Sabre rattling big time.
Next month around 300,000 military personnel, 36,000 armoured vehicles, over 1,000 aircraft and two Russian fleets will be taking part in exercises in Siberia and the far east of Russia. This scale of exercise hasn’t been done since the Cold War. It’s chilling to say the least.
Most of the personal will be Russian but there will be some Chinese and Mongolian units involved too. Even more chilling is the thought that China and Russia could team up in the event of a conflict. I cannot think how such a large-scale event can be regarded as defensive. As the title says, sabre rattling, big time. I don’t think NATO could put on anything like such a show.
I think we can safely say the gentlemen at the head of the administration in the U.S. likes not the Canadian federal government or its leader. After weeks of trade negotiations with Mexico’s outgoing administration Canada suddenly has a few days to sign or face the consequences, nice.
In political terms, everyone needs a win, the U.S., Canada and Mexico would all welcome NAFTA being signed, or at least as far as it can be, there are other hurdles to jump, notably the U.S. Congress and the new Mexican administration. This column will not be out until after the deadline has passed. I would not be surprised to be triumphant politicians waving a piece of paper. However, neither would I be surprised if the whole thing went belly up in a storm of tweeting.
Speaking of tweeting, U.S. President Donald Trump has blamed China for lack of progress with North Korea. Is it really surprising that China is not fully onboard with an ongoing trade war? I don’t think so. Trump has however, said he saw no reason for joint South Korea and U.S. military exercises to resume. Like everything else that could change in a heartbeat.
Brexit rattles on. For the life of me I cannot see how both sides could not or will not, probably being closer to the case, sort out their differences. The EU was stung when the vote went for the leave side in the UK. It’s never happened before. There are still calls for a rerun of the vote but what’s the point in having a vote if you rerun it because you don’t like the result?
Perhaps as the clock ticks down next year, the EU will realise that getting some sort of agreement is better than the no deal, stick it option. I really wish the political grandstanding would end too. Sadly, that’s true all over. We vote politicians in to represent us and work for the nation, don’t we? Not fight like school kids in the yard and hurl insults at each other.
B.C. has just declared its worst fire season ever and extended the state of emergency. The weather is cooling and hopefully the fire season won’t last too much longer. Here, we seem to have got off light, this time. Next time kicks off in March 2019, mere months away. There are hundreds of thousands, maybe more, mountain pine beetle damaged trees waiting to help fuel future fires. More action less talk around our townsites and then beyond would be welcome.
There seems to be a trend to study the crap out of something, have meetings and not do anything until it’s too late. I think we can see that with climate change however it’s caused is getting to be irrelevant. How much carbon did those fires put up into the atmosphere I wonder?