EyeBrock EyeBrock:
I grow more conflicted on this stuff. We need to able to project power within our borders but we also should not overstate the threats to our sovereignty. Canada’s claim to the North West Passage won’t be boosted by buying the biggest fuck-off armed icebreaker or a nuke hunter-killer boat. Those issues will be decided around a table and by treaties.
We have the capability to move a robust military response up north very quickly with the C17’s and our battle-tested infantry.
I think our days of supporting NATO and the US outside our borders should be at an end.
We should retain a spearhead battalion response and the capability to respond to Canadian interests or emergent issues but I’ve never been 100% behind the Afghan thing.
I think our accomplishments there have been outweighed by the human costs and frankly, I don’t think Afghanistan was worth all those Canadian lives. Once we leave, the Afghans will quickly settle back into the Stone Age and our fallen will join those of the fallen Soviets and Victorian British, forgotten heroes in a forgotten war.
We should look to the defence of Canada first and really, what the fuck are we doing in Libya?
Gotta disagree EB.
We should have the ability to be anywhere in our country at anytime of the year.
Yes, C-17s can deliver a couple companies of troops to some remote spot in the Arctic, but how do you plan on supplying them? Armies run on logistics, and planes simply cannot lift enough stuff to keep a battalion running in peak condition. Not only that, but how does an infantry battalion deal with another country's nuclear sub underneath the ice pack (or even an icebreaker)? Even if they could detect it, how do they determine whose it is. We can't fire on every sub transiting our waters or we'd have some very pissed off allies (like the US, UK and France).
I agree we don't need a huge military, but we should have the ability to patrol/monitor the Arctic 24/7/365. If we really stretch, we can do that on the surface and in the air, but under the sea is another story.
As an Arctic nation, we should have a couple of icebreakers OR some nuke subs that can sail up there everyday of the year, not just in the summer. Even a sonar network like old SOSUS one built during the Cold War between Greenland, Iceland and the UK would suffice to allow us to track movements up there.
We normally find out about things like the
Manhattan and
Polar Sea only after they're midway through the Arctic. Had we proper capabilities up there we might actually know when they start, not when they're finishing.
I highly doubt that anytime soon someone is planning on sailing into the Arctic, planting a flag and saying, "This is ours!" (ignoring petty squabbles like the Hans Island thing with Denmark), but in the same way that we need to patrol our Pacific and Atlantic coast, so too should we be patrolling the Arctic.
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