Richard White
Senior Member
Yes! I've been banging this drum forever. We have no coordinated national security strategy with foreign and defence policies coming from those. Instead, our defence policies are these weird documents that restate our commitments and provide a pledged shopping list for the arms bazaar. And we look set to repeat that mistake again with pledged rapid review of defence policy now.
Yep. People don't get how bad it is. It's arguably worse today than the 90s. We had younger equipment and more personnel in the 90s. Today we have aging kit, aging personnel (a good chunk of him are burned out from war and deployments) and basically everything is coming to end of life at once. The pledged money doesn't do much.
Not surprised that we weren't even invited to AUKUS. We have nothing to offer. And that deal, initially dismissed by Trudeau as just about nuclear submarines, has grown to cover artificial intelligence, cyber, electronic warfare, underwater sensing and quantum computing. It's not just a weapons deal. It's basically the premiere technology sharing agreement in the world. And our allies decided we aren't worthy.
The crazy part here is that there's not even a suggestion of going to Cold War level defence spending for most countries. 2% is below Cold War levels for most. It's roughly the historical mean for Canada across the Cold War. Heck, getting to the 1.8-1.9% range would get us plenty of capability. At least to the point that we aren't a joke.
More interesting is watching the American reaction to our apathy. Unlike Canadian talk they are actually starting to take the Arctic seriously with major exercises and a slow build up over there. They have been watching Russia militarize the Arctic for the last decade with little to no reaction from Canada. And even the Chinese are trying to get in there.
With Eyes on Russia, the U.S. Military Prepares for an Arctic Future (Published 2022)
As climate change opens up the Arctic for transit and exploration, Russia has increasingly militarized the region. The U.S. is preparing a more aggressive presence of its own.www.nytimes.com
I'm curious what the reaction in Canada will be, for the now inevitable deployment of an American flat top of some kind to the Arctic over the next decade or so. Will we shriek and do nothing but whine about those Americans? Or shrug and do nothing but whine about those Americans?
The same academia the have been carrying water for the Russians for nearly two decades? The amount of Western academics who have been apologists for Russian expansionism (cough "sphere of influence") has been the most interesting revelation of this whole saga. This piece by John Mearsheimer in the Economist, blaming the West for the invasion of Ukraine comes to mind:
John Mearsheimer on why the West is principally responsible for the Ukrainian crisis
The political scientist believes the reckless expansion of NATO provoked Russiawww.economist.com
In typical Canadian fashion, our actions don't match our rhetoric and others have noticed.
Canada's plan to boost military spending ‘falls flat’ amid high hopes
The increase doesn't meet NATO's target for its members to spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense.www.politico.com
I am actually appalled by the current state of our military. As you say, if not all of the equipment is aging and needs a modern upgrade.
I am tired of all the retrofits to aging ships and buying second hand submarines. What we need is a major increase in spending like Germany just did to modernize our entire military. If a major conflict were to break out we would be forked because we could not defend ourselves with what we have now.
When a major conflict breaks out, it is too late to start building up your ships, aircraft, subs and ground forces. You need to have a stable and modern fighting force long before it reaches that point as it takes years to build it up.
Right now, if war were to break out I would feel safer sending in the First Canadian Goose Light Infantry Division. Anyone who has seen a pissed off goose knows how effective they can be.,