Canadians appear divided on whether the government should reduce military spending to shrink the deficit when the Afghanistan mission is over, according to findings of a poll conducted for the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute.
Ya, what a smart idea. Reduce the budget so that when the time comes again (and it will come again) for the Forces to be called upon, we will be playing catch up on equipment. It's taken years to get them back to where they were now.
DND could still function fine with the cuts IF they used what budget money they have more efficiently. Just as one example, we have approximately 65,000 regular force troops and about 100 generals. During WW2 when we had a military 10 TIMES that size we had less generals. T%he Canadian Forces is top heavy compared to other NATO members and also has a lower "tooth to tail" ratio. While I recognize the need for support troops the numbers are way out of proportion.
It's the smart idea, best way to make sure the CF has the money it needs is to make sure that economically we can afford it. We can't be like the US who deluded themselves that you can have your cake and eat it too.
"Heavy_Metal" said it's not cuts that the military needs, it needs to be more strict on its hemorrhaging of funds......like to the reservists
You could be right, however more often than not these days Reservists have become full time. Back when i was in we would have Reservists come out for basically the summer months. Which was fine they did their jobs well. The problem is that today our technology and roles have advanced to the point where the training required requires more than a few weeks a year for the more technical trades.
That being said there is still a lot of official waste within the CF. i criticize the army especially and their fetish for differing uniforms it seems for every group of 5 guys out there. That's only one example but there are many more
Sometimes I want to scream.
it's not cuts that the military needs, it needs to be more strict on its hemorrhaging of funds......like to the reservists
You could be right, however more often than not these days Reservists have become full time. Back when i was in we would have Reservists come out for basically the summer months. Which was fine they did their jobs well. The problem is that today our technology and roles have advanced to the point where the training required requires more than a few weeks a year for the more technical trades.
That being said there is still a lot of official waste within the CF. i criticize the army especially and their fetish for differing uniforms it seems for every group of 5 guys out there. That's only one example but there are many more
One general to 650 troops? Excuse me, but that kind of ratio is more typical of a major or a light bird.
Exactly!