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Canada and the World

kEiThZ said:
o.canada.com

Royal Canadian Navy pitches $60 billion submarine purchase, say defence and industry sources

But that price tag could climb to $100B as military equipment procurement programs are rarely on budget, say industry sources
o.canada.com o.canada.com
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I hope we’re not going to try to produce SSKs like Australia. We should buy them from an established SSK producer, like Japan, where the government keeps up a steady production of submarines in order to maintain yard expertise - resulting in a surplus and early retirements.
 
Admiral Beez said:
I hope we’re not going to try to produce SSKs like Australia. We should buy them from an established SSK producer, like Japan, where the government keeps up a steady production of submarines in order to maintain yard expertise - resulting in a surplus and early retirements.
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Going to be difficult for any government to let $60B leave the country with not much employment created here. Incidentally, this is part of the politics that led Australia to AUKUS. If they were going to spend that much and have so much leave the country, they might as well get a nuclear industry and higher military capability out of it.

Incidentally, it's because we can't build subs in this country and can't really get decent offsets (like we can for aircraft or armoured vehicles) that we refuse to field an appropriate quantity. Maybe we can cut a deal with Sweden or Japan that we export LAVs and Globals to them in exchange for submarines.
 
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kEiThZ said:
Going to be difficult for any government to let $60B leave the country with not much employment created here.
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I understand, but we’re sending $20-30 billion to the US for F-35 as we’re not capable of making them here. We do not have a submarine design and production capability, and we need subs asap. I think we’ll need to make an exception about offsets for this one.

If we must make them here, then I hope we buy a design off the shelf, like how the Italians are building the new German Type 212. I assume beyond a better pantry the Italian boats are identical to the German‘s. A challenge to my own suggestion though is that most SSKs are short ranged, small boats originating out of the Baltic Sea. That’s why I mention the larger Japanese boats. The South Korean boats look good too.

What we really should do is up our defence spending and interest, join AUKUS if they’ll have us, commit to SSNs and run the Victorias for another decade. Perhaps this latest announcement is just a pretence to demonstrate Canada’s worthiness to the AUKUS countries. Australia had announced a similarly large SSK buy from France before dropping it all for AUKUS and SSNs.
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Admiral Beez said:
I understand, but we’re sending $20-30 billion to the US for F-35 as we’re not capable of making them here.
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We're actually not though. Our participation in the program means we get workshare in Canada and Canadian companies are part of the global F-35 supply chain which will eventually produce 2000-3000 units. Also, the majority of the $20B pricetag that is talked about is spent in Canada. It includes infrastructure, support contracts, etc. The actual aircraft are about US$9B, of which most (if not all) will be offset by workshare. There's no such opportunities available with submarines. And that's the problem.

Admiral Beez said:
What we really should do is up our defence spending and interest, join AUKUS if they’ll have us, commit to SSNs and run the Victorias for another decade.
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I wouldn't get too hopeful on even a dozen diesel subs. Let alone nuclear subs. I think the recent budget should tell you that all all these ambitions are highly unlikely. Policy is largely status quo. Enough to basically halt and reverse rust out. But zero intention to ever reach close to NATO target of 2%. And just enough to convince the US, not to become more unilateral with continental defence, which is increasingly the direction things were actually heading in.

And to be fair, it's not just this government. I wouldn't expect much different from a conservative government. I think the public is broadly fine with rhetoric over substance when it comes to defence and foreign policy. Or we'd have seen a stronger reaction to being left out of AUKUS.
 
kEiThZ said:
I wouldn't get too hopeful on even a dozen diesel subs. Let alone nuclear subs. I think the recent budget should tell you that all all these ambitions are highly unlikely. Policy is largely status quo. Enough to basically halt and reverse rust out. But zero intention to ever reach close to NATO target of 2%. And just enough to convince the US, not to become more unilateral with continental defence, which is increasingly the direction things were actually heading in.

And to be fair, it's not just this government. I wouldn't expect much different from a conservative government. I think the public is broadly fine with rhetoric over substance when it comes to defence and foreign policy. Or we'd have seen a stronger reaction to being left out of AUKUS.
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Politicians care about what the tea leaves tell them will get them elected/re-elected, and the Canadian public simply doesn't care. If asked, public opinion polls will show lofty sentiments like we support the military, believe in sovereignty, etc. but at the more granular level, things like a national dentalcare or childcare will get them more votes.

There is a vocal segment that is anti-nuclear anything, and people will be convinced the confuse or conflate nuclear-powered with nuclear equipped.

Building any type of submarine is highly specialized and we couldn't hope to develop the capability for a handful of hulls. Even our blue-water surface ship building capability exists in fits and starts because of our history of building government fleets in 40 year cycles and is currently in the 'rebuild' phase. Beyond the construction, shore-side support, and crewing would be a problem. I can't imagine the hue-and-cry that would erupt around berthing nuclear boats in downtown Halifax The Navy currently has difficulty crewing the ships we have. It maybe one thing to tie up a conventional ship with minimal staffing; you can't just tie up a nuclear boat and walk away.
 
lenaitch said:
Politicians care about what the tea leaves tell them will get them elected/re-elected, and the Canadian public simply doesn't care. If asked, public opinion polls will show lofty sentiments like we support the military, believe in sovereignty, etc. but at the more granular level, things like a national dentalcare or childcare will get them more votes.

There is a vocal segment that is anti-nuclear anything, and people will be convinced the confuse or conflate nuclear-powered with nuclear equipped.

Building any type of submarine is highly specialized and we couldn't hope to develop the capability for a handful of hulls. Even our blue-water surface ship building capability exists in fits and starts because of our history of building government fleets in 40 year cycles and is currently in the 'rebuild' phase. Beyond the construction, shore-side support, and crewing would be a problem. I can't imagine the hue-and-cry that would erupt around berthing nuclear boats in downtown Halifax The Navy currently has difficulty crewing the ships we have. It maybe one thing to tie up a conventional ship with minimal staffing; you can't just tie up a nuclear boat and walk away.
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The Liberals wouldn’t lose a single vote to the Cons over a submarine deal. And the Dippers are already at their peak.
 
Admiral Beez said:
The Liberals wouldn’t lose a single vote to the Cons over a submarine deal. And the Dippers are already at their peak.
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If large-capital military spending was such a safe bet then, why haven't we seen much of it?

If party-in-power X said 'we are going to spend $YBillion offshore to buy boats, the opposition would mine polling and voting disapproval and counter that 'we will spend the money at home and build our own, except it would take twenty years just to decide what we want and another ten to build the facilities, and somewhere along the line it would all crash to earth because $YBillion ballooned to 10x$YBillion. Even if we decided we would simply buy somebody else's design, they're not going to just hand them over.

There is merit is reestablishing our blue water ship building capacity, there is much common ground in all surface ships that can benefit the Navy, Coast Guard and perhaps even commercial shipping. Submarines are only used by the military, Disney and the West Edmonton Mall.
 
lenaitch said:
If large-capital military spending was such a safe bet then, why haven't we seen much of it?
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It’s not about the spending, but is about not demonstrating that the last government may have had a good idea. Look at the F-35 procurement. Trudeau campaigned in 2015 on stopping Harper’s F-35 buy, but then a less than a decade later buys F-35s. To Harper’s credit his government did not abandon the F-35 project begun by the Chrétien gov’t.
 
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Admiral Beez said:
Canada has a long history of civilian nuclear power generation. It’s in many ways chalk and cheese, but the citizenry isn’t as afraid of nuclear energy. Shouldn't we be looking at the cheaper SSNs, like the French Barracuda class?
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The fearmongering and misinformation over nuclear subs is one issue. But the other (and probably the bigger) issue would be the cost. This isn't cheap. And we're a country that is decidedly committed to doing the absolute minimum on defence. That's hard to square with ambitions for advanced capabilities like nuclear subs.

On the actual subs, if we're going to get any nuclear subs, AUKUS SSN would probably be the first choice. Anything else only comes if we were rejected from that. Also, the French have a rather poor reputation for technology sharing and cooperation, especially with other developed countries. Might be better off just running a joint program with Japan or South Korea at the point.
 
kEiThZ said:
Also, the French have a rather poor reputation for technology sharing and cooperation…
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I’ve heard that, but what’s with France sharing its nuclear propulsion with Brazil? If they’ll share tech with Brazil, why not Canada?

Why the heck does Brazil need nuclear attack subs for? It reminds me of the LATAM Dreadnought race of the 1910s.
 
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Dozens of political and military luminaries call on Ottawa to stop backsliding on national defence


Signatories of the letter include:

The Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, former chief justice SCC
The Honourable Peter MacKay, former minister of national defence
The Honourable David Pratt, former minister of national defence
General (Ret'd) Raymond Henault, former chair NATO MC, chief of the defence staff
Ambassador Yves Brodeur, former ambassador to NATO
Ambassador Deborah Lyons, former UN special rep UNAMA Afghanistan
Blake Goldring, former honorary colonel Canadian Army, executive chairman AGF Management
Dick Fadden, former national security adviser and deputy minister of national defence
Chiko Nanji, CEO Metro Supply Chain Group
The Honourable John Manley, former deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs
The Honourable Anne McLellan, former deputy prime minister
The Honourable Perrin Beatty, former minister of national defence
The Honourable John McCallum, former minister of national defence
The Honourable Jason Kenney, former minister of national defence
The Honourable David Collenette, former minister of national defence
The Honourable Andrew Leslie, former chief whip, commander Canadian Army
The Honourable Senator Peter Harder, former deputy minister of foreign affairs
The Honourable Colin Kenny, senator (Ret'd), founding chair of the standing Senate committee on national security and defence
The Honourable Dan Lang, senator (Ret'd)
The Honourable Joseph Day, senator (Ret'd)
Mel Cappe, former clerk of the Privy Council and U.K. high commissioner
General (Ret'd) Paul Manson
General (Ret'd) John de Chastelain
Admiral (Ret'd) John Anderson, former NATO ambassador
General (Ret'd) Jean Boyle
General (Ret'd) Maurice Baril
General (Ret'd) Rick Hillier
General (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk
General (Ret'd) Tom Lawson
Ambassador (Ret'd) Robert Fowler, former foreign policy adviser, deputy minister of national defence
Ward Elcock, former director of CSIS, deputy minister of national defence
Margaret Purdy, former deputy secretary to the cabinet (security and intelligence) and associate deputy minister national defence
Daniel Jean, former national security and intelligence adviser, deputy minister Global Affairs Canada
John Forster, former chief of CSE, deputy minister of national defence
Margaret Bloodworth, former deputy minister of national defence
Roland Paris, former senior adviser (global affairs and defence) to the prime minister
Vincent Rigby, former national security and intelligence adviser
Jim Mitchell, Former Senior Public Servant
Ambassador (Ret'd) Chris Shapardanov, Former Ambassador to Finland
Ambassador (Ret) Lucie Edwards, Former High Commissioner of Canada for India and South Africa
Ambassador (Ret) Sabine Nölke, Former Ambassador the Netherlands and Permanent Representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
LGen (Ret'd) Christine Whitecross, Former Chief of Military Personnel
The Honourable Darrell Dexter, Former Premier of Nova Scotia
Jim Mitchell, Former Senior Public Servant
 
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