I think if we are really honest we must concede that the failure to make this decision has made the decision for us. The CAF is now in systemic failure. We cannot meet our most basic NATO, NORAD commitments and train (grow) our forces. It is all so far gone now that the costs to “rebuild” are so high no government will ever agree to it. Want new artillery? Great! We need new buildings, storage bunkers, training aids, ammunition, communications gear, computers, and on and on and on. Cost? Way more than 3% of GDP.
So we will be Ireland. No real armed force, no seat at any table, other than the kids room where all the little nations sit. Think of that, one of the biggest economies in the world will have no influence globally. Stunning, yet here we are.
There's another idiom that comes to mind involving a pot and getting off of it when we're not prepared to make a reasonable offering. In my opinion, the only way this will ever change course is if there is a large, tragic security incident that causes a large number of Canadians to start to feel unsafe at home. To be clear, I don't hope for this to happen - I just think that's how far down this hole we've gone. We can point out how unstable and dangerous the world is until we're blue in the face, but who will really believe that (enough to change government policy) when they feel generally safe in their own lives? Great article for all of us Trekkies!
We are very definitely a country that wants its cake and eats it too...
I am not sure what is likely to happen in the Hobson's Choice articulated in this very good article - if I read the public mood aright, the notion of meeting our alliance obligations is low, and it certainly seems as if expansions of Medicare (pharmacy, dentistry, hell, why not optometry while we're at it) are more congenial and worthy of further loads of debt. So, I would guess we know what the current gov't's policy will be.
I am not crystal clear as to what alternative governments might feel to be a suitable defence posture - noting as have others, that defence is a fundamental element of sovereignty. Medicare is not. (I acknowledge that payment of debt obligations is also a fundamental element of sovereignty for obvious reasons.) So, is it Conservative policy, after they've axed the carbon tax, to properly fund defence and concurrently beef up our efforts with allies and our activities in the global commons? If so, the prominence of their policies in this field is certainly subtle. Perhaps they don't want to scare the children (that's us). However, I will note that it is a bipartisan policy to shortchange defence in preference for other things and I imagine that will hold. The future will tell us how our slide down the global significance rankings affect day to day happiness in our 'fireproof' house. But, I would not be surprised if the Five Eyes becomes the Four Eyes (beat by NZ by gum!!!!) and the G7 becomes the G6, etc. And, when we need 'something' from our friends and allies it just might not be forthcoming.
If the federal government continues its current policy of demilitarizing the military by not procuring the tools needed to protect this country — which, if I’m not mistaken, , is the first obligation of government — seems to me they’d be smart to quit trying to take away firearms from legal owners. We may be the last best defence this country has at this time of uncertainty in the world. Switzerland has a citizen army and if it works for them, why shouldn’t it work for us — apart from the fact we are a large country without (except for the Rockies) high mountains which the Swiss use to their advantage when it comes to their defence. Perhaps we should just give up, throw in the towel and beg the U-S to take us in !
Think of a Trump presidency. USA pulls out of NATO. Europe would have to reconfigure NATO. Why would they invite Canada. Having a strong military means we can protect ourselves. What kind of protection does our military provide for Canadians in its current state.
Great article, neatly synthesizing the two options. Except…. Every War in which Canada has ever engaged as a nation — that would be the 1st and 2nd World Wars, Korea, the Gulf War and Afghanistan (yes, also Afghanistan) — having adopted by default the first choice of not having spent any money on our military, the first forces we consistently have despatched has been the Navy, invariably in its ”come as you are” mode. Call it Canada’s Variation on the Kobayashi Maru, but fortune has smiled on us and each time the RCN has pulled it off, but the world is an uglier place, and my betting is that soon enough our luck is going to run out. So when having your proposed discussion, it should be entered with eyes wide open that sending the Navy off into danger (Taiwan Straits anyone?) is very likely what we will do yet again, and we should just suck it up and start taking seriously our responsibility to fund and equip it properly.
I am intrigued by the statement: "This is a pretty incredibly capable ship. So in a perfect world, the Canadian Surface Combatant has 24 vertical launch cells for missiles. I would like to see that number doubled, or at least at 36. But if I were to try and insist upon that, I would delay that ship by a couple of years. It’s just not worth it"
if 36 or 48 was the preferred number, why wasnt that in the original specs? Speaking from personal experience, these sorts of late scope changes doom many projects.
First things first: what missions do we want the Armed Forces to fulfill? We're currently coasting on muscle memory of old Cold War imperatives that haven't been subject to a proper evaluation in decades. My depressing expectation is that most Canadians would like to see an army suitable for disaster relief, an air force that can support disaster relief and do search & rescue, and a navy that doesn't do much more than patrol fisheries. That's because most Canadians are ignorant of national security issues to the extent that they think of them at all, and public opinion has mostly been shaped by soft-headed politicians with fashionably progressive leanings since the '60s.
Building a political consensus around equipping the Armed Forces has to start with making a case of what the Armed Forces are supposed to do. This would take leadership, with parliamentary committees composed of serious people having serious hearings and engaging in serious discussions. The ministry of defense would need to be treated as the senior portfolio it is in any other nation, and be given a minister with real talent and clout. When gadflies like the NDP or Greens start making a fuss about military spending, they need to be sent to the kids' table in other committees and sidelined.
None of this is impossible, but it's highly improbable with today's political leaders. Justin Trudeau simply doesn't get it - he does not understand the nature of the geopolitical threat, and wants to devote resources to shiny, sparkly progressive policy priorities. The NDP is similar but dumber - their party historically has advocated idiotic positions like pulling Canada out of NATO during the height of the Cold War. The Conservatives talk tough on some of this, but it seems like Poilievre wants to fight culture wars and score political points rather than engage in serious policy. The populist tendencies of their base are also going to get in the way, as they cater to the old David Orchard nationalist/isolationist proclivities. I also worry about the Armed Forces - since the post-Cold War drawdown, it's like they've been doing their damnedest to discourage people from serving. Looking back at my old Air Cadet days, a lot of the best and brightest who were thinking about joining the regular forces decided there were better options elsewhere. The ones who *did* join weren't exactly pick of the litter...
The problem is, politicians can’t do mutually exclusive alternative decisions when there are voters on both sides. That would involve some grasp of pure logic, premises, expected values, etc..
Heck, most voters can’t do pure logic either. And the media seem more interested in fomenting the ensuing controversy than promoting good decision making.
Do I need to say SORTITION again?! How much of this problem is due to the constraints of ELECTORAL democracy? (Obviously education policy is another problem, but again, where did that come from …?)
Good for Adm Topshee! People matter. Better to send people in a new ship that is up to date rather than send people in old past-time ships for 2 more long years. He doesn't have the number of warheads he thinks is optimal, but 24 is more of a deterrent than what the navy had before. His decision is sensible.
It's time to stop pretending that we have any kind of functioning military. The current CAF is an expeditionary force which, in reality, is incapable of doing anything meaningful beyond our coast line. Here's a proposal:
- Allow the current force to die from attrition (no new ships or planes, cancel all the contracts).
- Focus on home and coastline defense only. Opt out of any physical (personnel/equipment) commitments to NATO and NORAD.
- Convert the current land force to home militia, focused on defense of our land borders and responding to things like floods and wildfires on home soil.
- Build (smaller, less expensive, numerous) coast guard vessels to secure the sea borders.
- Develop defensive cyber-capability, for the inevitable attacks in that domain.
- Invest in air/naval support infrastructure, especially in the Arctic, and allow American/Alllied ships and planes to use these bases as needed to deter Russia/China/TheNextThreat, etc.
Our military has a long and proud tradition, and it is difficult to watch them be humiliated under the current state of affairs. We are anchored in the glory days of WW2 and Cold War, where force projection into Europe and beyond was necessary. We are no longer capable of this, and should accept things as they are.
Nothing will change until elite Canadians stop "getting high off their own supply." Once they stop believing their own "The World Needs More Canada" and "We are a nation of peacekeepers" BS. Then we can make progress. We are a normal country, not less, not more. Pierre Trudeau really messed up a generation of Canadians with his entitlement and turn Canada into a francophone nation nonsense.
It would help if Canadians would aspire to more from being Canadian than having hand to mouth peasant expectations of being taken care of directly.
Good piece. Personally, is vote for meeting our NATO committent as a start and renew proactively working with the US to reboot our committment to NORAD. These partnerships give Canada way more influence than we'd otherwise have and frankly at a bargain price. Put our military on the path to stable, predictable funding and slowly get back to reasonable capacity for a country of our size and commitnents.
But, even if we were to scale back out ambitions greatly, Canada is still a vast place to defend (especially without outside support) and we also use our military to support things like disaster recovery, which will only likely grow in the coming years. So either way, more funding is required ...
I think if we are really honest we must concede that the failure to make this decision has made the decision for us. The CAF is now in systemic failure. We cannot meet our most basic NATO, NORAD commitments and train (grow) our forces. It is all so far gone now that the costs to “rebuild” are so high no government will ever agree to it. Want new artillery? Great! We need new buildings, storage bunkers, training aids, ammunition, communications gear, computers, and on and on and on. Cost? Way more than 3% of GDP.
So we will be Ireland. No real armed force, no seat at any table, other than the kids room where all the little nations sit. Think of that, one of the biggest economies in the world will have no influence globally. Stunning, yet here we are.
There's another idiom that comes to mind involving a pot and getting off of it when we're not prepared to make a reasonable offering. In my opinion, the only way this will ever change course is if there is a large, tragic security incident that causes a large number of Canadians to start to feel unsafe at home. To be clear, I don't hope for this to happen - I just think that's how far down this hole we've gone. We can point out how unstable and dangerous the world is until we're blue in the face, but who will really believe that (enough to change government policy) when they feel generally safe in their own lives? Great article for all of us Trekkies!
We are very definitely a country that wants its cake and eats it too...
I am not sure what is likely to happen in the Hobson's Choice articulated in this very good article - if I read the public mood aright, the notion of meeting our alliance obligations is low, and it certainly seems as if expansions of Medicare (pharmacy, dentistry, hell, why not optometry while we're at it) are more congenial and worthy of further loads of debt. So, I would guess we know what the current gov't's policy will be.
I am not crystal clear as to what alternative governments might feel to be a suitable defence posture - noting as have others, that defence is a fundamental element of sovereignty. Medicare is not. (I acknowledge that payment of debt obligations is also a fundamental element of sovereignty for obvious reasons.) So, is it Conservative policy, after they've axed the carbon tax, to properly fund defence and concurrently beef up our efforts with allies and our activities in the global commons? If so, the prominence of their policies in this field is certainly subtle. Perhaps they don't want to scare the children (that's us). However, I will note that it is a bipartisan policy to shortchange defence in preference for other things and I imagine that will hold. The future will tell us how our slide down the global significance rankings affect day to day happiness in our 'fireproof' house. But, I would not be surprised if the Five Eyes becomes the Four Eyes (beat by NZ by gum!!!!) and the G7 becomes the G6, etc. And, when we need 'something' from our friends and allies it just might not be forthcoming.
The most surprising thing about this article is that Kobayashi Maru appears in the title and it wasn't written by Matt!
If the federal government continues its current policy of demilitarizing the military by not procuring the tools needed to protect this country — which, if I’m not mistaken, , is the first obligation of government — seems to me they’d be smart to quit trying to take away firearms from legal owners. We may be the last best defence this country has at this time of uncertainty in the world. Switzerland has a citizen army and if it works for them, why shouldn’t it work for us — apart from the fact we are a large country without (except for the Rockies) high mountains which the Swiss use to their advantage when it comes to their defence. Perhaps we should just give up, throw in the towel and beg the U-S to take us in !
Think of a Trump presidency. USA pulls out of NATO. Europe would have to reconfigure NATO. Why would they invite Canada. Having a strong military means we can protect ourselves. What kind of protection does our military provide for Canadians in its current state.
Great article, neatly synthesizing the two options. Except…. Every War in which Canada has ever engaged as a nation — that would be the 1st and 2nd World Wars, Korea, the Gulf War and Afghanistan (yes, also Afghanistan) — having adopted by default the first choice of not having spent any money on our military, the first forces we consistently have despatched has been the Navy, invariably in its ”come as you are” mode. Call it Canada’s Variation on the Kobayashi Maru, but fortune has smiled on us and each time the RCN has pulled it off, but the world is an uglier place, and my betting is that soon enough our luck is going to run out. So when having your proposed discussion, it should be entered with eyes wide open that sending the Navy off into danger (Taiwan Straits anyone?) is very likely what we will do yet again, and we should just suck it up and start taking seriously our responsibility to fund and equip it properly.
I am intrigued by the statement: "This is a pretty incredibly capable ship. So in a perfect world, the Canadian Surface Combatant has 24 vertical launch cells for missiles. I would like to see that number doubled, or at least at 36. But if I were to try and insist upon that, I would delay that ship by a couple of years. It’s just not worth it"
if 36 or 48 was the preferred number, why wasnt that in the original specs? Speaking from personal experience, these sorts of late scope changes doom many projects.
First things first: what missions do we want the Armed Forces to fulfill? We're currently coasting on muscle memory of old Cold War imperatives that haven't been subject to a proper evaluation in decades. My depressing expectation is that most Canadians would like to see an army suitable for disaster relief, an air force that can support disaster relief and do search & rescue, and a navy that doesn't do much more than patrol fisheries. That's because most Canadians are ignorant of national security issues to the extent that they think of them at all, and public opinion has mostly been shaped by soft-headed politicians with fashionably progressive leanings since the '60s.
Building a political consensus around equipping the Armed Forces has to start with making a case of what the Armed Forces are supposed to do. This would take leadership, with parliamentary committees composed of serious people having serious hearings and engaging in serious discussions. The ministry of defense would need to be treated as the senior portfolio it is in any other nation, and be given a minister with real talent and clout. When gadflies like the NDP or Greens start making a fuss about military spending, they need to be sent to the kids' table in other committees and sidelined.
None of this is impossible, but it's highly improbable with today's political leaders. Justin Trudeau simply doesn't get it - he does not understand the nature of the geopolitical threat, and wants to devote resources to shiny, sparkly progressive policy priorities. The NDP is similar but dumber - their party historically has advocated idiotic positions like pulling Canada out of NATO during the height of the Cold War. The Conservatives talk tough on some of this, but it seems like Poilievre wants to fight culture wars and score political points rather than engage in serious policy. The populist tendencies of their base are also going to get in the way, as they cater to the old David Orchard nationalist/isolationist proclivities. I also worry about the Armed Forces - since the post-Cold War drawdown, it's like they've been doing their damnedest to discourage people from serving. Looking back at my old Air Cadet days, a lot of the best and brightest who were thinking about joining the regular forces decided there were better options elsewhere. The ones who *did* join weren't exactly pick of the litter...
The problem is, politicians can’t do mutually exclusive alternative decisions when there are voters on both sides. That would involve some grasp of pure logic, premises, expected values, etc..
Heck, most voters can’t do pure logic either. And the media seem more interested in fomenting the ensuing controversy than promoting good decision making.
Do I need to say SORTITION again?! How much of this problem is due to the constraints of ELECTORAL democracy? (Obviously education policy is another problem, but again, where did that come from …?)
Good for Adm Topshee! People matter. Better to send people in a new ship that is up to date rather than send people in old past-time ships for 2 more long years. He doesn't have the number of warheads he thinks is optimal, but 24 is more of a deterrent than what the navy had before. His decision is sensible.
It's time to stop pretending that we have any kind of functioning military. The current CAF is an expeditionary force which, in reality, is incapable of doing anything meaningful beyond our coast line. Here's a proposal:
- Allow the current force to die from attrition (no new ships or planes, cancel all the contracts).
- Focus on home and coastline defense only. Opt out of any physical (personnel/equipment) commitments to NATO and NORAD.
- Convert the current land force to home militia, focused on defense of our land borders and responding to things like floods and wildfires on home soil.
- Build (smaller, less expensive, numerous) coast guard vessels to secure the sea borders.
- Develop defensive cyber-capability, for the inevitable attacks in that domain.
- Invest in air/naval support infrastructure, especially in the Arctic, and allow American/Alllied ships and planes to use these bases as needed to deter Russia/China/TheNextThreat, etc.
Our military has a long and proud tradition, and it is difficult to watch them be humiliated under the current state of affairs. We are anchored in the glory days of WW2 and Cold War, where force projection into Europe and beyond was necessary. We are no longer capable of this, and should accept things as they are.
Nothing will change until elite Canadians stop "getting high off their own supply." Once they stop believing their own "The World Needs More Canada" and "We are a nation of peacekeepers" BS. Then we can make progress. We are a normal country, not less, not more. Pierre Trudeau really messed up a generation of Canadians with his entitlement and turn Canada into a francophone nation nonsense.
It would help if Canadians would aspire to more from being Canadian than having hand to mouth peasant expectations of being taken care of directly.
Good piece. Personally, is vote for meeting our NATO committent as a start and renew proactively working with the US to reboot our committment to NORAD. These partnerships give Canada way more influence than we'd otherwise have and frankly at a bargain price. Put our military on the path to stable, predictable funding and slowly get back to reasonable capacity for a country of our size and commitnents.
But, even if we were to scale back out ambitions greatly, Canada is still a vast place to defend (especially without outside support) and we also use our military to support things like disaster recovery, which will only likely grow in the coming years. So either way, more funding is required ...
Very good article.
Wow. I just HATE IT when I have to head into the office without my tractor beam! I feel naked!!!
And I wouldn't dare head out without my photon torpedo's!!!! Man o' man...that's madness!!!