With apologies for voicing an opinion rather than linking an external article.
I am of the strong opinion that Remembrance Day had become at best grandstanding, and at worst, completely meaningless. There are phases tossed around like “Lest we Forget” or “Never Again”. But when Russia invaded Ukraine, we have effectively done the opposite (or very nearly).
Sure, we can send ammo so Ukranians can fight back, or host some of their forces for training. But the reality is, we are only marginally involved. We haven’t mobilized. We aren’t on war footing economically.
The root causes are many. But a combination of NATO’s article 5 protection only kicking in if we are attacked (rather than joining an already existing war), and the threat of nuclear retaliation, means we are paralyzed politically.
At a minimum: I would support direct involvement, whether that’s ramping up our own military, deploying specialists, reservists for minesweeping, stationing our own troops (meagre as they are) in Ukraine to directly support the fight. I would actually support much larger actions, including naval blockades or airspace closures but wholly understand that Canada cannot execute those on their own.
We cannot allow genocidal wars to be pressed in the modern world. And we should be doing everything we can about it. Right now, we’re doing barely more than nothing.
The appeasement that led up to WW2 is completely different to anything today.
The world was negotiating with an ultra right wing fanatical political movement that was expansionist with a lot of motivation … a small nation with no natural resources, no fuel and no land area. Coupled with an economy that was destroyed by a previous war and now based all their economy on the military and in expansion to new territory. Not to mention that the western nations supported this fanatical right wing movement at the start … the German war machine was partly funded, supported and assisted by British, American and other European corporations, leaders and even monarchies. Henry Ford is a prime example that supported Nazi Germany and even got an award from Hitler himself … they built Germany’s military trucks leading up to the war … not as Ford but as a newly created company called Opal. International industrial companies, chemical companies, civilian, military, medical and manufacturing companies all lined up to build the German war machine … even as they all knew that Germany was not allowed to build up their military again. Aircraft, ships, military equipment all built inside the most monitored nation in Europe after being blamed by the last war … and the allies turned a blind eye.
Modern Russia has none of these parallels … they don’t have a large enough or modern military (it pales in comparison to the Americans), they have abundant resources and they have more than enough land space. If they had wanted to expand, they would have done it long ago and they would have failed. The only thing the Russians have is nuclear weapons but its a useless weapon because once those are used … everyone loses. Wealthy oligarchs in Russia and everywhere else only have one motivation to not use nuclear weapons … money and finances … they all know that once nuclear weapons start destroying the world, it will take most or all of their imaginary wealth locked up on digital global finances. So everyone on all sides have the greatest motivation to not start nuclear war … greed.
Chamberlain’s appeasement was a false agreement with fascism even when they all knew they were making a deal with the devil who was building an army that everyone knew about (because they were building it with everyone).
Look at the dynamics of the war in Ukraine … Ukraine fights Russia using American funding and resources … without America, there is no war … which means America is fighting a proxy war with Russia. The Americans don’t mind this kind of conflict … they can use their hardware and money and no American lives will be lost … no one cares if Ukrainians die so the war will continue until enough Russians or Ukrainians die … or if America runs out of money.