LITTLEJOHN: Canada's fairy tale view of northern realities

Tessa Littlejohn is a Calgary-based writerCanadians are rightfully angry. Our best friend has stabbed us in the back with tariffs and while we laughed for a while, we are now tired of the 51st state joke. However, if Canadians want to preserve our sovereignty we need to set aside our emotions and face facts.We cannot win a trade war. Or any kind of war. The US Gross Domestic Policy is about $25 trillion, and at $2.2 trillion, Canada's is not even a tenth of that. In other words, the Doberman meets the chihuahua in the alley. Guess who wins that fight? The truth is that Canada has been blithely gathering daisies in the forest like Little Red Riding Hood, giddily assuming everyone loves us, while the wily wolf chats us up. But what if the wily wolf we need to fear is not the orange-haired meany to the South? What if, in this fairy tale, there are two wolves?President Trump talks about Canada, the Panama Canal and Greenland because he is concerned about the geo-strategic and geo-economic defence of the US homeland. Instead of being weakened by western sanctions, Russia has become stronger and is forming an economic and political union with China. When two wolves like them join forces, tasty little morsels like us ought to take note and tread cautiously. Canada, out of naivete, stupidity, cupidity or all three, has invited in one of the wolves already, quite ignoring its bared fangs. Luckily, President Trump, the woodcutter in our adaptation of the old fairy tale, has noticed and is going to do something about it whether Little Red Riding Hood is on board or not.. According to Trump-explainer Steve Bannon (speaking with Brian Lilley) the president is following the principles laid out in the 19th century by US naval officer Alfred Thayer Mahan. In effect, Trump is reviving the Monroe Doctrine which seals off the Western Hemisphere from the rest of the world, both for protection and to avoid being drawn into the conflicts of others.But to do this, it must buttress the unprotected and hitherto-ignored northernmost portion of the Great White North. President Trump believes that the New Great Game of the 21st century is the Arctic and he will not allow our feelings to interfere with the development of its resources or with fixing this vulnerable security risk to the US homeland. Approximately 40% of Canada is considered part of the Arctic land mass.There's a lot to win or lose. The Arctic is known to be resource-rich, with some estimates suggesting that 30% of the world's untapped natural gas reserves and as much as 13% of the world's undiscovered oil reservoirs, as well as significant mineral wealth, lay north of 60. Meanwhile, with modern ice breakers, a shipping route through the Northwest Passage cuts eats-west shipping times 30-50% compared to passage through the Panama Canal.Yet in 2016, Mr. Trudeau banned all Arctic drilling and exploration. Canada has done nothing. Now, we have insignificant ice breaking capacity, no polar submarine capacity and our scattered teams of Rangers operating with dog teams. We refuse to pay for a functional military and have failed to keep our funding commitments to NATO. Not so China and Russia. Russia has expanded and modernized its nuclear capable forces along the Arctic coast and built a fleet of LNG and commercial carriers with significant ice-breaking capabilities. It has opened the northeast passage. China has participated in this industrial expansion and now considers itself an Arctic nation. Alarmingly, Mr. Trudeau has through his entire ministry admired China, viewed them as a friend and seems unaware that China has long used the strategy of the People's War — unrestricted warfare based on the philosophy of Sun Tzu which sees kinetic war, that is people shooting at each other, as a failure. China has been fighting unrelenting political warfare through carefully chosen, difficult to recognize battles using cyber, political, information and economic warfare. It continues to do so and the fentanyl crisis and Vancouver model money laundering along our leaky border is only a part of this war.President Trump is tired of freeloaders like us. We can shake a skinny fist at him, but the USA will ensure that their security and economic interests are protected in the Arctic and our southern border. Canadians can either help with that protection and remain sovereign or start learning the words to the Star-Spangled Banner. It is time for Little Red Riding Hood to notice what big teeth our furry grandmothers have and start cooperating with the woodcutter instead of trying to fight a battle we are guaranteed to lose.Tessa Littlejohn is a Calgary-based writer.

LITTLEJOHN: Canada's fairy tale view of northern realities

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