Arpig
Posts: 9930
Joined: 1/3/2006
From: Increasingly further from reality
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Yes, we do have a military
Tonight I was doing a survey about the Canadian military, and I got to thinking about it.
We have a Navy with some decent ships and a few outdated submarines we bought off the Brits for a shitload of money.We don't have anywhere enough ships to patrol our enormous coastline (we could probably cover the east & west coasts with some degree of effectiveness, but certainly not the northern coastline. And what possible use could we really make out of 4 outdated diesel subs in today's world...not only are they outdated,they seem to break down every time they sail.
We have an Air Force with some (roughly 110) F-18s, but not nearly enough to even begin to protect our vast country. We have a few tankers, 3-4 converted airliners for airlift purposes,and a handful of ageing Hercules as well. Our helicopter fleet is so old it that they are often grounded for lack of spare parts.
We have an Army,with infantry, armour and artillery, but again in such pitifully small numbers that they effectively serve little purpose. They certainly couldn't stop anybody from invading us, Hell even Poland could overwhelm our forces.
Now we really don't actually need any armed forces for defence of Canada, the US simply would not allow anybody to invade us,they would defend us whether we wanted them to or not.. Already the majority of the air defence of Canada is handled by the US under the NORAD arrangements, as well the US Navy patrols Canadian waters regularly, and US nuclear submarines routinely travel through Canadian waters without our permission or knowledge (the Russians do so as well, but their subs are somewhat easier to detect,so we have caught them a few times).
Canada spends very little on its military (roughly $19 billion in 2009), but much of that is wasted because the Navy wants subs so it can pretend to be a real navy, the Air Force wants fancy new fighters so it can pretend to be a real air force,and our army wants its pitiful number of tanks and big guns so that it too can pretend its a real army. The end result is a rather pathetic force with a small number of all the elements of a modern major power's military....but not enough to even begin to protect ourselves and not enough to really be of any use to our allies (our forces in Afghanistan rely heavily on US support and airlift capabilities). What we do have is roughly 60,000-20,000 dedicated volunteers (for years the Canadian air force in Europe regularly won the NATO competitions).
I think they are being misused, and our military budget is being squandered and our allies let down just so that the admirals and generals can have their fancy toys and pretend they are a real military force. What I would do if it were up tome is I would scrap the whole organization as it stands and redesign it in light of the realities of the world and Canada's place in it. Since we really have no need to defend ourselves, I would design our military to be primarily a commando/special forces military. Our army would discard its tanks and howitzers and concentrate on developing highly trained light infantry along the lines of the SEALS or the Marine Force Recon. I would scrap the subs and larger ships (except for the supply and hospital ships) and concentrate the Navy on small patrol craft, so we could have more of them for the basic job of patrolling our coastlines, and ships designed for small scale amphibious operations. The Airforce I would concentrate on airlift for paratroops. This way we would have a truly valuable force to offer NATO, we wouldn't be an embarrassment, but rather a real asset, a force that would be especially valuable to our allies in today's world of low intensity irregular warfare. We could leave the defence of Canada to the Americans, they are doing it anyway, and develop a small well equipped and highly trained specialist force that could rapidly be dispatched where it was needed. This sort of force would still be usable for disaster relief and putting down civil unrest domestically, and would in fact probably be better at those duties.They would also still be usable for peacekeeping duties if required as well, though that would be a somewhat wasteful use for the sort of troops I envisage. All in all, this sort of radical makeover would turn our military from a sort of standing joke among our allies to a valued asset....imagine a force composed of 40,000-50,000 commandos....they wouldn't laugh when we offered to send troops then.
< Message edited by Arpig -- 8/28/2009 11:39:00 PM >
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