RIMPAC: Make war not love?
Aug. 29th, 2020 03:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blogcutterSometimes during a major crisis such as a world-wide public health pandemic, the armed forces are called in to provide much-needed assistance. Other times, they're sent out to sea to play war games, as with the RIMPAC exercise currently underway in the Hawaiian islands. Is this really the best use of our naval person-power? Here is the Canadian government's official position on it:
https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/operations/exercises/rimpac.html
Others see it differently. Not only do they question the validity of the primary rationale for this biennial exercise but they also point to a whole host of environmental, health, human rights and other concerns. See, for example, this opinion piece by Tamara Lorincz:
https://www.saltwire.com/opinion/local-perspectives/tamara-lorincz-navy-war-games-put-our-oceans-and-public-health-in-peril-483577/?location=nova-scotia
The unintended consequences of the RIMPAC exercise are far from insignificant. I found it doubly baffling that this biennial ritual did not even begin until the early 1970s: not, as I would have suspected, when our country was at war but during a time of relative optimism and prosperity.
Rather than saying "The show must go on" even during a pandemic, albeit in a shortened and more limited format, I'm thinking we should instead view this international emergency as a golden opportunity to cancel events like RIMPAC and refocus on more pressing matters.
https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/operations/exercises/rimpac.html
Others see it differently. Not only do they question the validity of the primary rationale for this biennial exercise but they also point to a whole host of environmental, health, human rights and other concerns. See, for example, this opinion piece by Tamara Lorincz:
https://www.saltwire.com/opinion/local-perspectives/tamara-lorincz-navy-war-games-put-our-oceans-and-public-health-in-peril-483577/?location=nova-scotia
The unintended consequences of the RIMPAC exercise are far from insignificant. I found it doubly baffling that this biennial ritual did not even begin until the early 1970s: not, as I would have suspected, when our country was at war but during a time of relative optimism and prosperity.
Rather than saying "The show must go on" even during a pandemic, albeit in a shortened and more limited format, I'm thinking we should instead view this international emergency as a golden opportunity to cancel events like RIMPAC and refocus on more pressing matters.
