RRU in the Media: Canada must consider the risk of US coercion

Canadians must confront an unsettling new reality that the US could use military coercion against Canada, argues a recent Globe and Mail op-ed co-authored by Cascade Institute Executive Director Thomas Homer-Dixon and Adam Gordon, an affiliated researcher on Cascade’s democracy and polycrisis teams and former legal adviser to Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.  

Homer-Dixon and Gordon write: 

"So, this is the 'peace president?'

Donald Trump promised that under his leadership the U.S. would eschew “nation building,” “forever wars,” “regime change,” and violent foreign engagements more generally. 

Yet since his second inauguration, he’s ordered military action in Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Iraq; bombed Iran’s nuclear weapons complexes; and blown up more than a score of boats allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean. In just the past two weeks, he has launched missiles against Islamic terrorists in northern Nigeria, declared that the U.S. was “locked and loaded” for another attack on Iran, and now decapitated Venezuela’s government.

In this context, Canadians must acknowledge the real risk that Mr. Trump will use military coercion against our country. 

While the co-authors write that "little can be predicted with confidence" because the world has become "wildly non-linear," they conclude that US President Donald Trump has demonstrated his willingness to "use his country’s massive military power to advance his interests. We must get ready." 

Read the full op-ed in The Globe and Mail. 

Image by Mathew from Adobe Stock.