00:04:29.420And two, there's a little bit of back and forth right now as to the extent that America will be able to have some sort of veto power, definitely militarily, because it needs three-party sign-offs between Greenland, NATO, and America.
00:04:47.280But then also for critical minerals and resources, as that is going to open up there as well, not just militarily, but as of right now, again, this is kind of in dispute as Greenland and Denmark still need to put this through the parliament.
00:05:04.340But it's up in the air right now as to whether America will be able to actually say veto that, whether China or Russia or any other nation for that matter wants to get in there and get their hands on those resources.
00:05:16.000The one thing we've learned, Liam, through the Ukraine-Russia conflict and now with Iran and the USA is if you can detect a drone or incoming missile, you have a chance to defeat it.
00:05:27.980And the one thing about the military base in Greenland with this new agreement, it's almost exactly halfway between Washington, D.C. and Moscow.
00:05:36.020So for any opportunity for the United States or NATO to shoot down a drone or missile inbound, all of a sudden they have a great opportunity to get early warning.
00:05:49.940Because the faster they find out what's coming, the faster they can defend themselves.
00:05:53.860Yeah, for sure. And that's definitely a main component because theoretically anything coming from Russia on a projectile or a missile basis would be passing through the Arctic and Canada.
00:06:06.020And then so this would essentially be able to create a greater threat assessment in that area for sure.
00:06:13.440I think in a bigger picture, if I'm a member of NATO, this almost dials down the temperature that had been simmering on this, you know, Trumpian stove all summer, Liam, where it looked like it was the end of NATO.
00:06:27.140But now they have this kumbaya, everyone loves each other in Denmark and the USA.
00:06:31.840And all of a sudden, I think a lot of NATO observers are rethinking maybe it may change the structure and the relationship with the USA and NATO.
00:06:41.140But it kind of looks to me like it's not ending, maybe just altering previous agreements.
00:06:47.640Right. And yeah, and I think, too, a lot of this is just setting, as you were talking about, setting the temperature and letting people know, you know, essentially who the boss is.
00:06:57.780Because as of right now, NATO, without the help of America, isn't as nearly as powerful as, say, you know, for I guess the way to put it is that NATO relies more on America than America relies on NATO.
00:07:12.300And so this is kind of essentially America planting its flag, so to say, and going, you know what, we're actually going to be the big dogs here.
00:07:22.100You guys aren't going to boss us around anymore, these international organizations.
00:07:25.660If you want us to cooperate with you and extend our defense blanket to your countries, then it kind of like our our interests are first.
00:07:36.260I am really interested, looking forward to the end of this year and the next year, if this is the start of other relationships with other NATO countries.
00:07:46.260because the one thing Donald Trump has done since taking office
00:07:52.040Basically, he just wants to take it over and no one can stop him
00:07:54.560to now to some of the other contentious things he said
00:07:57.840about other NATO countries and their defense spending.
00:08:01.160But I think even people in Trump's inner circle,
00:08:05.000the radical Trumpites can see that countries like Poland and Germany and others
00:08:09.280and even France are spending significant money on their defense budget.
00:08:14.000They are more than pulling their weight over the last six months.
00:08:17.640Yeah, and I think a big thing that comes into play with that as well when we look at the European nations is it's tough because if you're putting more money into military spending, and so, for instance, I know that there's been some kind of accounting finagling even, for instance, with Canada.
00:08:43.060Like we're able to classify certain things like, for instance, infrastructure buildouts that might not actually have any military application right now, but they could be changed to have military, let's say, for instance, a road or a railway, then in the case of war, then we'd be able to make it into a military outlet.
00:09:05.740But then they're able to classify that under military spending, where it might not actually be direct stockpiling of like, let's say, arms or manufacturing or more personnel and so on.
00:09:20.960But then I recently had a conversation with somebody named Doonberg, who is an independent analyst and had a lot of background in the heavy industry side of things as an entrepreneur.
00:09:35.460And so they typically write about geopolitics from a finance and energy perspective.
00:09:40.920And one thing that I think is very prescient that he touched on was that military is downstream from your industrial policy and your industrial policy is downstream from your energy policy.
00:09:54.120And one thing that he's pointed out in regard to a lot of these European nations is that over the last decade or two, they've completely just disastrous energy policy in terms of what we saw in Germany with them decommissioning a lot of their nuclear sites and so on.
00:10:12.780And so, you know, I guess where I'm getting to with this is it's kind of tough in the sense where can we really put, or a lot of these NATO countries, for instance, can they really get to where they need to be militarily if they don't first fix the energy policies that have been disastrous over the last decade or two?
00:10:34.300Because even when you look at their rate of intake, so importing energy versus producing, they produce five units per 35 that they import.
00:10:52.240And so they're very dependent on external nations if they want to re-industrialize and then re-militarize on that front.
00:11:00.240And it's a great point on your end, Liam, because like it or not, with electric vehicles and hybrid, the majority of military vehicles are diesel.
00:11:11.040They're big diesel engines that power the trucks and the tanks and the infantry fighting vehicles.
00:11:16.460Now, they have some variations of it, but diesel fuel is basically the lightblood of an army unit or military unit.
00:11:24.180It can't really go anywhere. Even ships will have diesel engines to augment their turbines and electric as backup. So it's hard to run a military without diesel, and you have to get it somewhere.
00:11:38.480Yeah, and I mean, that's a big benefit to if you look at, say, the Canadian and American landscape.
00:11:44.420Obviously, there's a lot of tensions going on between the two nations right now.
00:11:47.960But if those were to be sorted out, then there is no dependence on any foreign nation to be able to actually, yeah, re-industrialize and re-militarize.
00:11:59.040And I think I definitely hope as as a citizen of Canada that we start moving in that direction where we can where we can essentially get our everything in line.
00:12:09.160You know, I think while this is going on, most Canadians don't realize the vital role the Canadian military is playing in Latvia right now.
00:12:17.480And it's part of the defense of Latvia in the the Baltic states.
00:12:21.240And when they make announcements that the Canadian military has bought this or that cutting edge equipment, most of it is being sent directly to the Ford operating bases, the Ford presence in Latvia for the Canadian military who are stationed there.
00:12:38.460And recently, it wasn't long ago, where the Canadian military and Mark Carney and the government extended the time there.
00:12:44.700So we will have a fairly large Canadian military presence in Latvia for the years to come.
00:12:49.780Yeah, I think it was till 2031 was when they said that they would extend it to. And I think there's roughly 4000 NATO allied military troops in Latvia. And of that 2000 are Canadian, so roughly half.
00:13:09.380But Carney actually mentioned that he wants to up that to 2,600. And part of that as well isn't necessarily to create a resistance in the case of Russian invasion, but to if they have NATO members there and there was a Russian invasion, then it would essentially tripwire all the countries that have personnel in that nation to join in.
00:13:39.380And so, yeah, it's more of it's it's very much kind of like a detonating line.
00:13:45.300And the thing is, at the same time, Liam, even Russian assets are painting a grim picture of the amount of casualties killed and wounded in Ukraine.
00:13:55.420It's for a lot of countries, it's completely unsustainable to suffer that many casualties week after week in a prolonged conflict.
00:14:03.300So if Putin, even as crazy as he is, thinks that by going into the Baltic states or trying to nudge into Poland or the eastern part of Germany, they would face that kind of resistance.
00:14:15.660I'm not sure if some of the top Russian generals would agree to that, because they're going to take a while to have to rebuild from these horrific losses they're suffering in Ukraine.
00:14:24.940For sure. I mean, yeah, when we're talking about, I mean, estimates, it's tough to say right now, right?
00:14:30.640But I think the estimates are somewhere on the 800,000 number for Russian troops lost and I think 600,000 for Ukraine.
00:14:39.560Now, I haven't looked at that number recently, so it could be different, but it's somewhere in that neighborhood.
00:14:45.780But I think, you know, that goes back to Russian military strategy for centuries.
00:14:51.680You look at the World War I, World War II era.0.85
00:14:54.300That was essentially their game plan was just throw bodies into the meat grinder.0.74
00:15:01.540You know, 20 million Soviet soldiers died in World War II.0.88
00:15:07.460And actually, there's a very good phrase that World War II was won with British intelligence, American steel, and Russian blood.0.99
00:15:15.560And yeah, that's definitely the case for sure.
00:15:18.820No, but the difference now is there's a thing called the internet and social media.
00:15:22.900Yeah. And the Joseph Stalin and the old Soviet Union had such an iron grip on the people.0.71
00:15:28.240He could just keep sending them in 10,000 at a time. But that's getting more difficult. And0.55
00:15:33.700you're seeing a lot of young Russians who realize they could be snatched off the street and thrown
00:15:38.000into the front lines are are looking to escape. There's actually stories of young Russians
00:15:43.720escaping and joining the French Foreign Legion, Liam, just to escape potential death in the
00:15:49.300Ukraine front. And while all this is going on, all these European countries who've had it pretty
00:15:54.460good, let's be honest, the last 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, there are a lot of
00:15:59.900them are looking back to what it was like in the 70s and 80s, where they had to be very serious
00:16:04.460about their country's sovereignty and defense. And it's, you know, Dwight Eisenhower talking about
00:16:10.660it, beware of the industrial military complex. I don't think it's ever been stronger than it is
00:16:15.160right now in Europe because they're all looking to rearm and potentially defend themselves because
00:16:19.560there is a great concern would they be next would they try to go to their country after Putin's done
00:16:25.360to Ukraine yeah well I think this is definitely just a larger trajectory that we're seeing there
00:16:31.240was kind of this very naive view post 1991 when the Soviet Union fell that we were you know they
00:16:39.700they called it the end of history, that we've reached this kind of unipolar world that was
00:16:45.720dominated by America and there was nobody that was able to challenge. And so we're now entering
00:16:51.720this long reign of peace. And in a lot of ways, it has been. Primarily wars now are fought through
00:16:58.760proxy means rather than direct superpower confrontation. But I think we are definitely
00:17:05.020seeing that trend snap uh i think you can go back to around the 2014 era when these they they call
00:17:13.760them in geopolitics spheres of influence right so you've got kind of the the russian sphere of
00:17:19.420influence would be which would be eastern ukraine the eu over uh or sorry eastern europe uh then
00:17:25.980you've got the eu over western europe uh north america and then china seemingly trying to
00:17:32.960establish itself in the Asian region. But I think that's what we're going to see. And I mean, this,
00:17:38.560the Greenland idea fits directly into that as well, is kind of carving out, okay, you know,
00:17:45.080we don't have this one world order led by America anymore. We're going to have a multipolar world
00:17:51.360where each of these superpowers, Russia, China, and America kind of has influence over its direct
00:17:56.920sphere from a canadian standpoint liam i can vividly remember in the late 80s when my father
00:18:03.400was still in the military and any time at the time when brian mulroney and his cabinet
00:18:08.280would put forth they're going to buy new equipment there would be protests on campus
00:18:12.760and protests from peace groups saying why are we spending money on the military and the protests
00:18:18.840on campus seem to be more centered around free palestine and what's happening in the gaza strip
00:18:24.680than that and i i don't know if i can remember a time in canadian recent canadian history
00:18:29.960where a canadian government has had free reign to buy the ships and the submarines and the vehicles
00:18:35.320and planes that they do right now yeah yeah that's interesting and i think too as you were pointing
00:18:41.160to earlier when it comes to the social media front i think humanity is going to come face
00:18:45.960to face with the realities of war pretty quickly i mean that was definitely what came out of world
00:18:51.080war one and world war two was just kind of this like what the heck have we done here obviously
00:18:56.520with the industrialization of of militaries at that level it's just this this scale of catastrophe
00:19:03.560is is much greater than it ever would have been back in say the napoleon eras and such
00:19:08.440which would have only been a few decades prior to that um but yeah we're gonna see more and more
00:19:13.480people as you're pointing to with what what you see in gaza now coming face to face with this idea
00:19:18.840of what war really looks like because yeah sure movies and stuff people people are familiar with
00:19:25.960them and but it's still kind of glorified and still pulled back i actually think a great what
00:19:32.120movie that did uh justice to the realities of war was uh it was called all quiet on the western
00:19:36.920front it was a german movie about world war one uh but yeah you're definitely going to see a lot
00:19:42.840more public outrage i think over these kind of things uh but as you're pointing to when it comes
00:19:48.120to Canada being able to buy those military units,
00:19:54.080I think part of that is the fact that that kind of flies
00:19:58.160under the radar of, say, the more controversial Gaza stuff.
00:20:02.820Like, for instance, right now, not too many people
00:20:05.420are paying much attention to how much Canada
00:20:08.620is putting into their at-home military.
00:20:13.500please hit the subscribe button right now
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00:20:25.920what happens behind the paywall all right back to the show and that's why i brought it up it's
00:20:31.240it's such a bizarre time in our country's history that that that is taking place and as we speak
00:20:37.380today the shell company signing an agreement with the canadian government did double the output of
00:20:42.900liquid natural gas from kinemat bc with an eye towards south korea and japan and the asian
00:20:48.760countries um this is a real paradigm shift as the nation because you can't use you nailed it you
00:20:57.260can't not talk about energy and resources and the military because you can't have one without the
00:21:04.480other and you need to sell the the goods and the oil and the gas to have the money to buy some of
00:21:10.240this stuff. And so this is changing the way Canada is creating revenue and how they're going to use
00:21:16.860it. Yeah, for sure. And I mean, for the last couple of decades, I think we were governing
00:21:21.480on idealism more than realism. And because even too, you see these, you know, back when both
00:21:30.900Germany and Japan came to Trudeau and asked for access to natural gas. And he essentially said
00:21:38.340there was no no business case to be made for that and i think that's because the environmental
00:21:43.820policies and kind of the net zero push uh was was what he was all about and wanted to uh promote
00:21:50.500but now we're seeing that where you look at somewhere like germany and they feel really
00:21:56.200exposed and you're like and when it comes to these energy projects and so on as well one thing that
00:22:02.420always needs to be kept in mind is when you sign the paper nothing goes into effect right away it's
00:22:07.920like oh you need to build out it can take years to build out the infrastructure necessary in order
00:22:12.760to get you know energy over to a place like japan or south korea or germany and so on
00:22:17.340and uh i think yeah you're starting to see a lot of western leaders kind of panic to make up for
00:22:26.240the last decade or two here on that front and going back to the the salient point you made
00:22:31.940about greenland liam about the critical minerals and resources there one thing a number of extra
00:22:37.860experts have pointed out where they would almost have to do a canada shield type blasting just to
00:22:43.020build a road to get to the parts of greenland that has the critical minerals the infrastructure
00:22:48.240itself as you say would take years just to get to the point where they can start digging stuff
00:22:53.520out of the ground yeah yeah and so yeah there's a big there's a big delay in these kind of things
00:22:59.440And so it's definitely a little hard as somebody that was, you know, kind of talking about these things many years ago in the state that we were setting ourselves up for.
00:23:11.480Because, I mean, and I mean, I get it.
00:23:13.900Like, I get why we have these ideas of, OK, war is over.
00:23:18.380And it's very appealing and it sounds very virtuous.
00:23:21.420But reality will always find a way to kind of smack you in the face on that front.
00:23:25.780You know, once upon a time, I think it was Teddy Roosevelt said, walk softly and carry a big stick and not have war, but be prepared just in case someone tries to poke you.
00:23:36.600And a lot of countries seem to be taking that tact.
00:23:39.300And I know people would think, what does Greenland have to do with Lafayette?
00:25:20.360Yeah, well, and it's kind of ironic, right?
00:25:23.220Because you need strength to be able to build peace.
00:25:26.260And then once that peace comes, then you start to devalue the virtue of strength.
00:25:32.080And I mean, even if you think about this on a more individual level, it's like, I'm not
00:25:37.740by any means a guy that likes to go around puffing his chest.
00:25:41.540I like to play it pretty low, all of this kind of stuff.
00:25:44.020But I am keenly aware that, oh, if I look feeble, I'm probably more likely to have somebody, you know, try to try to push me around.
00:25:54.300And the same thing happens on a national level where actually, you know, if you're capable of defending yourself, you're much less likely to find yourself in a fight.
00:26:04.920And so, you know, I think it was, yeah, it was Frederick Nietzsche. He had a great saying where he said, I often laugh at myself, or sorry, I often laugh at those who think themselves good simply because they have no claws. And it's like, yeah, you need, yeah, you need to be able to, it's peace and pacifism is only a virtue so long as you have the capacity for force and violence, because then otherwise it's a survival mechanism.
00:30:26.460And so when we look at someone like America, yeah, people can have their opinions about the current administration.
00:30:33.960But the geographical location between Canada and America is going to far outlast any single administration.
00:30:43.600And so I definitely hope to see us be one of those that can kind of pull it together.
00:30:49.340But the one thing, to Carney's credit, is he basically has reached out in a very intellectual and, you know, I think very pragmatic way to these other countries, these middle powers, as you said, Liam.0.73
00:31:02.680and said look this is what we're dealing with now if we have some sort of partnership and we're
00:31:07.880stronger together let's do something together and i i think i'm seeing more of that in the last six
00:31:12.600months that i can remember in my lifetime where everyone's like yeah let's just if there's 12 or
00:31:18.14016 of us we can stand up and and fight back a little bit yeah i mean i definitely i like the
00:31:26.060attitude to to try to get yourself into a better position uh but kind of like i was saying there
00:31:32.020when we look at who those partners are that we're lining up,
00:31:34.920whether it be Vietnam or I know Carney has since kind of turned it down
00:31:39.020and said that Canada is not that interested in becoming an associate member of the EU.
00:31:43.440But as we're talking about with the EU's problems with manufacturing and energy policy,
00:31:49.360it's kind of like I would like to see us kind of turn towards nations