War Footing: But Which War?

Best Foot Forwar(d)

It is arguable that the West is under siege; potentially already at war. The war in question is a proxy war and is hiding in plain-sight throughout society.

Our Dear Leader Gutteres calls oil companies “Godfathers of Climate Chaos”. In the real world, chaos¹ is being encouraged by what leaders from an earlier era would have called an Axis of Evil. This chaos is a many-headed Hydra. It is manifest as a fentanyl epidemic that kills 10x more US citizens than its military lost fighting wars. This chaos is targeted at undermining faith in the political and legal systems. It is direct but anonymous, attacks on infrastructure. Why does TikTok show divisive, polarising content to the audience in the West and wholesome content/propaganda to its domestic audience? (This fantastic/terrifying podcast Tim Ferris with Matt Pottinger).

Less well understood is that this chaos is targeted at weakening the economies through Net Zero fantasies.

Clear and Present

Despite all this, the “biggest threat” according to the UN, is Climate Change. Unfortunatley for those wedded to this narrative, the ridiculous hyper-inflationary rhetoric is failing to convince the masses (“Climate Crisis/Emergency/Breakdown”, “Highway to Hell”, “Opened the Gates of Hell”, “Global Boiling” and on and on…).

Shock! People are just carrying on, as if surviving the monthly bill cycle was more important than saving the planet. 

The next logical step is to change the rules: “If these (dumb) people won’t chose to do what’s necessary, we need to ramp up the action”.  Since about 2019, a "War Footing" is being declared across the globe: the war on climate change.

And despite the loud barking of the (real) Dogs of War, this narrative persists in 2024

Many are locked into a 2015 time-warp: this from Catherine Mckenna: Former 🇨🇦 Minister of Environment & Climate Change and Infrastructure; Chair UN Expert Group on Net Zero

As I learned well, sometimes you have to fight for climate action. The federal government should be asserting jurisdiction over transboundary GHGs from major projects including the oil sands. Climate change is a massive threat to Canadians. And we have obligations under the Paris Agreement to meet. (link)

Whilst I am no expert on Canadian politics, some words really stand out: “fight”, “massive threat”, “asserting” and “obligations”.

And this:

But if we can step back a moment and get our noses out of the Net Zero trough.  We should ask ourselves which of these is the Clear and Present Danger?

Europe - Ramping up Military Spending in Weakening Economies

Europe, in particular, is becoming increasingly aware of the real danger of war: actual war. It is ramping up its military spending and warning its citizens of potential conflict, and in some cases looking at changing legislation to include mandatory military service. 

Whilst the defense analysts and (some) politicians may be aware of this, the general public clearly is not.

European countries are bolstering their defense budgets and preparedness in response to the changing geopolitical landscape.

1. Germany: Germany has significantly increased its military spending in recent years. This includes a commitment to reach 2% of GDP on defense by 2024.

2. United Kingdom: The UK has also significantly boosted its defense budget and is actively investing in modernizing its armed forces.

3. France: France has a long-standing tradition of military strength and maintains a strong nuclear deterrent.

4. Sweden and Finland: Both countries, which were historically non-aligned, have joined NATO in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

5. Poland: Poland has been a strong advocate for a robust NATO presence in Eastern Europe.

All are modernizing their armed forces and expanding their military capabilities, including procuring new fighter jets, tanks, drones, and other advanced weaponry as well as cyber capabilities.

The nations surrounding the South China Sea are feeling pressure (I’ll link a great post WRT to oil resources, when I (re)find it !) as China extends its claims over resources and over Taiwan (again, the Tim Ferris/ Matt Pottinger podcast is worth the listen)

Related Parties

Can we fight on two fronts at once? Are these conflicts related?

This post highlights what I see as the dangerous disconnect between the genuine threat of a real war and the overblown "war footing" narrative surrounding climate change. The latter distracts from clear and present danger; distracts from practical solutions and creates a false sense of urgency that is counterproductive.

But its worse than that. The Climate Combat is being fought pretty much only in the Western Democracies - and is prosecuted via the Net Zero agenda and the “Energy Transition”.

One obvious constat is that if only the Western countries do this, it will clearly not “win” the Climate fight. A second, less obvious one, is that the Energy Transition is weakening our energy systems (specifically our critical electricity grids). In a very dystopian view, the “electrify everything” narrative is a way of creating an extreme vulnerability in national security - if everything is electrified then the impact of cyber-attacks could be catastrophic.²

The most insidious consequence, however, is the weakening of western economies. Shutting down domestic oil, gas and coal production, increasing reliance on intermittent renewables that require expensive back-up/alternatives and until recently, refusing nuclear - are leading to higher energy costs. Higher energy costs reduce wealth. To most politicians and economists that is a “price worth paying”. To Energy Economists it is a slow motion train-wreck. With war increasingly possible, weakened economies and deindustrialization should be a huge red flag.

Energy Security is National Security

If one wanted to sow chaos and weaken western democracies, the climate-change / net-zero playbook would be a powerful addition to the drugs, the social-media polarization and cyber attacks. Even if we don’t see “real” war, the geopolitical landscape is changing. 2040 is unlikely to be the Green Utopia some imagined (The World in 2040 Part 1 and Part 2), there will be Sinners and Losers.

Meredith Angwin’s excellent Memorial Day post highlighted the extraordinary pivot of the US economy to the production of “men and machines” to prosecute WW2. From a standing army of 334,000 in 1939, the US had 12 million in uniform by 1945.  The number (and technology) of the machines of war changed equally dramatically.

Meredith’s post highlighted the industrial and manufacturing war-footing after Japan “woke the sleeping giant”. Another factor that contributed to the USA’s influence was its ability expolit energy. The US supplied the vast majority of the Allies’ oil (outside of the Soviet arena), whilst Germany and Japan were desperately short of hydrocarbons (something I wrote about here). Energy certainty was a decisive factor.

Euro (lack of) Vision

On the one hand, Europe is directly exposed to the expanding edges of the war in Ukraine and a desire/need to increase military preparedness. On the other hand, Europe has a weakened energy system and weakening economies, led downwards by the most critical, Germany.

A Perfect Storm? Self-inflicted or orchestrated? Either way, dangerous times ahead.

1. In Thief of Time, part of Pratchett's Discworld series, a fifth horseman is mentioned: Ronnie Soak (Kaos spelled backwards). He is the fifth member who quit before the group because of artistic disagreements, though claimed later on he never cared about their success and now works as a milkman. (Re. Terry Pratchet, via wikipedia)

2. To be fair, even the current system of coal, gas, oil and nuclear is fragile given that all the control systems are digital… rather like your gas furnace won’t work without electricity to run its on-board system…