Why are people bitching at eachother over what is really small beans when what is really the biggest enemy of the navy (and the CF as a whole) is a government system, not just any one party, that refuses to give what is needed financially for the navy to be effective?
Aswell more aggressive recruitment pocicies, both within the CF and at the federal level, need to be instituted to get the numbers neccisary to man all the equipment we already have, not withstanding the extra equipment (and in turn extra manpower) we need to actually defend this country.
More agressive policies towards procurement, again both within the CF and at the federal level, need to be implimented. Taking 15 years to develop and procure a tac-vest, which is basically a mesh vest with pouches sewn on, is outright rediculous, especially for such a low-tech piece of kit. I can't imagine what it is like for the navy trying to procure billion-dollar ships or the airforce trying to procure billion-dollar fleets of aircraft. A system where when the CF identifies a lack of capabilities, or an area where capabilities could be improved, identifies what can fill that gap or improvement, or identifies what research needs to be done to develop the appropriate equipment to fullfill that gap or improvement, and then says, "We need this," followed by the government saying "here is the dough" would be fucking awesome. Examples would be the Leo 2 purchase or the Chinook puchase for Afghanistan. A grave need was identified, the military said it was needed, and the government provided. Only gripe from this soldier is that there aren't enough to go around fairly to all three battlegroups.
Now, those were wartime purchases. In peacetime, the government and military should be frank with eachother about what the present and future threats are. Big ones that personally come to my mind are Russia, China, domestic terrorism, and even our allies like Denmark and America who may seek to intrude without permission at their own whim.
Once the threats are identified, military brass who actually know what they are doing, aswell as the minister of defence and his counterpart in the opposition, should come up with effective yet realistic goals for countering those threats on terms of numbers, equipment, and policies over the short, mid, and long term. A massive draft plan for Canadian defence for the next 5 years, 10, and 25, which is updated every 5 years based on the current threats or future percieved threats. Once the draft plan is drawn up, it is given not just to the government, but to the opposition party, who both sign the appropriate paperwork that commits them to providing for the needs as identified in the draft plan in either for a set number of years (something like a 15-25 year term) or indefinitally. That way you don't have the boom-bust cycle as you see in the military now where things are cut down to nothing for 10 years, then you need huge, over-inflated numbers to build back up again, where a stable cashflow over the years would have kept things effective and stable, and in the long run is cheaper.
And frankly, I'm a big advocate of more numbers, and firmly believe that if the navy can't even man the ships we currently have, nevermind the extra we would likely need to defend ourselves on our own, that we need a reg force with atleast 250 000 people... Not the current 70 000 or so we have now.
How to get those numbers is another big diatribe I don't feeling like posting tonight (or this morning for you guys I guess
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Cheers
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