it's entirely in the realm of plausibility that sweden gets in a war with germany. it's entirely plausible that it gets in a war with russia.
it's entirely plausible that france gets in a war with germany. or with the uk.
these things have happened more than twice.
the current pax americana in western europe was created by the american occupation of the german empire after it's defeat in world war two. it was not something that arose organically in europe, except in the sense of europe being conquered by hitler, by napoleon or by julius caesar. these periods are anomalous. they don't last long and they end in brutal conflict.
so, sweden was a middle power.
in some sense, france was a middle power.
was canada actually a middle power? the americans have had longstanding designs on us but we don't really want the hassle. we were a middle power by necessity, not by choice. we always had to face the fact that they might come back.
why isn't kingston the capital of canada anymore? it used to be.
it was something we talked about during the pearson and trudeau years, which were the nixon, ford and carter years. we had to prepare for the inevitability. we didn't have the choice not to. so, yeah - we called cuba, we called angola, we called india and we called the soviets, too. we built relationships outside of nato. that was something we had to be ready for, and something we still need to be ready for now.
this administration doesn't seem to understand what american hegemony even is. trump thinks he's the sultan of the americas or something. he operates on dominance and submission. he's the oriental despot that western society has demonized since socrates. and he seems to think that's normal. it is normal, it's business normality, it's the fascist character of global capitalism. this mindfuck is a long time coming for canada, but we shouldn't pretend we never saw it coming, as we did.