India-Canada, Mexico and South America: News and Discussion

[Amber G.]

^^^ Thx. Worth watching and RT'ing.

[tandav]

Had a very interesting re-read of the Monroe Doctrine that is back in the news. While the Greenlanders are likely to vote for independence, the USA has always looked at Greenland as part of the Americas. Trump very close or already thrown Europe and NATO out. Europe is on it own and will have to fund its own defences. Russia and USA will compete for influence in the continent. Balkanization of Europe is very likely Brexit giving an advance flavor of the same. Very very interesting times.

China has its own Monroe Doctrine... Cambodia, most of the Central Asian Stans, North Korea, Mongolia, most of Eastern Russia should be ready for the picking after Russia is exhausted in Ukraine. Just like Trump turned on NATO, China may turn on Russia. The only difference is that Russia is nuclear armed but nothing that cannot be bought with money or a couple of well timed Naval Blockade

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_ ... _Greenland

[bala]

Just a note of caution on Cheenland: they are no military might and in Op Sindhoor, Iran, Venezuela etc their maal is pretty useless junk. Cheen army, airfoce, navy command has been gutted/purged and most of the newly appointed leadership has zilch in experience, the cadets are even worse with their cheen ipads which can be jammed. Russia is formidable in military and can take on NATO like in Ukraine. No way Russia is going to allow any of its territory to be taken by anyone. Greenland and iceland may go to the US, actually the US is parked around greenland even today.

[A_Gupta]

I have seen evidence in the form of the commissioner, the deputy commissioner and their senior officials of the RCMP swear on a stack of Bibles that the Lawrence Bishnoy gang is working for the Indian government and that uh criminals operating in Canada under the direction or with the assistance of Indian officials were responsible for the murder of of Hardip Singh Nijjar. Now I've seen recently and not so recently uh officials of the uh the Indian government uh such as the new high commissioner saying uh that where's your evidence? They've asked the same question you just did. I don't blame you for asking it because in my very long answer notice I haven't given you any evidence just evidence that I believe these people when they make the charge. But uh I think that uh when it comes to court, you're going to get some nasty surprises and it's going to take some very fancy footwork which I can't imagine sitting here today for the government to sidestep that or to to put it on a sidetrack somewhere to keep the Indians happy by putting it off stage. Uh I I don't see how that happens in Canada.

-- Terry Milewski to ANI
https://youtu.be/rTMuZEO9kFE?si=8rHa95fY-7ASAEnr


What that means is that the four men arrested were hired by the Bishnoi gang?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/hardee ... -1.7193911
(May 2024):
Karan Brar, now 24.
Kamalpreet Singh, now 23.
Karanpreet Singh, now 29.
Amandeep Singh, now 22.

RCMP said they arrived in the country separately between three and five years ago (per the news item in May 2024).

----
It also makes the Pannun/Nikhil Gupta case a puzzle. Why hire Nikhil Gupta if you have the Bishnoi gang at your disposal? (Yes, the Bishnoi gang is reputed to have a presence in the US too.)

[drnayar]

Canada's shift towards multialignment is quite clear - and this level of honesty from Carney on Western "fiction" about the old order will be warmly welcomed in much of the Global South:

"We knew that the story about the rules-based order was partially false... We knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused and the victim. This fiction was useful [because of the goods provided by American hegemony]... So we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition... You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination."


https://x.com/tparsi/status/2013677260956402059

[A_Gupta]

^^^^ Very good speech by Carney.

[KL Dubey]

As bredicted "by a select few" here, Karni has turned out so far to be an effective leader of Kanadda and a man of action (true to his name). Rather remarkable considering he had no direct poltoo experience earlier.

Instead of taking "high moral ground", he is not afraid to say that "we went along with shyte because it was benefiting us, but now that we are ourselves a victim it is time to own up and change". Denmark is probably finding the same (I saw a speech by Mette Frederiksen that came close to saying the same thing). Maybe all EU fellows should adopt this lesson.

[drnayar]

EU has now collectively enlightened .. and now talk about international order and rules etc.. how convenient. Lazer eyes predicted this moment when he said Europe's problems are not worlds problems when the world s problems are not Europe's. Anyway FAFO.

[A_Gupta]

Transcript of Carney's speech (the parts in English)

It seems that every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry — that the rules-based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.

And this aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable, as the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself. And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along, get along to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety.

Well, it won’t. So what are our options?

In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel, later president, wrote an essay called “The Power of the Powerless,” and in it he asked a simple question: how did the communist system sustain itself?

And his answer began with a greengrocer.

Every morning, the shopkeeper places a sign in his window: “Workers of the world unite.” He doesn’t believe in it. No one does. But he places the sign anyway to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists — not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.

Havel called this living within a lie. The system’s power comes not from its truth, but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source. When even one person stops performing, when the greengrocer removes his sign, the illusion begins to crack.

Friends, it is time for companies and countries to take their signs down.

For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We join its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that, we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.

We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically, and we knew that international law applied with varied rigor, depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.

This fiction was useful, and American hegemony in particular helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.

So we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals, and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality.

This bargain no longer works.

Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.

Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.

You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination.

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The multilateral institutions on which the middle powers have relied — the WTO, the UN, the COP, the very architecture of collective problem solving — are under threat. As a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions that they must develop greater strategic autonomy in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance and supply chains. And this impulse is understandable.

A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself, or defend itself has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself.

But let’s be clear-eyed about where this leads. A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile, and less sustainable.

And there’s another truth: if great powers abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from transactionalism will become harder to replicate.

Hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships. Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty. They’ll buy insurance, increase options in order to rebuild sovereignty, sovereignty that was once grounded in rules but will increasingly be anchored in the ability to withstand pressure.

This room knows this is classic risk management. Risk management comes at a price, but that cost of strategic autonomy, of sovereignty, can also be shared. Collective investments in resilience are cheaper than everyone building their own fortresses. Shared standards reduce fragmentations. Complementarities are positive sum.

The question for middle powers like Canada is not whether to adapt to the new reality — we must.

The question is whether we adapt by simply building higher walls, or whether we can do something more ambitious.

Now, Canada was amongst the first to hear the wake-up call, leading us to fundamentally shift our strategic posture. Canadians know that our old, comfortable assumptions that our geography and alliance memberships automatically conferred prosperity and security, that assumption is no longer valid. And our new approach rests on what Alexander Stubb, the president of Finland, has termed value-based realism.

Or, to put it another way, we aim to be both principled and pragmatic. Principled in our commitment to fundamental values, sovereignty, territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter and respect for human rights.

And pragmatic in recognizing that progress is often incremental, that interests diverge, that not every partner will share all of our values.

So we’re engaging broadly, strategically, with open eyes. We actively take on the world as it is, not wait around for a world we wish to be.

We are calibrating our relationships so their depth reflects our values, and we’re prioritizing broad engagement to maximize our influence, given the fluidity of the world at the moment, the risks that this poses and the stakes for what comes next.

And we are no longer just relying on the strength of our values, but also the value of our strength.

We are building that strength at home. Since my government took office, we have cut taxes on incomes, on capital gains and business investment. We have removed all federal barriers to interprovincial trade. We are fast tracking $1 trillion of investments in energy, AI, critical minerals, new trade corridors and beyond. We’re doubling our defence spending by the end of this decade, and we’re doing so in ways that build our domestic industries. And we are rapidly diversifying abroad.

We’ve agreed to a comprehensive strategic partnership with the EU, including joining SAFE, the European defence procurement arrangements. We have signed 12 other trade and security deals on four continents in six months.

In the past few days, we’ve concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar. We’re negotiating free trade pacts with India, ASEAN, Thailand, Philippines and Mercosur.

We’re doing something else: to help solve global problems, we’re pursuing variable geometry. In other words, different coalitions for different issues based on common values and interests. So on Ukraine, we’re a core member of the Coalition of the Willing and one of the largest per capita contributors to its defence and security.

On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland’s future.

Our commitment to NATO’s Article 5 is unwavering, so we’re working with our NATO allies, including the Nordic-Baltic Eight, to further secure the alliance’s northern and western flanks, including through Canada’s unprecedented investments in over-the-horizon radar, in submarines, in aircraft, and boots on the ground — boots on the ice.

Canada strongly opposes tariffs over Greenland and calls for focused talks to achieve our shared objectives of security and prosperity in the Arctic.

On plurilateral trade, we’re championing efforts to build a bridge between the Trans-Pacific partnership and the European Union, which would create a new trading bloc of 1.5 billion people on critical minerals.

We’re forming buyer’s clubs anchored in the G7 so the world can diversify away from concentrated supply. And on AI, we’re cooperating with like-minded democracies to ensure that we won’t ultimately be forced to choose between hegemons and hyperscalers.

This is not naïve multilateralism, nor is it relying on their institutions. It’s building coalitions that work issue by issue with partners who share enough common ground to act together. In some cases, this will be the vast majority of nations. What it’s doing is creating a dense web of connections across trade, investment, culture on which we can draw for future challenges and opportunities.

Our view is the middle powers must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.

But I’d also say that great powers can afford, for now, to go it alone. They have the market size, the military capacity, and the leverage to dictate terms. Middle powers do not. But when we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. We accept what’s offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating.

This is not sovereignty. It’s the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination.

In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in-between have a choice: compete with each other for favour, or combine to create a third path with impact. We shouldn’t allow the rise of hard power to blind us to the fact that the power of legitimacy, integrity, and rules will remain strong if we choose to wield it together.

Which brings me back to Havel. What does it mean for middle powers to live the truth?

First, it means naming reality. Stop invoking rules-based international order as though it still functions as advertised. Call it what it is: a system of intensifying great power rivalry where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as coercion.

It means acting consistently, applying the same standards to allies and rivals. When middle powers criticize economic intimidation from one direction but stay silent when it comes from another, we are keeping the sign in the window.

It means building what we claim to believe in, rather than waiting for the old order to be restored. It means creating institutions and agreements that function as described, and it means reducing the leverage that enables coercion.

That’s building a strong domestic economy. It should be every government’s immediate priority.

And diversification internationally is not just economic prudence; it’s a material foundation for honest foreign policy, because countries earn the right to principled stands by reducing their vulnerability to retaliation.

So, Canada. Canada has what the world wants. We are an energy superpower. We hold vast reserves of critical minerals. We have the most educated population in the world. Our pension funds are amongst the world’s largest and most sophisticated investors. In other words, we have capital talent. We also have a government with immense fiscal capacity to act decisively. And we have the values to which many others aspire.

Canada is a pluralistic society that works. Our public square is loud, diverse and free. Canadians remain committed to sustainability. We are a stable and reliable partner in a world that is anything but, a partner that builds and values relationships for the long term.

And we have something else: we have a recognition of what’s happening and determination to act accordingly. We understand that this rupture calls for more than adaptation. It calls for honesty about the world as it is.

We are taking a sign out of the window.

We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn’t mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy, but we believe that from the fracture we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just. This is the task of the middle powers, the countries that have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and the most to gain from genuine cooperation.

The powerful have their power. But we have something too: the capacity to stop pretending, to name realities, to build our strength at home, and to act together.

That is Canada’s path. We choose it openly and confidently, and it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us.

Thank you very much.

[sanjaykumar]

I did not expect a Canadian PM to ever be this self aware.

He mentions repeatedly that things will not be going back to ‘normal’. I am not sure about that. Canada will need massive markets. India can absorb its oil exports but Canada cannot replace Russia strategically, for instance.

And I do not see Russia, China or India selling hypersonic missiles to Canada. There is limited room for true autonomy. Unless there are 100 million people in Canada.

[Jay]

That is a humbling admission from Canada. Other European countries should take note and come to this realization and start engaging the global south and mainly India on its own merit. Western Europe has boxed themselves by three hegemonic and racist entities, none of which now look at them as people, but as resources to be plundered and divided.

[sanjaykumar]

Welcome to the third world.

[rajkumar]

https://youtu.be/kDMyeGQm3NA?si=AoiCjO3fSWiHuAlu

[sudhan]

Finally the bubble has burst..

Now the Westies can finally understand how the other countries felt when Democracy was forcibly shoved down their throats..

Unfortunately, Tlump isnt even bringing out a 'altrusitic reason'.. Basically to quote a line from the Avatar

"He is pi$$ing on them without even given them the courtesy of calling it rain"

And the entire MAGA crowd cant get enough of him.. many of their prominent influencers are happily adding to the list of potential conquests

[Amber G.]

That is a humbling admission from Canada. Other European countries should take note and come to this realization and start engaging the global south and mainly India on its own merit. Western Europe has boxed themselves by three hegemonic and racist entities, none of which now look at them as people, but as resources to be plundered and divided.

As someone said "This is the kind of honesty one has when there’s a knee on your neck."

[drnayar]

That is a humbling admission from Canada. Other European countries should take note and come to this realization and start engaging the global south and mainly India on its own merit. Western Europe has boxed themselves by three hegemonic and racist entities, none of which now look at them as people, but as resources to be plundered and divided.

As someone said "This is the kind of honesty one has when there’s a knee on your neck."

As another said take Carney's speeches with a bag of salt.. these are only " indignant speeches" , once it blows over they will be back to preaching "democracy" and "rights"

[Amber G.]

"Missing out on India, China, MERCOSUR and EU is a mistake. That's not managing your relationships properly. You need a web of connections," -- Canada's PM Mark Carney

[uddu]

Make hay while the sun shines should be utilized in the most effective way to our full advantage.
https://x.com/i/status/2013966556917907878
@ShivAroor
Canada will be back to peddling the rules-based order the minute Trump is off their back.

That’s how white privilege works.

Don’t be fooled by Carney’s well-crafted, pretend soul-searching BS.

This is the geopolitical equivalent of ‘sab mile hue hain’.

Don’t fall for it.