Several days ago, a friend forwarded three articles by prominent Canadians commenting on the Canadian dilemma created by the current American geopolitical vision. Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae and Lloyd Axworthy have collectively commented on the causes, the conditions and actions that can be taken by Canada.
“Europe’s ‘Civilizational Erasure’ : The US National Security Strategy and the End of the West.”
“2025 is not 1984: Bob Rae Notes on President Trump’s ‘National Security Strategy’.”
“A recent Wall Street journal report reveals an unsettling new truth…”.
The underlying and unspoken question is whether Canada will exist as a separate nation 100 years from now.
What has been collectively written by these three experts alludes to a division of the northern hemisphere between the present superpowers. And it is interesting to look at the natural boundaries that could be created where the Arctic is divided with the US taking over Canada and Russia drawing a northern line over the Arctic to take over the Scandinavian countries and share a northern boundary with the United States. Force exerted by the superpowers will not be countered because of an effete Europe which will no longer be supported by the US with Canada left defenceless without any Western-allied support. The 51st state is not fiction, but it is a future reality and more so when the necessity for water will surpass in intensity the present demand shown for oil.
We are in a transition phase with the changing international hegemony. The tipping point has been reached and we are now on the other side; there are no new negotiations or unifying actions that can be taken as anticipated by Axworthy. The sentiments in his last paragraph have been long since evaporated.
Climate change is the very catalyst that will foster and enhance even more authoritarian rule. Why so? Because the tumultuous upheavals created by unlivable heat environments, water shortages and rising sea levels will leave a substantial population (especially in developed countries with highly-invested coastal economics) so dispirited, displaced and economically devasted that such conditions will augment the fertile ground for authoritarian rule. Populations will be thrown back to Maslow’s first and second levels becoming more easily controllable and dependent.
Borders, 100 to 200 years from now, will be unrecognizable as a result of the effects of climate change which, in turn, will dictate political action affecting national space definitions and, of course, international migration.
