Remember when former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told President Trump the Canadian government could not continue its economic policy if the United States demanded they become self-sufficient.

One of the key reasons cited by Trudeau was the Canadian dependence on the USA for defense.  Canada simply could not spend the amount of money needed to create their own military at a level required for independent defense and simultaneously follow their govt spending plan.  Canada relied on the U.S. military as their defense strategy.

Yesterday, former British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the same thing; only this time Starmer was saying the United States is no longer willing to “bankroll” Europe’s defense and both the U.K and European Union were going to need to find money to build their own military.

(VIA BBC) – Sir Keir Starmer has said Europe should build a common security framework, warning the change in its defence relationship with the US is permanent rather than “an aberration of the Trump presidency”.

The former prime minister was speaking at a British Irish Chamber of Commerce (BICC) dinner in Dublin on Friday evening.

Sir Keir said a “common security framework” for Europe was needed as much as a common market, with the UK at its centre.

He warned that “things will not go back to the way they were,” adding that the US had made clear it will no longer “bankroll” its European allies. (read more)

This public statement and admission by Keir Starmer follow remarks by current Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Politico on the heels of the Canadian-EU summit, also yesterday.

“If you’re connected to a satellite system that a billionaire, almost trillionaire, decides to turn off at one moment or not, that’s not a good idea,” Carney said. (source)

Think about this for a few moments.  Canada, the U.K and Europe are all facing the same problem…. MONEY!  Where are they going to come up with the funds to pay for a military investment they have declined to make for the past 50+ years?

It’s not just an issue of finding funds for a standing military, hardware, ships, submarines, aircraft, tanks, heavy and light artillery, missiles and drones etc., they also have to fund the technological capabilities to use and deploy modern weapons.

They also need advanced manufacturing, steel works, technological guidance systems, large numbers of strategically placed satellites, a space program that includes rockets to put them into orbit, and much, much more.

At scale this is multiple trillions, and that doesn’t include the baseline manufacturing systems needed to create all this independent infrastructure.

It’s one thing to say, ‘we will build out our military capacity‘, and it’s another thing entirely to actually build it.  Does Canada or Europe even have the human resources within the engineering sector to create all this infrastructure?  Think about it.

When you really stand back and look at the required level of investment needed, in addition to the time it takes to build all of the ancillary processes that are required to meet such an expressed objective, it really puts the context of the Canadian, British and European opposition to President Trump into context.

What is more feasible?  Doing what is required to build-out your own military defense systems; or is it simply easier to get rid of the person who stops you from using the USA as your standing army?…

… ‘There are trillions at stake.’