I'll believe it when I see it.
Justin Trudeau hints at boosting Canada’s military spending
- Thread starter Maxman1
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Adjusted for reality…
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Well 20% of 2,500 is 500, and 20% of those is 100.
So not a good decade or two - but not the end.
Africa and South America might look like great places to live though.
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U*nless you are Innui!
Intent was to have intercept missiles also. We will see how that all comes out in the wash.A radar system will only let you watch incoming ordnance on its way to kill you. It is absolutely zero value unless its tied to an effective interceptor capability. If you don't have that you're relying entirely on a program of mutual assured destruction. A policy that seems less dependable when you take a look at some of the morons who've had and have their fingers on the trigger.
FJAG
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The technology for intercepting descending ballistic warheads is mature and being continuously refined. The defence system is not yet comprehensive but my guess is that, with the threat level changing from lightly armed rogue nuclear states to more traditional superpowers, there will be some more movement in that regard.
Honestly, I worry less about ballistic missiles than a nuke arriving in a harbour on an old freighter.
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Bingo. Frankly GWOT was a massive enabler of that likelihood, as NP assets from INSCOM got roped into JSOC to hunt bad guys in Iraq etc.Honestly, I worry less about ballistic missiles than a nuke arriving in a harbour on an old freighter.
OldSolduer
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Or aboard an aircraft.....The technology for intercepting descending ballistic warheads is mature and being continuously refined. The defence system is not yet comprehensive but my guess is that, with the threat level changing from lightly armed rogue nuclear states to more traditional superpowers, there will be some more movement in that regard.
Honestly, I worry less about ballistic missiles than a nuke arriving in a harbour on an old freighter.
daftandbarmy
Army.ca Dinosaur
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The technology for intercepting descending ballistic warheads is mature and being continuously refined. The defence system is not yet comprehensive but my guess is that, with the threat level changing from lightly armed rogue nuclear states to more traditional superpowers, there will be some more movement in that regard.
Honestly, I worry less about ballistic missiles than a nuke arriving in a harbour on an old freighter.
Coincidentally
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Admittedly we do have a lot of detection assets worldwide, and to shield a device would require a fair amount of dense material - so while an Aircraft could be used, it would not be as easy as a ship. It would need to be a fairly large aircraft, and we tend to watch aircraft much better than cargo vessels.
We are actually well past the date that had been previously expected for a nuclear device detonation in a port city on the NA coast.
FSTO
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From the Dan Gardner Substack. He does a bit of rant about Canada after a post about Poland.
dgardner.substack.com
Post-script
As I’ve mentioned now and then, I am Canadian. If the reader will indulge me, I’d like to add a note for the Canadians among us. And perhaps for citizens of those European countries which are making the same terrible mistake as my country.
Canada joined the Second World War at the beginning. Canadians fought on land, at sea, and in the air. My own great-uncle was a bomber pilot and the first Nova Scotian killed in the war. He was 22. He left behind a wife, along with a daughter he never held.
Canada is also a founding member of NATO. Generations that knew war intimately were willing to fight again, and prepared themselves accordingly.
I am immensely proud of that record. All Canadians should be. We could have stayed home, far from danger, and pretended we are not cowards and fools. But we did not. We did what was right.
I am much less proud of what Canada has done these last few decades.
Our national security has always been collective, always maintained by working with our friends and allies. As it should be. It is morally right to do so. And it is, if I may speak like an economist for only a moment, cost-effective. A strong collective defence is by far the best way to ensure war never happens.
The problem with collective security, however, is that it invites freeloading. If others shoulder more, why not shoulder less? The same load is carried. And it’s so much easier.
Canada has been freeloading for at least thirty years. When I say that I am “somewhat less proud” of what Canada has done in this years, I mean I am positively ashamed.
I’ve written about this many times, and often argued about it with my fellow Canadians. And always, when I drill down, the response is the same: “The Americans would never let anyone attack Canada so why spend more on our military when there are so many other important things we can spend that money on?”
The fact that this effectively amounts to ceding some portion of our sovereignty to our Americans friends and allies never seems to occur to the otherwise decent and reasonable people who say this. Nor does the fact that we are members of an alliance that requires all members to go to war if any member – including Poland -- is attacked. War, for these Canadians, is a distant historical memory. A fairy tale. Science fiction. It’s not really possible. Not really.
And so, since the end of the Cold War, we have solved budget crises and paid for new social programs by cutting military spending.
Many years ago, NATO members all committed to spend at least 2% of GDP on defence. Canada spends around 1.3%. That’s actually up from less than 1% in 2015, but most of that alleged increase is due to an accounting change. Do I need to say that enemies cannot be defeated with accounting changes?
Recently, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a plan to get spending to 2% by the early 2030s. But he did so at a NATO summit, under duress, as allies and the press pounded Canada for being the only country in the alliance with no plan to even get to 2%. And Trudeau clearly announced his plan through gritted teeth. It’s an arbitrary target, he said. What matters more is how military power is used and Canada volunteers more to NATO than others who spend more. But anyway, he said, we’ll get to 2%. Eventually.
I think he’s lying. I think he has no intention of doing what Canada long ago agreed to do.
Earlier reports suggested Trudeau had told allies privately that Canada would never get to 2%. And Trudeau’s “plan” looks less like a plan than a plan to make a plan. In politics, a plan to make a plan is as worthless as a three-dollar bill.
Given that Trudeau has been prime minister since 2015, given that he has shown not the slightest interest in the military, and given that he did not change course even after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine — when Poland and other NATO allies started preparing for war — I think his promise to get to 2%, eventually, one day, isn’t worth the powder to blow it to hell, to use a phrase occasionally used by my dear, departed dad.
Please don’t think I’ve descended into partisanship. The low-water mark of Canadian military funding came in 2015, as I’ve said, and 2015 was nine years into a Conservative government that loved all things military except spending money on the military. The freeloading of the past 30 years has been a bi-partisan shame. (I won’t mention the NDP. If the NDP ever formed a national government, our soldiers would be equipped with megaphones and highly trained in the use of inclusive language.)
The simple truth is that both Liberal and Conservative governments have so badly underfunded the Canadian military that we are now utterly unprepared to do our part in a war, which is and always has been the primary mission of the Canadian Armed Forces. The CAF has atrophied to such an extent that it can’t even spend money. I mean that literally. Even its procurement bureaucracy has so withered that if the CAF were suddenly given a huge injection of cash, it would be hard-pressed to turn that money into battlefield capabilities.
We have outstanding men and women in the CAF, people so dedicated to standing guard that they remain in the military despite never being properly funded and constantly being asked to do more than their funding permits so that prime ministers like Justin Trudeau can claim that Canada contributes its share to collective security while freeloading and spending the money saved at home. They are the only reason the Canadian Armed Forces hasn’t entirely crumbled, the only reason why there’s still hope it can be turned around. They deserve so much better than the callow, short-sighted, parochial prime ministers who give them orders.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think Russia will turn on Poland any time soon — thanks mostly to the heroism and sacrifice of the people of Ukraine. But then, in 2022, I did not think that Vladimir Putin would dare launch a major land war in Europe.
That’s the thing about the future: “Man plans and God laughs.”
People who say war is impossible are fools. So are people who do not prepare for war sufficiently to ensure it never happens. Worst of all, however, are people who do not deny that war is possible but let others prepare so they may spend their time and money on domestic priorities. They are contemptible freeloaders.
I will let the reader decide to which of those three categories recent Canadian prime ministers should be assigned.
Rebuilding the Past, Preparing for War
For Poland, Putin's Russia is not a distant and abstract threat
dgardner.substack.com
Post-script
As I’ve mentioned now and then, I am Canadian. If the reader will indulge me, I’d like to add a note for the Canadians among us. And perhaps for citizens of those European countries which are making the same terrible mistake as my country.
Canada joined the Second World War at the beginning. Canadians fought on land, at sea, and in the air. My own great-uncle was a bomber pilot and the first Nova Scotian killed in the war. He was 22. He left behind a wife, along with a daughter he never held.
Canada is also a founding member of NATO. Generations that knew war intimately were willing to fight again, and prepared themselves accordingly.
I am immensely proud of that record. All Canadians should be. We could have stayed home, far from danger, and pretended we are not cowards and fools. But we did not. We did what was right.
I am much less proud of what Canada has done these last few decades.
Our national security has always been collective, always maintained by working with our friends and allies. As it should be. It is morally right to do so. And it is, if I may speak like an economist for only a moment, cost-effective. A strong collective defence is by far the best way to ensure war never happens.
The problem with collective security, however, is that it invites freeloading. If others shoulder more, why not shoulder less? The same load is carried. And it’s so much easier.
Canada has been freeloading for at least thirty years. When I say that I am “somewhat less proud” of what Canada has done in this years, I mean I am positively ashamed.
I’ve written about this many times, and often argued about it with my fellow Canadians. And always, when I drill down, the response is the same: “The Americans would never let anyone attack Canada so why spend more on our military when there are so many other important things we can spend that money on?”
The fact that this effectively amounts to ceding some portion of our sovereignty to our Americans friends and allies never seems to occur to the otherwise decent and reasonable people who say this. Nor does the fact that we are members of an alliance that requires all members to go to war if any member – including Poland -- is attacked. War, for these Canadians, is a distant historical memory. A fairy tale. Science fiction. It’s not really possible. Not really.
And so, since the end of the Cold War, we have solved budget crises and paid for new social programs by cutting military spending.
Many years ago, NATO members all committed to spend at least 2% of GDP on defence. Canada spends around 1.3%. That’s actually up from less than 1% in 2015, but most of that alleged increase is due to an accounting change. Do I need to say that enemies cannot be defeated with accounting changes?
Recently, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a plan to get spending to 2% by the early 2030s. But he did so at a NATO summit, under duress, as allies and the press pounded Canada for being the only country in the alliance with no plan to even get to 2%. And Trudeau clearly announced his plan through gritted teeth. It’s an arbitrary target, he said. What matters more is how military power is used and Canada volunteers more to NATO than others who spend more. But anyway, he said, we’ll get to 2%. Eventually.
I think he’s lying. I think he has no intention of doing what Canada long ago agreed to do.
Earlier reports suggested Trudeau had told allies privately that Canada would never get to 2%. And Trudeau’s “plan” looks less like a plan than a plan to make a plan. In politics, a plan to make a plan is as worthless as a three-dollar bill.
Given that Trudeau has been prime minister since 2015, given that he has shown not the slightest interest in the military, and given that he did not change course even after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine — when Poland and other NATO allies started preparing for war — I think his promise to get to 2%, eventually, one day, isn’t worth the powder to blow it to hell, to use a phrase occasionally used by my dear, departed dad.
Please don’t think I’ve descended into partisanship. The low-water mark of Canadian military funding came in 2015, as I’ve said, and 2015 was nine years into a Conservative government that loved all things military except spending money on the military. The freeloading of the past 30 years has been a bi-partisan shame. (I won’t mention the NDP. If the NDP ever formed a national government, our soldiers would be equipped with megaphones and highly trained in the use of inclusive language.)
The simple truth is that both Liberal and Conservative governments have so badly underfunded the Canadian military that we are now utterly unprepared to do our part in a war, which is and always has been the primary mission of the Canadian Armed Forces. The CAF has atrophied to such an extent that it can’t even spend money. I mean that literally. Even its procurement bureaucracy has so withered that if the CAF were suddenly given a huge injection of cash, it would be hard-pressed to turn that money into battlefield capabilities.
We have outstanding men and women in the CAF, people so dedicated to standing guard that they remain in the military despite never being properly funded and constantly being asked to do more than their funding permits so that prime ministers like Justin Trudeau can claim that Canada contributes its share to collective security while freeloading and spending the money saved at home. They are the only reason the Canadian Armed Forces hasn’t entirely crumbled, the only reason why there’s still hope it can be turned around. They deserve so much better than the callow, short-sighted, parochial prime ministers who give them orders.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think Russia will turn on Poland any time soon — thanks mostly to the heroism and sacrifice of the people of Ukraine. But then, in 2022, I did not think that Vladimir Putin would dare launch a major land war in Europe.
That’s the thing about the future: “Man plans and God laughs.”
People who say war is impossible are fools. So are people who do not prepare for war sufficiently to ensure it never happens. Worst of all, however, are people who do not deny that war is possible but let others prepare so they may spend their time and money on domestic priorities. They are contemptible freeloaders.
I will let the reader decide to which of those three categories recent Canadian prime ministers should be assigned.
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