Unilateral disarmament only empowers hostile nations. Weakening our energy sector does the same, allowing others to profit while we become poorer.
For a time in the 20th century, pacifism grew in political strength and power in the Western world.
Many nations – weary of conflict and hopeful for peace – began to disarm.
At the outset of World War Two for example, the United States Armed Forces were about as well equipped as Bulgaria.
France and the United Kingdom had also dramatically reduced their military expenditures.
Part of this was due to the overwhelming loss of people and economic damage from the war, but it was also due to the growing sentiment among the population that if countries could reduce their militaries, the prospect of war would be reduced.
Of course, we know how that turned out.
Pacifism served only to embolden the most aggressive totalitarian regimes, who saw a window of opportunity to exploit.
Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union rapidly built up their militaries, gaining a significant edge in power over democratic nations.
France and the UK did eventually start to rearm, but it was too late to prevent the initial dominance of the Axis powers and the Soviet Union, who trampled over Europe.
Only the belated militarization of the United States – a feat of economic production that almost boggles the mind – and the war machines of Germany & the Soviets grinding each other down, stopped the totalitarians from dominating the planet.
As a result, pacifism has been largely discredited when it comes to relationships between hostile nations. Certainly, it can work within a country to bring about change, but unilateral disarmament of a national military has turned out to be an untenable idea.
The disarmament of democratic countries didn’t stop totalitarian states from rearming, it only gave those totalitarian states an advantage.
The core lesson here is that we must always make our plans based on human nature as it is, not as we wish it was.
Today, we must apparently learn that lesson again, this time when it comes to our energy sectors:
Western, democratic nations weakening our own energy sectors doesn’t help the planet, it only enriches dictatorships and hostile regimes while impoverishing us.
As a National Post editorial recently noted, China is benefitting from the anti-energy movement in the West:
“Meanwhile, while advocates of the rapid decarbonization of industrialized economies have been arguing for years that the jobs lost in emissions-intensive industries, like oil and gas, will be replaced with a wealth of new “green jobs,” it appears as though a good deal of them have gone to China.
This was a strategic move that has seen China playing both sides — benefiting from cheap, but incredibly environmentally damaging, coal-generated power, while simultaneously securing a near monopoly on the production of solar panels and rare earth elements, which the West relies on to produce clean energy and electric vehicles.
As of last year, China controlled a whopping 75 per cent of the global solar panel market. And according to InfoLink, a Taiwanese renewable energy consulting firm, European imports of Chinese photovoltaic modules increased 137 per cent in the first half of 2022, compared to a year earlier, as it looks for ways to offset reduced supplies of Russian gas.”
And of course, Russia also benefitted, using years of heightened oil & gas revenue – money that could have been going to Canada – to expand their military, which in turn emboldened them to launch their horrendous war of aggression against Ukraine.
Selling out our own future
Every dollar of profit that Canada loses in the energy sector is a dollar that goes to another nation.
Those other nations can then use that money to build up their economies and expand their militaries.
Meanwhile, Canada falls further and further behind.
Thus, allowing the anti-energy movement to have so thoroughly influenced government policy has done absolutely nothing for the planet, but has indeed weakened our own nation and allowed hostile countries to profit at our expense.
We have reached the point where the anti-energy movement should have zero credibility, and should cease trying to dictate the terms of debate to others.
In fact, the anti-energy movement should be fully on the defensive, having to answer for the real-world impacts of their policies.
A set of ideas that end up with Canada poorer, our Citizens more desperate, hostile nations enriched economically and militarily, and ourselves and our allies dependent upon dictatorship for energy is clearly a failure of historic proportions.
The anti-energy movement should be seen as fully discredited, and we must realize that their policies are something that the Western world can simply not afford.
Spencer Fernando
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