Blind To Our War

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Editor’s note: The following fictional editorial and news account was written by Edward Osborne. This piece is a featured entry from the Art of Future Warfare project’s “Great War” war-art challenge that called for a fictional front-page style dispatch from the outbreak of the next major global conflict. To see the multimedia version of this entry, click here.

 

The Next Great War is Here and We Are Fighting it Now: An Editorial Call to Acknowledge the Current State of Global Conflict

In his April address three months ago, Irwin Cotler, Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs described the government’s goals for “stability in an unstable era.” It was the formalization of a policy to minimize western engagement in foreign crises, and emphasized Canada’s domestic security above all else. Given the current state of affairs it is a publicly palatable position. It also mirrors our southern neighbors’ approach laid out by the Jindal administration and Secretary of State John Bolton. Canadian politics have traditionally dovetailed with the United States, but this time things are different.

We at the Globe and Mail are forced to disagree with these head-in-the-sand proclamations, and urge both our readership and leadership to face the reality of our situation: we are already in the throes of the next global conflict.

This week’s events, particularly in the last 12 hours, indicate a new era of war. Fringe blogs and conspiracy theorists have spent years saying World War III is just around the corner. I personally find the phrase WWIII to be excessively dramatic, but it is clear that a current geo-political struggle is happening around us. The 21st century has been defined by burbling small-scale wars, but the last 12 hours indicate a new and troubling dimension that threatens the West directly.

Read the full piece at the Art of Future Warfare site…

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