There’s a classic South Park episode (Stanley’s Cup) that perfectly captures the current state of global geopolitics: The 1996 Detroit Red Wings go up against the Park County Pee Wee Hockey team. It is brutal. The Red Wings play like it’s the Stanley Cup final, tearing these kids apart, slamming them into the boards, teeth popping out, blood everywhere. As a kid growing up watching TV, it was the kind of cartoon you wanted to watch. It was great.
But it’s a lot less “great” when you realize that’s exactly what’s happening right now with the United States and their conquest for Greenland – and Canada.
We’re looking at a completely asymmetric power base. This isn’t the type of “war” we’re used to in the Arctic. For decades, Canada and Denmark had a dispute over The Hans Island called the Whiskey War. It was the most gentlemanly conflict in history. We’d show up, take down their flag, and leave a bottle of Canadian Club. They’d show up, take down ours, and leave a bottle of schnapps. This went on for decades until 2022, when we finally decided to just draw a line down the middle of a rock nobody lives on and call it a day.
Wouldn’t it be great if that was still the world we lived in? Instead, we’re living in Donald Trump’s nightmare.
I read a Globe and Mail story recently that felt like a gut punch: Canada is actually drafting plans for a potential military invasion by the United States. And our strategy? We’re essentially going to be the Taliban because we don’t have an armed forces that can actually defend against the U.S.. We’re envisioning a bunch of individual skirmishes where civilians band together in militias to oppose USA troops without any military support of our own. What world are we living in right now?
The U.S. already has an agreement with Denmark and it allows for an unlimited number of troops and military equipment to be stationed on Greenland: it’s a completely open-door policy. Week after week, I keep saying it: we’re heading toward a reality where might makes right. That is a terrifying situation to be in because it gives license to players like China and Russia to continue their own territorial expansionist quests.
If the U.S. can’t be relied upon as the moral arbiter or the scales of justice on the global scene, I don’t want to envision what the future looks like. The U.S. has been a force for democracy and stability for a long time. I don’t want to see a Washington that acts like Moscow with impunity.
We’ve seen how this “scorched earth” logic works elsewhere. The U.S. has built-in self-defense mechanisms for Taiwan—reportedly outfitting chip factories for demolition upon a Chinese invasion to prevent technology from being stolen. It’s an uneven playing field. Look, I understand why Trump supposedly wants Greenland. You don’t want Russia or China moving in; you want it to remain in the Western world. But there are ways to get there without these territorial conquest conversations.
I remember watching the television show, The Circus, on Showtime. It presented the first Trump administration and the absolute clusterfuck it was. It was entertaining TV. Then Biden came in and I stopped watching because I don’t need to see a procedural drama about a relatively competent administration. That’s boring.
But I didn’t sign up for this new season of reality TV. The era of polite Arctic diplomacy is dead. Being an ally is now conditional. If the superpower wants it, they take it. The Whiskey War is relegated to the past; might makes right is back.
What a ridiculous gambit. I don’t understand this new era of Canadian strategic blunders, quite frankly. Maybe leadership is looking at things through a banker’s lens, but cozying up with China or Qatar isn’t the answer either. These are not the good guys on the world stage.
And I get it, we’ve lost our traditional ally to their own wayward way. But we could be cozying up with the Europeans instead of flirting with dictatorships. It really doesn’t help when the rhetoric starts leaning into a “New World Order.”
We’re off the map, and quite frankly, I don’t think we’re ready for the hits that are coming.
This aired on 610 CKTB
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