitical conditions is to hedge by diverting 17% export to other buyers and minimize the 16% imports from US (ideally circular Canadian substitution between provinces). Really if US/Trump throws hissy fit over reasonable economic rebalancing (not strategic shift, CAN not replacing NORAD with PLARF) with most of worlds' largest trade partner, then not much Canada can do but wait for next annexation attempt.

The contradiction is that Carney says in his speech that multinational organizations have stopped working, so Canada is doubling down on them.

He said legacy / naive multinational orgs where hegemons with disproportionate influence and exceptionalism can game the system to subordinate smaller countries, especially in stacked bilaterals. He propose variable geometry which is scoping down from "universal" multinational orgs to "exclusive" minilaterals of medium sized countries come together to hedge on issues against hegemons to avoid being on the menu. It's not a contradiction, it's proposing we move from rule based, to power based, i.e. like-minded medium countries need to bandwagon to leverage as bloc, which means entails being exclusive / eliminate weak links / prevent capture. It maybe wishcasting but it's a different arrangement than legacy system.