Brian Crombie Radio Hour - Epi 1440 - Trump, Tariffs, & World War III with John Nagl, & Sergio March
August 11, 2025 • 57 mins
Tonight on The Brian Crombie Hour, Brian interviews John Nagl and Sergio Marchi. Dr. John Nagl, Professor of Warfighting Studies at the U.S. Army War College and retired Armor officer, warns that the world may already be sliding into a new global conflict. Comparing today’s tensions to the lead-up to World War II, he urges Canada to boost defense spending and deepen alliances with the U.S. and other democracies to counter rising autocratic powers, particularly Russia and China. Nagl stresses that a strong, united front is essential to deter aggression and protect international law.
In the second hour, Sergio Marchi, former MP and Cabinet Minister, warns of mounting challenges in Canada’s trade dependency on the U.S., especially under Donald Trump’s hardline tariff approach. Citing missed trade deal deadlines and tough negotiations, he stresses the need for Canada to diversify its markets while preserving a constructive relationship with Washington. Marchi notes this shift will be gradual and complex but essential for long-term economic security.
In the second hour, Sergio Marchi, former MP and Cabinet Minister, warns of mounting challenges in Canada’s trade dependency on the U.S., especially under Donald Trump’s hardline tariff approach. Citing missed trade deal deadlines and tough negotiations, he stresses the need for Canada to diversify its markets while preserving a constructive relationship with Washington. Marchi notes this shift will be gradual and complex but essential for long-term economic security.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty am or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
And everyone. Welcome to the Brian Crombie Radio I've got
John Nago with us tonight. He is a professor of
war fighting studies at the US Army War College. And Sir,
I've read several of your articles and posts recently about
the war in Ukraine, and you've written about Ukraine's battlefield innovations,
reshaped global military thinking, and also that the Allied leaders
(00:40):
confront interconnected global threats. Welcome to the show. Tell me
what has happened in Ukraine that's changed battlefield innovations and
reshaped global military thinking.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Oh, my goodness, a whole whole lot of things. So
we are very fortunate that at great power wars do
not happen very often, and so when they do, fights
like the seventy three Arab Israeli War from which the
(01:12):
US Army drew a number of lessons, the first war
I fought in Operation Desert Storm, and that now this
ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, we have to pay
attention to what happens and what changes so at the
(01:36):
army or college where I teach, but for which I
do not speak at any official basis whatsoever. I've run
a project for the last three years that tries to
derive lessons from the war in Ukraine. We published one
book on it, titled The Call to Action, I edited
with a terrific Army colonel named Katie Crome. We've got
(01:56):
another volume forthcoming on the second year of the war.
We've got a third book on the third year of
the war in press, and so those are Those are
forty eight chapters, probably two hundred and fifty or three
hundred thousand words devoted to answering just the question you asked.
(02:20):
In broad terms, we believe, per Cloudswords, that the nature
of war does not change, that war is simultaneously two things,
an act of violence to compel our enemy to do
our will, and the continuation of politics with the admixture
(02:45):
of other means. So we teach, we teach that we
study cloudswets, but we also teach that while the nature
of war does not change, it is bloody and violent
and horrible, that the character of war has changed, and
that the character of war has changed repeatedly as we
moved from weapons propelled by human power spears, arrows, crossboats
(03:11):
to weapons propelled by gunpowder, as airplanes joined the cacophony
of combat as armored vehicles, the internal combustion engine radios.
The admixture of those three or four most recent innovations
together the Germans called Blitzkrieg, the US Army called AirLand battle.
(03:35):
And now what we're seeing today is a dramatic increase
in robotic systems in the air, which we've seen for
the past two decades twenty five years or so, but
increasingly in this score, at sea and now on the ground.
(03:57):
And what we're thinking about a lot, and I'll stop
on this is the application of artificial intelligence to multiple air,
ground and see onemanned systems simultaneously, which may well present
(04:17):
a real revolution in warfare.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
So this combined air power, land power, seapower, drones and
artificial intelligence have changed.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
War absolutely correct or are changing our changing war. So
in some ways I think we're still at the sort
of model T forward level the biplanes and triplanes of
World War one level of one manned systems, and in
(04:51):
particular on the application and integration of artificial intelligence with
one man systems and it is possible, and this is
a a heretical thing to say, but it is possible
now for the first time, not just to imagine, but
conceivably to implement wars of robot v robots. And if
(05:14):
that happened, if wars were no longer bloody because no
humans were involved, that would be a fundamental change in
the nature of the world, and the closets could not
have predicted.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
We're going to take a break for some messages and
come back with our guest John Nigel in just two
minutes to doo with us everyone.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
No Radio, No problem. Stream is live on SAGA ninety
sixty AM dot C.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
A welcome back everyone to the Brian Crimes Radio. I've
got a really interesting guest to Professor John Nauga with
us today. He's got a doctorate in international relations for
(06:04):
the University of Oxford. He's got a bachelor's degree from
West Point, He's got a master's from the University of
Oxford in international relations. He saw service in I think
it was Desert Storm that you said. And you've been
teaching since then at the United States Army War College
and both in London King's College as well as in Pennsylvania.
(06:30):
He's now also a professional lecturer at the George Washington University,
and he's a author and a frequent contributor to conversations
and discussions. His book on the wars of the past
twenty years is titled Knife Fights, a Memoir of Modern
War in Theory and Practice, and most recently he's written
another book, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, from
(06:52):
the University of Chicago Press. And your most recent book
was called what Sir So.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
I published an edit volume with one of my students
from a couple of years ago, Colonel Katie crom a
book called a Call to Action Lessons from Ukraine for
the Future Force that tries to derive lessons from the
ongoing Russo Ukrainian for war in order to help the
United States military, our friends and allies around the globe,
(07:20):
including our Canadian friends, better prepare for deterring war and
if deterrence fails, fighting and winning.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Let's come back. If we could to these battlefield innovations drones.
Let's talk specifically about drone warfare, if we could for
a couple of minutes, I've been told that AI could
change drone warfare dramatically because one of the biggest challenges
they have is the jamming of the communications between the
operators and the drones that were initially solved with fiber
(07:53):
optic I don't even know what you call them wires,
and I understand that the frontline are littered with a
whole bunch of these fiber optic wires that were either
used or cut down or somehow slashed, and so you know,
obviously the radio communication was jammed and therefore didn't work,
(08:16):
and now the fiber optic wires are not necessarily working
as well as they want, and so therefore artificial intelligence
such that the drones can work without immediate contact with
the operator is the next big innovation that's happening right now.
Can you comment on sort of the evolution of drone warfare.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
You've covered it very well. We're seeing you're probably about
my vantage. I don't if you remember Spy versus Spy
and Mad magazine, if Mad Magazine made its way across
our northern border. But there's a competition in learning is
one of the ways to think about warfare, and in
particular in times of rapid technological change, which is what
(08:57):
we're seeing now. So as you suggested, correctly, Bryan. We
started with radio controlled drones, we've moved to fiber optic
controlled drones. Those continue to have a pretty high degree
of success actually, but they are single use drones in
most cases, and so you fly it with a fiber
(09:18):
optic cable trailing out behind it that can go as
much as five or ten kilometers that you fly the
drone into a tank or into a group of soldiers,
into an artillery piece, and then the cable is left
behind and it litters the battlefield. It doesn't do much
environmental damage. Fortunately. The next step is artificial intelligence, removing
(09:44):
the human from the system. And I think this is
true not just for drones. And this is also not
completely new. It's important to note that that, for instance,
of America's Patriot Air Defense System has had no humans
in the loop system for thirty years since my first war.
So we've been allowing robots to make shoot no shoot
(10:06):
decisions for decades. That's not brand new. But what we
are thinking about in moving towards is having lots and
lots of robots and in an offensive role rather than
a putatively defensive role, as the Patriot Air Defense System
is designed to do. Although when it makes mistakes, They
can be really really bad, shooting down civilian airliners and
(10:29):
that sort of thing, a problem that both Russia and
the United States have had with various sorts of air
defense systems. But if we can, and this is particularly
important for Ukraine, Ukraine suffers from a manpower shortage. Currently,
almost all drones have to be flown by a single
human being, and a single human being can only control
one drone at a time. We are moving toward the
(10:53):
application of artificial intelligence towards these systems in which every
drone flown by a human could have a number of
robot wingmen, and conceivably in the not too distant future,
where drones are flying autonomously, they are seeking out their
own targets. They are checking against the parameters known established
(11:14):
parameters of what a Russian tank looks like, a Russian
artillery piece look like, Russian soldiers look like, and detonating
itself against those targets, all without the involvement of a
single human being. That is the truly revolutionary potential that
we're seeing in this war, taking humans conceivably entirely out
(11:38):
of them.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Tell me about these drones that attacked the Ukrainian sorry,
the Russian airports. Were they controlled all the way back
to Ukraine or were they autonomous AI LED drones?
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Some of both is my understanding. And I haven't read
the classified American intercepts on this. I haven't read the
Ukrainian stuff, so so purely unclassified press uh sort of
reports have some of them being flown autonomously and using
preprogrammed pictures images inside the drone of what the targets
(12:21):
they were trying to look like, because those were designed
to attack very specific targets nuclear capable Russian bombers. And
some of them were flown remotely through links like like starlink.
But but you know, long range wireless links allowed the
(12:47):
Ukrainian pilots in Ukraine apparently to fly those drones from
literally thousands of kilometers.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Away, from thousands of kilometers away.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Thousands of klometers away. There's there's first drones can have
thousand kilometer ranges. Of course, the United States has been flying,
for instance, predator drones over Pakistan and Afghanistan from certainly
hundreds of thousand, thousands of miles away that we've been
doing that for decades. Ukraine has long range drones that
(13:21):
they've built themselves that can fly thousands of columbars. But
in this case, the drones were released from box containers
on the back of moving vans, driven by driven to
the target location by onwitting Russian truck drivers, released remotely
and flown remotely through satellite links to the targets that
(13:46):
they were intended to hit. And they had backup systems
and at least some cases where if for whatever reason
the communications were cut, the drones had been instructed where
to direct themselves against which particular Russian aircraft. We are
in a new era because if Ukraine can do this,
(14:07):
any country in the world, what a reasonable degree of
technological progress can do it. Now. Ukraine is currently at
the cutting edge of drone development. They are testing their
drones on the battlefield. And I was just at a
conference called Land euro sponsored by the Association of the
(14:28):
United States Army in v Spot in Germany, the home
of US Army Europe. And at that conference, Ukrainian representatives,
speaking to a whole bunch of American and international defense companies,
volunteered to let them test their systems on the actual
battlefield against actual Russian forces. So we are seeing extraordinary
(14:51):
technological change in warfare right now, akin to the innovation
that marked the First World War that brought the first
use of airplanes in combat and the development of the
main battle tank that I've served on in two wars.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Has Ukraine attacked any naval bases other than those in
the Black Sea? Or should they they?
Speaker 3 (15:16):
H that's that is a very interesting question. Ukraine has
been relatively restrained in its efforts to broaden the war,
at least in part at the request of the US
government and some of our NATO allies, who have expressed
concern about about what Vladimir Putin already believes to be
(15:40):
a war of Russia against all of NATO. That's not
the case. It's purely Ukrainians doing the fighting, but of
course they are doing it with many Western systems. Ukraine
has developed, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, long
range drones on its own to to to to try
to broaden the war, but it has so far at
(16:02):
least not struck the Russian navy forces at Kaliningrad and
the Baltic Sea. It is not impossible to suggest that
that could be a possibility, in particular, were Russia to
expand the war further, and at the conference I was
(16:24):
at in Bispad a couple of weeks ago, an American
commander mentioned from the podium as we talked about the
possibility that Russia would expand this war in the years
to come against NATO countries, he pointed out that the
Russian naval base at Kaliningrad arguably the most important Russian
(16:46):
naval base in the world now that the Black Sea
Fleet essentially no longer exists, but the Kaliningrad is geographically
vulnerable to NATO countries, and that Russia could lose access
to Kaliningrad if it decided to broaden this war. And
so as we talk about and correctly and I'm super
(17:08):
interested in the conversation about drones and technological change in warfare,
it's worth remembering that we are also seeing what many
observers are calling a full in progress world war, with
North Korean forces fighting on the battlefield in Ukraine, with
(17:34):
Chinese technology powering a bunch of the Russian drones, and
with the Russians of course now building their own replicas
of Iranian shahedrones, so that many observers believe we are
now fighting already a world war fought largely in the
territory of Ukraine, increasingly in the territory of Russia as well,
(17:57):
And in fact, the first panel this Land euro conference
I spoke at a couple of weeks ago that I
think led to you to me was titled world War
Next and we discussed just this possibility with a Finnish
general officer and Australian general officer and two American observers
of the war.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
So, sir, do you believe that World War three has started?
Speaker 3 (18:25):
My speech, my talk on the opening panel of this
conference noted the number of very credible observers who believe
that it already has. I certainly think that if Ukraine falls,
and this was an overwhelming theme of this conference, that
(18:47):
Russia will not stop at Ukraine, that Vladimir Putin's ambitions
are to restore the Soviet Union, all the countries of
the Warsaw Pact. And I'm surprised, honestly that this topic
is not discussed more openly on this side of the Atlantic.
(19:08):
The countries of Europe who represented at the conference, who
have recently decided to more than double their defense spending.
So six months ago, if you and I were having
this conversation, we might have talked about the fact that NATO,
including Canada, is struggling to reach the agreed upon two
percent GDP devoted to defense. Today, six months later, NATO
(19:35):
has overwhelmed. NATO countries have overwhelmingly decided to spend five
percent of GDP on defense, which is not yet a
full wartime footing, but is moving in that direction. Russia
is probably spending forty percent of its GDP on defense
right now, which.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Is forty percent of its GDP on defense. How's it
financing that?
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Well, it is struggling to finance that. Russian interest rates
are nearing twenty percent, it's suffering from inflation. That the
financing it is able to get is by selling oil
at discounted rates to countries like China, India, a number
(20:16):
of countries around the globe. And this is why President
Trump's recent threats to impose secondary economic sanctions on countries
that procure oil from Russia at these deeply discounted rates
is very real. So we are seeing, as I speak
(20:36):
to you today in early August of twenty twenty five,
we are seeing Russia make incremental but worrying gains on
the battlefield in eastern Ukraine. But we are also seeing
a Russian economy that is staggering under the cost of
this war. And it is impossible right now to determine
(20:57):
who is going to win this war, where the Russia
is going to be able to continue to spend this
percent of GDP on the war, whether America is going
to impose those secondary sanctions, and the impact those sanctions
would have on a Russia that is winning on the
battlefield but not winning diplomatically.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
What do you think the risk of China attacking Taiwan
is today, sir.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Trific question when I think about a lot so the
Department of Defense, the American Department of Defense says that
China is our pacing challenge and Russia is our acute threat.
Russia is labeled correctly as a threat to global peace
and security. It has already invaded Ukraine. It has ambitions
(21:52):
as a suggestion a few minutes ago, to continue its
war of aggression should Ukraine fall. Ukraine right now is
holding the Russian horde literally from the rest of NATO
and should be commended and applauded and admired for that.
China is watching it. The war in Ukraine very very closely.
(22:16):
If Russia cannot defeat a much smaller country with which
it shares a long, contiguous border, and a border that
is comprised of some of the best tank country in
the world, then it is going to be far, far,
far harder for a China that has no combat experience
(22:39):
since nineteen seventy nine to take a far smaller country
that is separated from it by one hundred miles of
very difficulties which are navigable for the purposes of an
amphibious invasion, which is perhaps the most difficult of all
military tasks. Only during roughly and October, Chinese is watching
(23:04):
the economic sanctions that Russia has had imposed upon it,
and Russia needs to sell its oil in order to
keep its war going. But the Chinese economy is far
more dependent on global trade than the Russian economy is,
and so my short answer to your question is that
(23:26):
short of Taiwan openly declaring independence, China will not invade Taiwan.
China believes, in my opinion, that it can through economic coercion,
through blockades, through gray area warfare, it can achieve many
(23:50):
of its goals in Taiwan and the South China Sea.
For instance, the continuing confrontations the Chinese Coast Guard has
with the Philippine Navy over disputed territory in the South
China Sea, that it can achieve most of its goals
without fighting. And remember sons of the great Chinese strategists said,
(24:12):
the acme of skill and war is to win without fighting.
That is what I believe China would like to accomplish,
and it's one of the reasons why I believe that
if we want to deter China, we must defend Ukraine.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Could you repreat that, please?
Speaker 3 (24:33):
If we want to deter China, we must defend Ukraine
the front lines of freedom for the entire globe.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Right now, do you think the inhabitants of the White House,
your current government agree with what you just said.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
I think there are conflicting opinions inside the Pentagon on
Capitol Hill on the extent to which the war in
Ukraine is less or more important than the prospect of
(25:11):
war between the United States and China. I am not
going to say that my position is the majority position,
but there are an increasing number. Certainly, this opinion was
prevalent in Europe of thinkers, and I think Senator Mitch McConnell,
(25:32):
former Senate Majority leader, Chris Coons, Senator from Delaware, possible
future Senate Armed Service Committee majority member if the Senate flips.
They published a piece on Friday that talked to the
importance of deterring China through a number of investments, including
(25:54):
more significant investments in Ukraine than the White House has
suggested to date. I am making this argument because I
believe that that it's true, that it matters, and that
people are listening.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
You know, if I could, I wanted to take you
back to history, whether it be World War One or
World War Two, for a minute here, and if you're right,
or some of the commentators at your conference are right
that World War three has already begun, maybe history has
some lessons to learn from it. Last week, by chance
to watch the movie Pearl Harbor. And you know, the
(26:33):
United States had a very isolationist attitude in the late
nineteen thirties and the early nineteen forties. While your president
at Franklin Dell in a reservolt, was supportive of Britain
and of the Allied forces, and had land lease and
provided military equipment and funds and support, we didn't get
(26:56):
actively involved until Pearl Harbor, and lots of people talk
about how the Big Giant was woken up by Pearl Harbor.
Will it take something the equivalent of Pearl Harbor to
wake up the United States to this threat?
Speaker 3 (27:11):
To Sir So, I had the privilege of visiting Pearl
Harbor exactly a year ago today. I was sent from
the Army War College to the US Army Pacific Headquarters
on Oahu to teach a course called the Theater Army
Staff Course, and got to spend some time at Pearl
and saw, of course the remains of the USS Arizona,
(27:38):
and was struck by just exactly the points you raise
that if Japan had not struck at Pearl, certainly, and
then if Hitler had not declared war on the United States,
(27:59):
making life a whole lot easier for Franklin Roosevelt, who correctly,
in my eyes, believed that Germany was the more significant
enemy in that fight. That it is entirely possible the
United States does not get involved in World War two
soon and even at all. And I'm constantly reminded of
Winston Churchill's diary entry on the night of December seventh,
(28:23):
nineteen forty one, when he wrote, He wrote, I slept
the first good sleep I've had in months, because he
knew that the forces of the New World were now
joined with those of the old to take on fascism
in all its forms in both Asia and in Europe.
(28:47):
And I agree with your assessment. I think Franklin delan
and Roosevelt was leaning very far forward in preparing the
United States for war. He was leaning very far forward
in providing even before Pearl, in providing absolutely necessary weapons, equipment, food, money,
(29:08):
first first to Britain and then to Russia after the
German invasion of that country. And so I very much
hope that those lessons of history are being digested that
we appreciate. We did not. We did not understand that
the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in nineteen thirty one that
(29:33):
did not appear to be a matter that interested the
United States, that affected the United States. But a decade
later we could look back on that invasion and recognize
that a series of events had begun that was almost inevitably,
inevitably going to result in war between the United States
and Japan. It is entirely possible that the Russian invasion
(29:57):
of the Ukraine, the continuing Russian crimes against humanity, war crimes,
abduction of children, attacks on civilians throughout Ukraine, attacks on
civilians and business leaders, government leaders across Europe, through through
(30:18):
subversion and and and various forms of poisoning. That that
this does all mark the opening phases of World War three,
and we get we will only be able to identify
that for certain in retrospects.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Modern possible passing conversation. We're going to take a right
and come back with some concluding comments with our guests
in just two minutes. Stay with us, everyone, interesting, very interesting.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Stream us live at SAGA nine am dot C.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
A welcome back everyone to the Brian Crime Radio. Or
We've got a professor of war studies with us tonight. John.
It's nagle right closer, it's dog, but it's fine, close enough.
(31:16):
How does someone become a professor of war studies?
Speaker 3 (31:20):
There are a number of routes. We have a number
of different kinds of people at the Army Work College.
The majority of our faculty, like me, have served in
the military. I've served twenty years in the Armbored Corps
of the United States Army, fought in two wars. But
we also have pure civilian faculty members who have never
(31:41):
worn the uniform a day in their life, but are
just academic experts. In for instance, two of my best
friends are are academic experts in China and China's use
of economic warfare and diplomacy to accomplish its objectives without fighting.
And another friend is a student of counterinsurgency and irregular war,
(32:05):
in particular by France in the nineteenth and twentieth century.
So we have a broad variety of faculty who teach
rising colonels over the course of a year here at
the Army War College and beautiful Carlisle, Pennsylvania, including I
am proud to say every year a Canadian officer who
(32:26):
is often destined for very significant leadership rules in the
Canadian military in the Canadian government.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Let me ask you to change your sort of orientation
for a minute if I could. And we've got a
audience right now in Canada, and that you're speaking to, sir,
and you know, we are faced with a situation where
we have just recently committed to increase our spending on
defense fairly significantly. We haven't been spending, as you correctly
(32:58):
pointed out, a two percent of GDP on defense, which
was the commitment. Now it's gone to three, and some
people think it's going to be a five percent if
you include infrastructure spending. We've got the President of the
United States asking us to participate in Golden Dome, a reconfiguration.
It would appear of Norad. We've got the second largest
(33:22):
groupings of Ukrainians outside of Ukraine and the United States,
so we've got a huge population of Ukrainians in Canada.
We've got a historical connection with Ukraine. We fought long
before the United States in both World War One and
World War Two. We fought beside the United States in Afghanistan.
(33:44):
If you had an opportunity to speak to Canadians tonight, sir,
or to the Canadian Prime Minister, what would you tell
us we need to do right now in regards to
what you are suggesting is a war that either is
part of the start of World War three and or
the war that will the way you've described it, make
sure that World War three doesn't happen if we support
Ukraine the way we need.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
To, and I obviously very much hope for the latter.
I would start my conversation with the Canadian people by
thanking them for their extraordinary partnership with the United States
for well over a century. At this point, we are
the best of neighbors. We have been the best of friends.
We share still the longest undefended land border in the world.
(34:28):
And I have served with Canadians in combat and have
the privilege of teaching them here at the Army War College,
and I am grateful for everything that Canada has done
for global security. That said, I think we face a
period of immense danger right now. I think that the
(34:50):
forces of autocracy are on the march, are on the rise.
I run a project at the Army War College titled
Project nineteen thirty eight suggesting just that the forces of
autocracy are marshaling as they were just before the Second
World War, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt is you correctly note,
(35:10):
mobilized to the United States for war. And so I
would ask the Canadian people, my friends, my alliance, my partners,
my brothers and sisters in arms, to dig as deep
as they can, as we need to dig as deeply
as we can to present the tightest possible united front
(35:31):
in the American Canadian Alliance, in NATO, in our partnerships
with our friends in Japan and Australia and Korea and
New Zealand and around the globe to say that taking
other countries by force is the most basic violation of
international law. It will not be allowed. We will not
(35:53):
allow it to happen. And I was privileged to serve
under President George H. W. Bush's leadership when Margaret Thatcher
stiffened his spine to resist Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait
thirty years ago. I fear we are at the same
sort of time, and we, as a global alliance of
(36:16):
democracies dedicated to human rights and international law, have to
stand firm with each other and let China, Russia, North
Korea and Iran no, this will not stand.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Professor, thank you so much for joining us. I really
appreciate it. I'm a frequent reader of your articles and
your posts, and we got to have you back. So
we're going to take a break for some messages and
come back.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
No Radio, No Problem. Stream is live on SAGA nine
sixty am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
A welcome back everyone to the Brian Crombie Radio Hour.
I've got Sergio Marqui, the honorable Sergio Marque with me,
a former member of Parliament, former Cabinet minister, and you know,
we've just had a conversation about where we are from
(37:13):
a geopolitical standpoint. We're now going to focus in on
Canada versus the United States because Sergio Marki has got
some really i think poignant points of view of where
Canada is in its trade relationships with the United States.
Honorable Sergei Markey, Well, welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
Thank you for having me back. Brian, it's good to
be with you.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
So where do you think we are and what's your
advice to to Canada and to our Prime Minister Mark
Karney given that Donald Trump is slapping us with more
tariffs again.
Speaker 4 (37:43):
Yeah, it's been a real drama, real roller coaster with
with the Donald, and I'm getting this sense obviously that
he doesn't love our country nor does he respect our
political leaders, given what he does and what he says.
But I wasn't surprised that we didn't make the deadline
(38:05):
for our trade deal on the first of August, because
I think Prime Minister Carne and his team were pretty
open about signaling that they were probably going to miss
the deadline, And for me, I accept at face value
that the Canadians didn't like what was on the table,
and rather than sinking into a bad deal, it's best
(38:30):
to have no deal. And given that the doors are
still open for discussions, we should take those discussions and
see if we can formulate a deal that's good for
both countries. So I think rather than quickly retaliating right now,
because you can retaliate at any time, I think it's
best for Carne to keep his powder dry as he is.
(38:53):
But at the same time, we can't wait forever because
there's many sectors with tariffs that are fighting hard. The
thirty five percent is not as consequential because it only
applies to about five percent of products. But it's also
difficult to kind of get a sense of what is
(39:16):
holding the deal back because you and I aren't privy
and we're not at the table. But again, Canadians have
a pretty good tradition of strong negotiators, so I think
they know what a bad deal looks like.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
I had an interesting conversation on Tuesday with a professor
from Georgetown University, a former economist, very learned gentleman who
actually was a diplomat in Moscow prior to the fall
of the USSR. In Ukraine, etc. Andres Asland. And he
(39:53):
said that there's four models of dealing with Donald Trump.
I'll Salvador, Hungary, the UK, A and UH and China.
And he said that, uh, that Al Sabador is a copy,
that that Hungary is is a somewhat of a copy,
and and and putting up with that that the UK
(40:15):
and France are in the EU is flatter like crazy
and played his ego and see what you can do. Uh.
And the China is stand tough because they know that
you need the rare earth metals and uh and you
need the consumer products, et cetera. Otherwise uh, inflation is
going to go through the roof in the United States.
And he says that he thinks that the Chinese strategy
(40:38):
is actually working out the best so far. And he said, uh.
And and here's a person from Scandinavia that is working
and living UH in Washington. D C Professor at Georgetown
University who said, Canada, you don't realize how strong of
the piciits. You've got the can The United States needs
your energy, they need your water, they need your electricity,
they need your oil and gas and uh and and
(41:01):
and you're tied in in so many other industries, steel, aluminum, cars, etc.
You can stand tough, but at the same time, people
that stand tough get his wrath to get retaliated. So
what do you think.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
Well, I think first of all, that his erratic personality
is the biggest hindrance in dealing with the United States
and now the trade negotiations, because he's unpredictable. His word
is worthless, he turns on a dime. He has no
loyalty except to himself. He's got no interest in the
(41:39):
world other than the g one, namely America. He doesn't
deal with facts, Brian, he doesn't read his briefing books.
I know that, and therefore he's a politician, or he's
an individual that goes by that gut, by his intuition,
and oftentimes that intuition and that gut is way off,
(42:02):
you know. Speaking to your professor about the four different models,
China and Canada are the only two countries who've had
the temerity to strike back. And obviously we're seeing his wrath.
But I'm not surprised that he says China is probably
the best strategy. But also China is quite unique. You know,
(42:25):
we don't have a population of a billion three. We're
not producing products for the world at at cheap prices,
so I can understand China Canada, you know, is ten
times smaller than the United States are are saving grace
so far so far is that we have a NaSTA
(42:46):
agreement which exempts ninety five percent of our products from
from tariffs.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
We've obviously gotten it's got the innegotiating next year. It's
got to be renegotiating next year. So yeah, yeah, it's
he would be a saving grace for a year, but
not for long.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
And what do you do with a guy who doesn't
respect his word or doesn't respect rules. What's the deal
worth when you're trad when you're dealing with Trump, he
doesn't care if we go to the Wtoh, he'll keep appealing,
he'll keep his lawyers busy. So even next year, I mean,
(43:24):
all of the terrorists that he's imposed are basically illegal
quote unquote under the NAFTA agreement. But he did it anyway.
He could give two hoots. So I'm hoping that there's
something credible in our renegotiation that has staying power. Otherwise
it's not worth the deal, It's not worth the paper
(43:46):
it's written on. And that's that's why I say his
personality is the number one challenge for us. How do
you deal with this guy? How do you make deals sick?
Even in his arrangements with the Europeans or the Britin
there was nothing signed, so who knows where this thing
goes next week or next month or next year. So
(44:07):
that's the uncertainty that plagues us, both in terms of
uncertainty in the investment where it's easier to go to
the States rather than faces wrath in Canada, and the
uncertainty of who you're dealing with. It's not easy, but
at some point you have to draw the line. You
can't be a Patsy. I don't think bullies respect Patsy's.
(44:32):
In the end, and with increasing time, I think if
he's raising all of those tariffs on all of those countries,
guess what, He's going to place a tax on US importers,
and those US importers aren't going to swallow it. They're
going to pass it on to the consumers, so Americans
will pay. But that takes time.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
Sergia. I've Negotia to deal with someone who tried to
bully me, and then we came to an agreement and
that individual reniged on the agreement and it was not
a signed agreement, but it was a handshake agreement and
they were nigged on it. You never trust that person again.
(45:14):
You never ever want to do a deal with him again.
Even when people say, oh, you can do a deal,
you know you should. Still you should. You should get
into a room, and you should media, you should get
into it, you know you should. But once burned, you
never want to go back again. Isn't that where we
are right now?
Speaker 4 (45:30):
You're absolutely right. I don't think many people accept certain
dictators trust Trump. I think most opinions of leaders are
the same in private as I'm sure what Canadians think
of Trump, And you can see where the polls are.
Canadians aren't buying American products. They're they're ticked off. They're
(45:54):
pissed off at a guy who shows no respect. So
you're right, if you get burned, you learn the lesson.
I mean, look at you know, the the technology tax
that Carney dropped.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
I was against that.
Speaker 4 (46:12):
I think you hold that as leverage, you roll it
into the negotiations. But he dropped the digital tax. What
did it get us? He got us nothing? All it
got us is a thirty five percent hit on the tariffs,
So you're absolutely right. I think we are weary of Trump.
The only thing is he's the only superpower leader in
(46:35):
the world, and we've got almost seventy five percent of
our trade eggs in his basket. So while we try
to diversify, while we try to create new relationships, that's
going to take time, which means we still have to
deal with the big man. But it's not pleasant, that's
for damn sure.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
I interviewed an economists from the West Coast of Canada
and he said, you know, Brian, it's our own fault.
Any company that had seventy five eighty percent of its
sales to one customer would be out of business. Banks
would in finance then because they had undiversified risk, they
had way too much credit risk, they had too much
dependency on that one customer. And it's our own fault
(47:20):
that we have become so reliant on the United States
that we believe that this free trade agreement would go
on the way it was negotiat initially. Forever.
Speaker 4 (47:29):
What do you say to that, Yeah, Canada has tried
to diversify our trade forever. I tried to do my
best when I was Minister of International Trade. But as
the old adage goes, you can take the horse to water,
but you can't force the horse to drink if he
(47:50):
doesn't want to. And the point here is that, despite
the fact that governments have tried to diversify, when you're
a Canadian businessman or woman and you want to trade,
it is so natural, or it was so natural to
dip your first toll in American waters. Why is that, Well, one,
(48:13):
there are neighbor which means it's far less expensive to
bring products into the United States. We enjoy special access.
They're the premiere market in the world. They speak one
of our official languages, and so it's so easy for
(48:33):
Canadians to first try the American market. And if you
try it and it works, they take the view, well,
if it ain't broken, why do I have to spend
more money to take a product to Chile, or to
China or to Japan. In other words, Canadian businesses found
it very, very convenient and lucratives to be dealing with
(48:57):
the United States, so they wouldn't listen to the Canadian
government to say, fine, do your business in the United States,
but protect your backside, Let's go to Chile, let's go
to Europe, let's go to Japan. And they said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
But they were making money. Now all of a sudden,
they got a very different cat in the White House,
(49:18):
a very unfriendly cat, and now we're scurring. So it
wasn't necessarily, I think, placing the blame on governments. It
was a natural for business leaders. If Hungary occupied the
same real estate that Canada, or if Europe was Canada.
You know what, Brian, their business leaders would do the same.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
I know, I don't know, if I don't know, if
I agree with you, and I'm gonna, you know, show
my rudimentary knowledge of Canadian history that you probably know
a million times better than I. But you know, prior
to confederation, there was a lot of pressure to join
the United States. The United States wanted to annex most
of western Canada at the time, and business people were
(50:02):
thinking that that might make sense. And Johnny McDonald minunderstanding
is you know, he had a national program and it
was a combination of tariffs, both import tariffs against the
United States and export tariffs that diminished the likelihood that
businesses would trade with the United States and a huge
(50:23):
infrastructure plan where he made trading across Canada far easier
by building the CPR. You know, should we should our
government be doing similar things that say, you know, ties
Canada more closely together, and certainly Carney has been talking
about national infrastructure, but also make it more difficult to
trade with the United States and easier therefore to trade.
(50:44):
As you know, what happened after confederation is a lot
more trade with the UK, with with Great Britain, No,
I think.
Speaker 4 (50:52):
I you know, the the nineteen eighty eight election, if
you remember, was essentially a referendum on Dewey or don't
we do a trade deal with the United States, And
there was a lot of back and forth. There was
a moment there that John Turner, the Liberal leader at
the time, was looking like he was going to win
and he didn't want to have the trade deal because
(51:15):
he thought we would lose our economic and ultimately our
political sovereignty. Brian mulrooney won that election and therefore we
got the deal. So that has brought us deeper into
the American orbit. I mean two things about that. On
the one hand, it's good use. It was good use
because our trade with the United States expanded exponentially, and
(51:37):
everybody thought US in Mexico had made it big time
right with the United States. No one else enjoyed that access.
The downside is it integrated us much more with the
United States. So when Trump came along and he wants
to disrupt, it's a major, major headache. So I believe
(51:58):
that Carney wants to build these national projects. I believe
he wants to work more closely with the premiers. I
think he wants to build pipelines. But you know that's
going to take time. So it's not going to be
tomorrow morning that we can replace the United States. And
that's the real rub. So we've got to walk in
chew gum. We've still got to try to keep Donald
(52:20):
Trump on our good side while we also try to
diversify away from him and the United States. Not an
easy thing, but those are the two tangents that I
think our governments are dealing with concurrently.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
So at the same time as we negotiate that free
trade agreement and dramatically lowered terror fairs, we also depreciated
our currency for the dramatically. We were above par in
the mid nineteen eighties and we went down to I
think it was sixty three or something like that. Sense,
you know, in the nineteen nineties. Now, part of that
was the you know, Canadian peso crisis and fiscal issues,
(53:00):
but part of it was that we had a strategy
of lowering our currency and we didn't fight that with
the Canadian the Bank of Canada. So we lowered our
wage rates, we lowered our income, we lowered our GDP
because we allowed our currency to decline, and we cheapened
our goods and that helped us as well going into
the United States.
Speaker 4 (53:22):
Yeah, there's no question that there was always that balance
between being concerned about the currency level but being concerned
also for the attractiveness of your products. We've had a
good you know, seriously, I mean, we've had our differences
and always will with the Americans, whether softwood, lumber, whether
(53:42):
it's supplied management. They loved their trade rules, except when
those rules work against them, then they try to squeeze
you with their might and try to manage quote unquote trade,
manage how much lumber you bring into Canada, manage how
much other products. So we've had it good for a
long time. And now who would have expected an unhinged
(54:07):
Trump to come along and now we're paying the price.
As you suggested earlier that while the going was good,
we should have kept changing. Just like any good sports club,
and you've been involved with hockey, you know, good winning
teams keep winning by changing. They don't keep status quo.
(54:28):
They always add new players, young players. In hindsight, we
should have been doing that while the gravy was good
with the Americans, but Canadian business leaders chose otherwise. And
now we got to get out of that curve, out
of that ditch that we are now in. I think
(54:48):
we can and we will, but there's a transition between
being in the ditch with the Americans and Trump and
then creating new roads and new pathways other countries and
other leaders. That transition takes time, and that time is
going to be painful, but we'll weather it.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
One last question, sir, you mentioned the nineteen eighty eight election.
In that election, in a famous debate, John Turner said
something like, you're giving up our economic sovereignty, sir. And
when you give up our economic sovereignty, eventually you'll give
up our political sovereignty. Given what Donald Trump did last week,
which was dramatically increase our tariffs because he thought that
(55:28):
Mark Karney did the wrong thing on Palestine? Have we
given up our political sovereignty? Was John Turner right in
nineteen eighty eight?
Speaker 4 (55:36):
You know, if John was a good man, and he deeply,
deeply believed that this deal was flawed, and he paid
a huge personal price, as you know, because when he
left politics, he didn't sit on many lucrative boards. The
Canadian business leaders shunned him. He played a huge political
price given that he was for a while a private
(55:59):
section king. But if he was alive, he'd probably tell
you and I, Brian, I told you so. And you know,
how can you argue against what he was espousing when
you get a guy like Trump. I mean, if we
had another Obama or if we had another Clinton, then
(56:20):
Trump couldn't say I told you so. Because there was respect,
there was good trade, there was mutual benefits. But Donald
Trump throws all of those bets off the table. So
you know, I can see John saying I told you so,
and his time has come.
Speaker 2 (56:38):
I was in Florida on business recently and we were
talking about the upcoming election and this threat that Donald
Trump was going to run for a third term, even
though the twenty second Amendment doesn't allow him to and
they said, oh no, you've got it all. Run Brian,
it's Donald Junior that's going to run, and he's going
to win in a landslide.
Speaker 4 (56:58):
And went, oh gosh, yeah, just like dictators do. They
pass it on to their kids, right.
Speaker 2 (57:04):
Honorle Sergi Marky, thank you so much for joining us today.
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (57:07):
Always the pressure by thanks.
Speaker 2 (57:09):
That's our show for tonight, everybody, thank you for joining
me'm I remind you I'm on Monday through Friday at
six o'clock on nine sixty and you can stream me
online from Canada and the United States at TRIBLEW Saga
nine sixty am dot C. A good night, everybody.
Speaker 1 (57:27):
Stream us live at Saga nine sixty am dot C.
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty am or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
And everyone. Welcome to the Brian Crombie Radio I've got
John Nago with us tonight. He is a professor of
war fighting studies at the US Army War College. And Sir,
I've read several of your articles and posts recently about
the war in Ukraine, and you've written about Ukraine's battlefield innovations,
reshaped global military thinking, and also that the Allied leaders
(00:40):
confront interconnected global threats. Welcome to the show. Tell me
what has happened in Ukraine that's changed battlefield innovations and
reshaped global military thinking.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Oh, my goodness, a whole whole lot of things. So
we are very fortunate that at great power wars do
not happen very often, and so when they do, fights
like the seventy three Arab Israeli War from which the
(01:12):
US Army drew a number of lessons, the first war
I fought in Operation Desert Storm, and that now this
ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, we have to pay
attention to what happens and what changes so at the
(01:36):
army or college where I teach, but for which I
do not speak at any official basis whatsoever. I've run
a project for the last three years that tries to
derive lessons from the war in Ukraine. We published one
book on it, titled The Call to Action, I edited
with a terrific Army colonel named Katie Crome. We've got
(01:56):
another volume forthcoming on the second year of the war.
We've got a third book on the third year of
the war in press, and so those are Those are
forty eight chapters, probably two hundred and fifty or three
hundred thousand words devoted to answering just the question you asked.
(02:20):
In broad terms, we believe, per Cloudswords, that the nature
of war does not change, that war is simultaneously two things,
an act of violence to compel our enemy to do
our will, and the continuation of politics with the admixture
(02:45):
of other means. So we teach, we teach that we
study cloudswets, but we also teach that while the nature
of war does not change, it is bloody and violent
and horrible, that the character of war has changed, and
that the character of war has changed repeatedly as we
moved from weapons propelled by human power spears, arrows, crossboats
(03:11):
to weapons propelled by gunpowder, as airplanes joined the cacophony
of combat as armored vehicles, the internal combustion engine radios.
The admixture of those three or four most recent innovations
together the Germans called Blitzkrieg, the US Army called AirLand battle.
(03:35):
And now what we're seeing today is a dramatic increase
in robotic systems in the air, which we've seen for
the past two decades twenty five years or so, but
increasingly in this score, at sea and now on the ground.
(03:57):
And what we're thinking about a lot, and I'll stop
on this is the application of artificial intelligence to multiple air,
ground and see onemanned systems simultaneously, which may well present
(04:17):
a real revolution in warfare.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
So this combined air power, land power, seapower, drones and
artificial intelligence have changed.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
War absolutely correct or are changing our changing war. So
in some ways I think we're still at the sort
of model T forward level the biplanes and triplanes of
World War one level of one manned systems, and in
(04:51):
particular on the application and integration of artificial intelligence with
one man systems and it is possible, and this is
a a heretical thing to say, but it is possible
now for the first time, not just to imagine, but
conceivably to implement wars of robot v robots. And if
(05:14):
that happened, if wars were no longer bloody because no
humans were involved, that would be a fundamental change in
the nature of the world, and the closets could not
have predicted.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
We're going to take a break for some messages and
come back with our guest John Nigel in just two
minutes to doo with us everyone.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
No Radio, No problem. Stream is live on SAGA ninety
sixty AM dot C.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
A welcome back everyone to the Brian Crimes Radio. I've
got a really interesting guest to Professor John Nauga with
us today. He's got a doctorate in international relations for
(06:04):
the University of Oxford. He's got a bachelor's degree from
West Point, He's got a master's from the University of
Oxford in international relations. He saw service in I think
it was Desert Storm that you said. And you've been
teaching since then at the United States Army War College
and both in London King's College as well as in Pennsylvania.
(06:30):
He's now also a professional lecturer at the George Washington University,
and he's a author and a frequent contributor to conversations
and discussions. His book on the wars of the past
twenty years is titled Knife Fights, a Memoir of Modern
War in Theory and Practice, and most recently he's written
another book, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, from
(06:52):
the University of Chicago Press. And your most recent book
was called what Sir So.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
I published an edit volume with one of my students
from a couple of years ago, Colonel Katie crom a
book called a Call to Action Lessons from Ukraine for
the Future Force that tries to derive lessons from the
ongoing Russo Ukrainian for war in order to help the
United States military, our friends and allies around the globe,
(07:20):
including our Canadian friends, better prepare for deterring war and
if deterrence fails, fighting and winning.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Let's come back. If we could to these battlefield innovations drones.
Let's talk specifically about drone warfare, if we could for
a couple of minutes, I've been told that AI could
change drone warfare dramatically because one of the biggest challenges
they have is the jamming of the communications between the
operators and the drones that were initially solved with fiber
(07:53):
optic I don't even know what you call them wires,
and I understand that the frontline are littered with a
whole bunch of these fiber optic wires that were either
used or cut down or somehow slashed, and so you know,
obviously the radio communication was jammed and therefore didn't work,
(08:16):
and now the fiber optic wires are not necessarily working
as well as they want, and so therefore artificial intelligence
such that the drones can work without immediate contact with
the operator is the next big innovation that's happening right now.
Can you comment on sort of the evolution of drone warfare.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
You've covered it very well. We're seeing you're probably about
my vantage. I don't if you remember Spy versus Spy
and Mad magazine, if Mad Magazine made its way across
our northern border. But there's a competition in learning is
one of the ways to think about warfare, and in
particular in times of rapid technological change, which is what
(08:57):
we're seeing now. So as you suggested, correctly, Bryan. We
started with radio controlled drones, we've moved to fiber optic
controlled drones. Those continue to have a pretty high degree
of success actually, but they are single use drones in
most cases, and so you fly it with a fiber
(09:18):
optic cable trailing out behind it that can go as
much as five or ten kilometers that you fly the
drone into a tank or into a group of soldiers,
into an artillery piece, and then the cable is left
behind and it litters the battlefield. It doesn't do much
environmental damage. Fortunately. The next step is artificial intelligence, removing
(09:44):
the human from the system. And I think this is
true not just for drones. And this is also not
completely new. It's important to note that that, for instance,
of America's Patriot Air Defense System has had no humans
in the loop system for thirty years since my first war.
So we've been allowing robots to make shoot no shoot
(10:06):
decisions for decades. That's not brand new. But what we
are thinking about in moving towards is having lots and
lots of robots and in an offensive role rather than
a putatively defensive role, as the Patriot Air Defense System
is designed to do. Although when it makes mistakes, They
can be really really bad, shooting down civilian airliners and
(10:29):
that sort of thing, a problem that both Russia and
the United States have had with various sorts of air
defense systems. But if we can, and this is particularly
important for Ukraine, Ukraine suffers from a manpower shortage. Currently,
almost all drones have to be flown by a single
human being, and a single human being can only control
one drone at a time. We are moving toward the
(10:53):
application of artificial intelligence towards these systems in which every
drone flown by a human could have a number of
robot wingmen, and conceivably in the not too distant future,
where drones are flying autonomously, they are seeking out their
own targets. They are checking against the parameters known established
(11:14):
parameters of what a Russian tank looks like, a Russian
artillery piece look like, Russian soldiers look like, and detonating
itself against those targets, all without the involvement of a
single human being. That is the truly revolutionary potential that
we're seeing in this war, taking humans conceivably entirely out
(11:38):
of them.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Tell me about these drones that attacked the Ukrainian sorry,
the Russian airports. Were they controlled all the way back
to Ukraine or were they autonomous AI LED drones?
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Some of both is my understanding. And I haven't read
the classified American intercepts on this. I haven't read the
Ukrainian stuff, so so purely unclassified press uh sort of
reports have some of them being flown autonomously and using
preprogrammed pictures images inside the drone of what the targets
(12:21):
they were trying to look like, because those were designed
to attack very specific targets nuclear capable Russian bombers. And
some of them were flown remotely through links like like starlink.
But but you know, long range wireless links allowed the
(12:47):
Ukrainian pilots in Ukraine apparently to fly those drones from
literally thousands of kilometers.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Away, from thousands of kilometers away.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Thousands of klometers away. There's there's first drones can have
thousand kilometer ranges. Of course, the United States has been flying,
for instance, predator drones over Pakistan and Afghanistan from certainly
hundreds of thousand, thousands of miles away that we've been
doing that for decades. Ukraine has long range drones that
(13:21):
they've built themselves that can fly thousands of columbars. But
in this case, the drones were released from box containers
on the back of moving vans, driven by driven to
the target location by onwitting Russian truck drivers, released remotely
and flown remotely through satellite links to the targets that
(13:46):
they were intended to hit. And they had backup systems
and at least some cases where if for whatever reason
the communications were cut, the drones had been instructed where
to direct themselves against which particular Russian aircraft. We are
in a new era because if Ukraine can do this,
(14:07):
any country in the world, what a reasonable degree of
technological progress can do it. Now. Ukraine is currently at
the cutting edge of drone development. They are testing their
drones on the battlefield. And I was just at a
conference called Land euro sponsored by the Association of the
(14:28):
United States Army in v Spot in Germany, the home
of US Army Europe. And at that conference, Ukrainian representatives,
speaking to a whole bunch of American and international defense companies,
volunteered to let them test their systems on the actual
battlefield against actual Russian forces. So we are seeing extraordinary
(14:51):
technological change in warfare right now, akin to the innovation
that marked the First World War that brought the first
use of airplanes in combat and the development of the
main battle tank that I've served on in two wars.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Has Ukraine attacked any naval bases other than those in
the Black Sea? Or should they they?
Speaker 3 (15:16):
H that's that is a very interesting question. Ukraine has
been relatively restrained in its efforts to broaden the war,
at least in part at the request of the US
government and some of our NATO allies, who have expressed
concern about about what Vladimir Putin already believes to be
(15:40):
a war of Russia against all of NATO. That's not
the case. It's purely Ukrainians doing the fighting, but of
course they are doing it with many Western systems. Ukraine
has developed, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, long
range drones on its own to to to to try
to broaden the war, but it has so far at
(16:02):
least not struck the Russian navy forces at Kaliningrad and
the Baltic Sea. It is not impossible to suggest that
that could be a possibility, in particular, were Russia to
expand the war further, and at the conference I was
(16:24):
at in Bispad a couple of weeks ago, an American
commander mentioned from the podium as we talked about the
possibility that Russia would expand this war in the years
to come against NATO countries, he pointed out that the
Russian naval base at Kaliningrad arguably the most important Russian
(16:46):
naval base in the world now that the Black Sea
Fleet essentially no longer exists, but the Kaliningrad is geographically
vulnerable to NATO countries, and that Russia could lose access
to Kaliningrad if it decided to broaden this war. And
so as we talk about and correctly and I'm super
(17:08):
interested in the conversation about drones and technological change in warfare,
it's worth remembering that we are also seeing what many
observers are calling a full in progress world war, with
North Korean forces fighting on the battlefield in Ukraine, with
(17:34):
Chinese technology powering a bunch of the Russian drones, and
with the Russians of course now building their own replicas
of Iranian shahedrones, so that many observers believe we are
now fighting already a world war fought largely in the
territory of Ukraine, increasingly in the territory of Russia as well,
(17:57):
And in fact, the first panel this Land euro conference
I spoke at a couple of weeks ago that I
think led to you to me was titled world War
Next and we discussed just this possibility with a Finnish
general officer and Australian general officer and two American observers
of the war.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
So, sir, do you believe that World War three has started?
Speaker 3 (18:25):
My speech, my talk on the opening panel of this
conference noted the number of very credible observers who believe
that it already has. I certainly think that if Ukraine falls,
and this was an overwhelming theme of this conference, that
(18:47):
Russia will not stop at Ukraine, that Vladimir Putin's ambitions
are to restore the Soviet Union, all the countries of
the Warsaw Pact. And I'm surprised, honestly that this topic
is not discussed more openly on this side of the Atlantic.
(19:08):
The countries of Europe who represented at the conference, who
have recently decided to more than double their defense spending.
So six months ago, if you and I were having
this conversation, we might have talked about the fact that NATO,
including Canada, is struggling to reach the agreed upon two
percent GDP devoted to defense. Today, six months later, NATO
(19:35):
has overwhelmed. NATO countries have overwhelmingly decided to spend five
percent of GDP on defense, which is not yet a
full wartime footing, but is moving in that direction. Russia
is probably spending forty percent of its GDP on defense
right now, which.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Is forty percent of its GDP on defense. How's it
financing that?
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Well, it is struggling to finance that. Russian interest rates
are nearing twenty percent, it's suffering from inflation. That the
financing it is able to get is by selling oil
at discounted rates to countries like China, India, a number
(20:16):
of countries around the globe. And this is why President
Trump's recent threats to impose secondary economic sanctions on countries
that procure oil from Russia at these deeply discounted rates
is very real. So we are seeing, as I speak
(20:36):
to you today in early August of twenty twenty five,
we are seeing Russia make incremental but worrying gains on
the battlefield in eastern Ukraine. But we are also seeing
a Russian economy that is staggering under the cost of
this war. And it is impossible right now to determine
(20:57):
who is going to win this war, where the Russia
is going to be able to continue to spend this
percent of GDP on the war, whether America is going
to impose those secondary sanctions, and the impact those sanctions
would have on a Russia that is winning on the
battlefield but not winning diplomatically.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
What do you think the risk of China attacking Taiwan
is today, sir.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Trific question when I think about a lot so the
Department of Defense, the American Department of Defense says that
China is our pacing challenge and Russia is our acute threat.
Russia is labeled correctly as a threat to global peace
and security. It has already invaded Ukraine. It has ambitions
(21:52):
as a suggestion a few minutes ago, to continue its
war of aggression should Ukraine fall. Ukraine right now is
holding the Russian horde literally from the rest of NATO
and should be commended and applauded and admired for that.
China is watching it. The war in Ukraine very very closely.
(22:16):
If Russia cannot defeat a much smaller country with which
it shares a long, contiguous border, and a border that
is comprised of some of the best tank country in
the world, then it is going to be far, far,
far harder for a China that has no combat experience
(22:39):
since nineteen seventy nine to take a far smaller country
that is separated from it by one hundred miles of
very difficulties which are navigable for the purposes of an
amphibious invasion, which is perhaps the most difficult of all
military tasks. Only during roughly and October, Chinese is watching
(23:04):
the economic sanctions that Russia has had imposed upon it,
and Russia needs to sell its oil in order to
keep its war going. But the Chinese economy is far
more dependent on global trade than the Russian economy is,
and so my short answer to your question is that
(23:26):
short of Taiwan openly declaring independence, China will not invade Taiwan.
China believes, in my opinion, that it can through economic coercion,
through blockades, through gray area warfare, it can achieve many
(23:50):
of its goals in Taiwan and the South China Sea.
For instance, the continuing confrontations the Chinese Coast Guard has
with the Philippine Navy over disputed territory in the South
China Sea, that it can achieve most of its goals
without fighting. And remember sons of the great Chinese strategists said,
(24:12):
the acme of skill and war is to win without fighting.
That is what I believe China would like to accomplish,
and it's one of the reasons why I believe that
if we want to deter China, we must defend Ukraine.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Could you repreat that, please?
Speaker 3 (24:33):
If we want to deter China, we must defend Ukraine
the front lines of freedom for the entire globe.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Right now, do you think the inhabitants of the White House,
your current government agree with what you just said.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
I think there are conflicting opinions inside the Pentagon on
Capitol Hill on the extent to which the war in
Ukraine is less or more important than the prospect of
(25:11):
war between the United States and China. I am not
going to say that my position is the majority position,
but there are an increasing number. Certainly, this opinion was
prevalent in Europe of thinkers, and I think Senator Mitch McConnell,
(25:32):
former Senate Majority leader, Chris Coons, Senator from Delaware, possible
future Senate Armed Service Committee majority member if the Senate flips.
They published a piece on Friday that talked to the
importance of deterring China through a number of investments, including
(25:54):
more significant investments in Ukraine than the White House has
suggested to date. I am making this argument because I
believe that that it's true, that it matters, and that
people are listening.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
You know, if I could, I wanted to take you
back to history, whether it be World War One or
World War Two, for a minute here, and if you're right,
or some of the commentators at your conference are right
that World War three has already begun, maybe history has
some lessons to learn from it. Last week, by chance
to watch the movie Pearl Harbor. And you know, the
(26:33):
United States had a very isolationist attitude in the late
nineteen thirties and the early nineteen forties. While your president
at Franklin Dell in a reservolt, was supportive of Britain
and of the Allied forces, and had land lease and
provided military equipment and funds and support, we didn't get
(26:56):
actively involved until Pearl Harbor, and lots of people talk
about how the Big Giant was woken up by Pearl Harbor.
Will it take something the equivalent of Pearl Harbor to
wake up the United States to this threat?
Speaker 3 (27:11):
To Sir So, I had the privilege of visiting Pearl
Harbor exactly a year ago today. I was sent from
the Army War College to the US Army Pacific Headquarters
on Oahu to teach a course called the Theater Army
Staff Course, and got to spend some time at Pearl
and saw, of course the remains of the USS Arizona,
(27:38):
and was struck by just exactly the points you raise
that if Japan had not struck at Pearl, certainly, and
then if Hitler had not declared war on the United States,
(27:59):
making life a whole lot easier for Franklin Roosevelt, who correctly,
in my eyes, believed that Germany was the more significant
enemy in that fight. That it is entirely possible the
United States does not get involved in World War two
soon and even at all. And I'm constantly reminded of
Winston Churchill's diary entry on the night of December seventh,
(28:23):
nineteen forty one, when he wrote, He wrote, I slept
the first good sleep I've had in months, because he
knew that the forces of the New World were now
joined with those of the old to take on fascism
in all its forms in both Asia and in Europe.
(28:47):
And I agree with your assessment. I think Franklin delan
and Roosevelt was leaning very far forward in preparing the
United States for war. He was leaning very far forward
in providing even before Pearl, in providing absolutely necessary weapons, equipment, food, money,
(29:08):
first first to Britain and then to Russia after the
German invasion of that country. And so I very much
hope that those lessons of history are being digested that
we appreciate. We did not. We did not understand that
the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in nineteen thirty one that
(29:33):
did not appear to be a matter that interested the
United States, that affected the United States. But a decade
later we could look back on that invasion and recognize
that a series of events had begun that was almost inevitably,
inevitably going to result in war between the United States
and Japan. It is entirely possible that the Russian invasion
(29:57):
of the Ukraine, the continuing Russian crimes against humanity, war crimes,
abduction of children, attacks on civilians throughout Ukraine, attacks on
civilians and business leaders, government leaders across Europe, through through
(30:18):
subversion and and and various forms of poisoning. That that
this does all mark the opening phases of World War three,
and we get we will only be able to identify
that for certain in retrospects.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Modern possible passing conversation. We're going to take a right
and come back with some concluding comments with our guests
in just two minutes. Stay with us, everyone, interesting, very interesting.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Stream us live at SAGA nine am dot C.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
A welcome back everyone to the Brian Crime Radio. Or
We've got a professor of war studies with us tonight. John.
It's nagle right closer, it's dog, but it's fine, close enough.
(31:16):
How does someone become a professor of war studies?
Speaker 3 (31:20):
There are a number of routes. We have a number
of different kinds of people at the Army Work College.
The majority of our faculty, like me, have served in
the military. I've served twenty years in the Armbored Corps
of the United States Army, fought in two wars. But
we also have pure civilian faculty members who have never
(31:41):
worn the uniform a day in their life, but are
just academic experts. In for instance, two of my best
friends are are academic experts in China and China's use
of economic warfare and diplomacy to accomplish its objectives without fighting.
And another friend is a student of counterinsurgency and irregular war,
(32:05):
in particular by France in the nineteenth and twentieth century.
So we have a broad variety of faculty who teach
rising colonels over the course of a year here at
the Army War College and beautiful Carlisle, Pennsylvania, including I
am proud to say every year a Canadian officer who
(32:26):
is often destined for very significant leadership rules in the
Canadian military in the Canadian government.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Let me ask you to change your sort of orientation
for a minute if I could. And we've got a
audience right now in Canada, and that you're speaking to, sir,
and you know, we are faced with a situation where
we have just recently committed to increase our spending on
defense fairly significantly. We haven't been spending, as you correctly
(32:58):
pointed out, a two percent of GDP on defense, which
was the commitment. Now it's gone to three, and some
people think it's going to be a five percent if
you include infrastructure spending. We've got the President of the
United States asking us to participate in Golden Dome, a reconfiguration.
It would appear of Norad. We've got the second largest
(33:22):
groupings of Ukrainians outside of Ukraine and the United States,
so we've got a huge population of Ukrainians in Canada.
We've got a historical connection with Ukraine. We fought long
before the United States in both World War One and
World War Two. We fought beside the United States in Afghanistan.
(33:44):
If you had an opportunity to speak to Canadians tonight, sir,
or to the Canadian Prime Minister, what would you tell
us we need to do right now in regards to
what you are suggesting is a war that either is
part of the start of World War three and or
the war that will the way you've described it, make
sure that World War three doesn't happen if we support
Ukraine the way we need.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
To, and I obviously very much hope for the latter.
I would start my conversation with the Canadian people by
thanking them for their extraordinary partnership with the United States
for well over a century. At this point, we are
the best of neighbors. We have been the best of friends.
We share still the longest undefended land border in the world.
(34:28):
And I have served with Canadians in combat and have
the privilege of teaching them here at the Army War College,
and I am grateful for everything that Canada has done
for global security. That said, I think we face a
period of immense danger right now. I think that the
(34:50):
forces of autocracy are on the march, are on the rise.
I run a project at the Army War College titled
Project nineteen thirty eight suggesting just that the forces of
autocracy are marshaling as they were just before the Second
World War, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt is you correctly note,
(35:10):
mobilized to the United States for war. And so I
would ask the Canadian people, my friends, my alliance, my partners,
my brothers and sisters in arms, to dig as deep
as they can, as we need to dig as deeply
as we can to present the tightest possible united front
(35:31):
in the American Canadian Alliance, in NATO, in our partnerships
with our friends in Japan and Australia and Korea and
New Zealand and around the globe to say that taking
other countries by force is the most basic violation of
international law. It will not be allowed. We will not
(35:53):
allow it to happen. And I was privileged to serve
under President George H. W. Bush's leadership when Margaret Thatcher
stiffened his spine to resist Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait
thirty years ago. I fear we are at the same
sort of time, and we, as a global alliance of
(36:16):
democracies dedicated to human rights and international law, have to
stand firm with each other and let China, Russia, North
Korea and Iran no, this will not stand.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Professor, thank you so much for joining us. I really
appreciate it. I'm a frequent reader of your articles and
your posts, and we got to have you back. So
we're going to take a break for some messages and
come back.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
No Radio, No Problem. Stream is live on SAGA nine
sixty am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
A welcome back everyone to the Brian Crombie Radio Hour.
I've got Sergio Marqui, the honorable Sergio Marque with me,
a former member of Parliament, former Cabinet minister, and you know,
we've just had a conversation about where we are from
(37:13):
a geopolitical standpoint. We're now going to focus in on
Canada versus the United States because Sergio Marki has got
some really i think poignant points of view of where
Canada is in its trade relationships with the United States.
Honorable Sergei Markey, Well, welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
Thank you for having me back. Brian, it's good to
be with you.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
So where do you think we are and what's your
advice to to Canada and to our Prime Minister Mark
Karney given that Donald Trump is slapping us with more
tariffs again.
Speaker 4 (37:43):
Yeah, it's been a real drama, real roller coaster with
with the Donald, and I'm getting this sense obviously that
he doesn't love our country nor does he respect our
political leaders, given what he does and what he says.
But I wasn't surprised that we didn't make the deadline
(38:05):
for our trade deal on the first of August, because
I think Prime Minister Carne and his team were pretty
open about signaling that they were probably going to miss
the deadline, And for me, I accept at face value
that the Canadians didn't like what was on the table,
and rather than sinking into a bad deal, it's best
(38:30):
to have no deal. And given that the doors are
still open for discussions, we should take those discussions and
see if we can formulate a deal that's good for
both countries. So I think rather than quickly retaliating right now,
because you can retaliate at any time, I think it's
best for Carne to keep his powder dry as he is.
(38:53):
But at the same time, we can't wait forever because
there's many sectors with tariffs that are fighting hard. The
thirty five percent is not as consequential because it only
applies to about five percent of products. But it's also
difficult to kind of get a sense of what is
(39:16):
holding the deal back because you and I aren't privy
and we're not at the table. But again, Canadians have
a pretty good tradition of strong negotiators, so I think
they know what a bad deal looks like.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
I had an interesting conversation on Tuesday with a professor
from Georgetown University, a former economist, very learned gentleman who
actually was a diplomat in Moscow prior to the fall
of the USSR. In Ukraine, etc. Andres Asland. And he
(39:53):
said that there's four models of dealing with Donald Trump.
I'll Salvador, Hungary, the UK, A and UH and China.
And he said that, uh, that Al Sabador is a copy,
that that Hungary is is a somewhat of a copy,
and and and putting up with that that the UK
(40:15):
and France are in the EU is flatter like crazy
and played his ego and see what you can do. Uh.
And the China is stand tough because they know that
you need the rare earth metals and uh and you
need the consumer products, et cetera. Otherwise uh, inflation is
going to go through the roof in the United States.
And he says that he thinks that the Chinese strategy
(40:38):
is actually working out the best so far. And he said, uh.
And and here's a person from Scandinavia that is working
and living UH in Washington. D C Professor at Georgetown
University who said, Canada, you don't realize how strong of
the piciits. You've got the can The United States needs
your energy, they need your water, they need your electricity,
they need your oil and gas and uh and and
(41:01):
and you're tied in in so many other industries, steel, aluminum, cars, etc.
You can stand tough, but at the same time, people
that stand tough get his wrath to get retaliated. So
what do you think.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
Well, I think first of all, that his erratic personality
is the biggest hindrance in dealing with the United States
and now the trade negotiations, because he's unpredictable. His word
is worthless, he turns on a dime. He has no
loyalty except to himself. He's got no interest in the
(41:39):
world other than the g one, namely America. He doesn't
deal with facts, Brian, he doesn't read his briefing books.
I know that, and therefore he's a politician, or he's
an individual that goes by that gut, by his intuition,
and oftentimes that intuition and that gut is way off,
(42:02):
you know. Speaking to your professor about the four different models,
China and Canada are the only two countries who've had
the temerity to strike back. And obviously we're seeing his wrath.
But I'm not surprised that he says China is probably
the best strategy. But also China is quite unique. You know,
(42:25):
we don't have a population of a billion three. We're
not producing products for the world at at cheap prices,
so I can understand China Canada, you know, is ten
times smaller than the United States are are saving grace
so far so far is that we have a NaSTA
(42:46):
agreement which exempts ninety five percent of our products from
from tariffs.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
We've obviously gotten it's got the innegotiating next year. It's
got to be renegotiating next year. So yeah, yeah, it's
he would be a saving grace for a year, but
not for long.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
And what do you do with a guy who doesn't
respect his word or doesn't respect rules. What's the deal
worth when you're trad when you're dealing with Trump, he
doesn't care if we go to the Wtoh, he'll keep appealing,
he'll keep his lawyers busy. So even next year, I mean,
(43:24):
all of the terrorists that he's imposed are basically illegal
quote unquote under the NAFTA agreement. But he did it anyway.
He could give two hoots. So I'm hoping that there's
something credible in our renegotiation that has staying power. Otherwise
it's not worth the deal, It's not worth the paper
(43:46):
it's written on. And that's that's why I say his
personality is the number one challenge for us. How do
you deal with this guy? How do you make deals sick?
Even in his arrangements with the Europeans or the Britin
there was nothing signed, so who knows where this thing
goes next week or next month or next year. So
(44:07):
that's the uncertainty that plagues us, both in terms of
uncertainty in the investment where it's easier to go to
the States rather than faces wrath in Canada, and the
uncertainty of who you're dealing with. It's not easy, but
at some point you have to draw the line. You
can't be a Patsy. I don't think bullies respect Patsy's.
(44:32):
In the end, and with increasing time, I think if
he's raising all of those tariffs on all of those countries,
guess what, He's going to place a tax on US importers,
and those US importers aren't going to swallow it. They're
going to pass it on to the consumers, so Americans
will pay. But that takes time.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
Sergia. I've Negotia to deal with someone who tried to
bully me, and then we came to an agreement and
that individual reniged on the agreement and it was not
a signed agreement, but it was a handshake agreement and
they were nigged on it. You never trust that person again.
(45:14):
You never ever want to do a deal with him again.
Even when people say, oh, you can do a deal,
you know you should. Still you should. You should get
into a room, and you should media, you should get
into it, you know you should. But once burned, you
never want to go back again. Isn't that where we
are right now?
Speaker 4 (45:30):
You're absolutely right. I don't think many people accept certain
dictators trust Trump. I think most opinions of leaders are
the same in private as I'm sure what Canadians think
of Trump, And you can see where the polls are.
Canadians aren't buying American products. They're they're ticked off. They're
(45:54):
pissed off at a guy who shows no respect. So
you're right, if you get burned, you learn the lesson.
I mean, look at you know, the the technology tax
that Carney dropped.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
I was against that.
Speaker 4 (46:12):
I think you hold that as leverage, you roll it
into the negotiations. But he dropped the digital tax. What
did it get us? He got us nothing? All it
got us is a thirty five percent hit on the tariffs,
So you're absolutely right. I think we are weary of Trump.
The only thing is he's the only superpower leader in
(46:35):
the world, and we've got almost seventy five percent of
our trade eggs in his basket. So while we try
to diversify, while we try to create new relationships, that's
going to take time, which means we still have to
deal with the big man. But it's not pleasant, that's
for damn sure.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
I interviewed an economists from the West Coast of Canada
and he said, you know, Brian, it's our own fault.
Any company that had seventy five eighty percent of its
sales to one customer would be out of business. Banks
would in finance then because they had undiversified risk, they
had way too much credit risk, they had too much
dependency on that one customer. And it's our own fault
(47:20):
that we have become so reliant on the United States
that we believe that this free trade agreement would go
on the way it was negotiat initially. Forever.
Speaker 4 (47:29):
What do you say to that, Yeah, Canada has tried
to diversify our trade forever. I tried to do my
best when I was Minister of International Trade. But as
the old adage goes, you can take the horse to water,
but you can't force the horse to drink if he
(47:50):
doesn't want to. And the point here is that, despite
the fact that governments have tried to diversify, when you're
a Canadian businessman or woman and you want to trade,
it is so natural, or it was so natural to
dip your first toll in American waters. Why is that, Well, one,
(48:13):
there are neighbor which means it's far less expensive to
bring products into the United States. We enjoy special access.
They're the premiere market in the world. They speak one
of our official languages, and so it's so easy for
(48:33):
Canadians to first try the American market. And if you
try it and it works, they take the view, well,
if it ain't broken, why do I have to spend
more money to take a product to Chile, or to
China or to Japan. In other words, Canadian businesses found
it very, very convenient and lucratives to be dealing with
(48:57):
the United States, so they wouldn't listen to the Canadian
government to say, fine, do your business in the United States,
but protect your backside, Let's go to Chile, let's go
to Europe, let's go to Japan. And they said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
But they were making money. Now all of a sudden,
they got a very different cat in the White House,
(49:18):
a very unfriendly cat, and now we're scurring. So it
wasn't necessarily, I think, placing the blame on governments. It
was a natural for business leaders. If Hungary occupied the
same real estate that Canada, or if Europe was Canada.
You know what, Brian, their business leaders would do the same.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
I know, I don't know, if I don't know, if
I agree with you, and I'm gonna, you know, show
my rudimentary knowledge of Canadian history that you probably know
a million times better than I. But you know, prior
to confederation, there was a lot of pressure to join
the United States. The United States wanted to annex most
of western Canada at the time, and business people were
(50:02):
thinking that that might make sense. And Johnny McDonald minunderstanding
is you know, he had a national program and it
was a combination of tariffs, both import tariffs against the
United States and export tariffs that diminished the likelihood that
businesses would trade with the United States and a huge
(50:23):
infrastructure plan where he made trading across Canada far easier
by building the CPR. You know, should we should our
government be doing similar things that say, you know, ties
Canada more closely together, and certainly Carney has been talking
about national infrastructure, but also make it more difficult to
trade with the United States and easier therefore to trade.
(50:44):
As you know, what happened after confederation is a lot
more trade with the UK, with with Great Britain, No,
I think.
Speaker 4 (50:52):
I you know, the the nineteen eighty eight election, if
you remember, was essentially a referendum on Dewey or don't
we do a trade deal with the United States, And
there was a lot of back and forth. There was
a moment there that John Turner, the Liberal leader at
the time, was looking like he was going to win
and he didn't want to have the trade deal because
(51:15):
he thought we would lose our economic and ultimately our
political sovereignty. Brian mulrooney won that election and therefore we
got the deal. So that has brought us deeper into
the American orbit. I mean two things about that. On
the one hand, it's good use. It was good use
because our trade with the United States expanded exponentially, and
(51:37):
everybody thought US in Mexico had made it big time
right with the United States. No one else enjoyed that access.
The downside is it integrated us much more with the
United States. So when Trump came along and he wants
to disrupt, it's a major, major headache. So I believe
(51:58):
that Carney wants to build these national projects. I believe
he wants to work more closely with the premiers. I
think he wants to build pipelines. But you know that's
going to take time. So it's not going to be
tomorrow morning that we can replace the United States. And
that's the real rub. So we've got to walk in
chew gum. We've still got to try to keep Donald
(52:20):
Trump on our good side while we also try to
diversify away from him and the United States. Not an
easy thing, but those are the two tangents that I
think our governments are dealing with concurrently.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
So at the same time as we negotiate that free
trade agreement and dramatically lowered terror fairs, we also depreciated
our currency for the dramatically. We were above par in
the mid nineteen eighties and we went down to I
think it was sixty three or something like that. Sense,
you know, in the nineteen nineties. Now, part of that
was the you know, Canadian peso crisis and fiscal issues,
(53:00):
but part of it was that we had a strategy
of lowering our currency and we didn't fight that with
the Canadian the Bank of Canada. So we lowered our
wage rates, we lowered our income, we lowered our GDP
because we allowed our currency to decline, and we cheapened
our goods and that helped us as well going into
the United States.
Speaker 4 (53:22):
Yeah, there's no question that there was always that balance
between being concerned about the currency level but being concerned
also for the attractiveness of your products. We've had a
good you know, seriously, I mean, we've had our differences
and always will with the Americans, whether softwood, lumber, whether
(53:42):
it's supplied management. They loved their trade rules, except when
those rules work against them, then they try to squeeze
you with their might and try to manage quote unquote trade,
manage how much lumber you bring into Canada, manage how
much other products. So we've had it good for a
long time. And now who would have expected an unhinged
(54:07):
Trump to come along and now we're paying the price.
As you suggested earlier that while the going was good,
we should have kept changing. Just like any good sports club,
and you've been involved with hockey, you know, good winning
teams keep winning by changing. They don't keep status quo.
(54:28):
They always add new players, young players. In hindsight, we
should have been doing that while the gravy was good
with the Americans, but Canadian business leaders chose otherwise. And
now we got to get out of that curve, out
of that ditch that we are now in. I think
(54:48):
we can and we will, but there's a transition between
being in the ditch with the Americans and Trump and
then creating new roads and new pathways other countries and
other leaders. That transition takes time, and that time is
going to be painful, but we'll weather it.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
One last question, sir, you mentioned the nineteen eighty eight election.
In that election, in a famous debate, John Turner said
something like, you're giving up our economic sovereignty, sir. And
when you give up our economic sovereignty, eventually you'll give
up our political sovereignty. Given what Donald Trump did last week,
which was dramatically increase our tariffs because he thought that
(55:28):
Mark Karney did the wrong thing on Palestine? Have we
given up our political sovereignty? Was John Turner right in
nineteen eighty eight?
Speaker 4 (55:36):
You know, if John was a good man, and he deeply,
deeply believed that this deal was flawed, and he paid
a huge personal price, as you know, because when he
left politics, he didn't sit on many lucrative boards. The
Canadian business leaders shunned him. He played a huge political
price given that he was for a while a private
(55:59):
section king. But if he was alive, he'd probably tell
you and I, Brian, I told you so. And you know,
how can you argue against what he was espousing when
you get a guy like Trump. I mean, if we
had another Obama or if we had another Clinton, then
(56:20):
Trump couldn't say I told you so. Because there was respect,
there was good trade, there was mutual benefits. But Donald
Trump throws all of those bets off the table. So
you know, I can see John saying I told you so,
and his time has come.
Speaker 2 (56:38):
I was in Florida on business recently and we were
talking about the upcoming election and this threat that Donald
Trump was going to run for a third term, even
though the twenty second Amendment doesn't allow him to and
they said, oh no, you've got it all. Run Brian,
it's Donald Junior that's going to run, and he's going
to win in a landslide.
Speaker 4 (56:58):
And went, oh gosh, yeah, just like dictators do. They
pass it on to their kids, right.
Speaker 2 (57:04):
Honorle Sergi Marky, thank you so much for joining us today.
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (57:07):
Always the pressure by thanks.
Speaker 2 (57:09):
That's our show for tonight, everybody, thank you for joining
me'm I remind you I'm on Monday through Friday at
six o'clock on nine sixty and you can stream me
online from Canada and the United States at TRIBLEW Saga
nine sixty am dot C. A good night, everybody.
Speaker 1 (57:27):
Stream us live at Saga nine sixty am dot C.
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