What Canada should be doing is assessing the most likely threats to the country and how the Canadian armed forces are most likely to be used. So far as I can see that means making sure Canada has a well-trained and well-equipped army as over the last few decades that is the part of Canada's armed forces that has been the most useful.
That does not mean the Air Force and the Navy get shut down; it just means that these branches of the armed forces should be equipped to complement the army. So far as the Air Force is concerned this means global-reach transports [...]
Yeah... something that's always bugged me is that Canada's tactical ground troops consistently stomp US tactical ground forces in Suffield war games, yet Ottawa refuses to use those troops for tactical things like rescue Canadians stuck in a bind overseas.
If Americans are stuck in a bind, like if they've got mine-workers being pinched by Congolese rebels, they don't hesitate for a second sending long-reach tactical forces to support a pullout, yet here we have Canada with better tactical ground forces, and Harper will say things like, "Canada does not support nor guarantee the safety of Canadians outside Canada's borders".
We should have long-reach transports that can move tactical forces to where-ever it might be that Canadians are getting pinched in order to secure positions where Canadians are in danger, and to support pull-outs if necessary.
And if you don't think Canada has pockets of citizens sprinkled around the globe... well, it does... in particular in the mining sector.
It's just silly for forces, which are basically tactical elites (with our population we go for quality, not quantity), to be ground down in massive, poorly thought-out strategic misadventures like Afghanistan.
(Not that some people hadn't thought things through and come up with proper plans for an Afghanistan occupation... it's just that Cheney-Bush kept yanking the carpet out from underneath them because it didn't suit some fantasy-land notion that the Halliburtonite shareholders wanted to delude themselves with about how to occupy the place.
The irony is, if we be cynical and presume that although the US-led invasion of Afghanistan was originally motivated by a desire to route Al Quieda, but that ultimately it was being internally justified on the basis of making money from it in the form of resources - probably oil - you know who's going to end up scooping all the money out of Afghanistan?
China, and it's not going to be for oil. It was recently discovered that Afghanistan has huge pockets of mineral deposits worth trillions of dollars, and China wants minerals, so after the western coalition pulls out without having achieved anything, not even on a Machiavellian economic level, much less implementation of a non-Talibanish Just Society, much less actually having routed out Al Quieda and nabbing Bin Laden - which is what it was *supposed* to be about - China's going to move in and do the same thing they do in Africa, which is play along *with* the war-lords, and they're going to get the minerals...
But I digress...)
and attack and transport helicopters.
Hmm... yeah...
While there's still an ice-cap, I think we need some sort of hybrid ice-breaker/helicopter-carrier, so that the ice-breaker can plow into any part of the arctic seas, and then send out helicopters.
After the ice-cap melts, I think it should be a new type of submarine with a top-deck that can function as a helicopter-deck, which can seal with lids that can swing to close over it to submerge if there's a problem.
In that case it's sort of a fusion of a helicopter-carrier with a submarine, and yes, it kind'a bugs me how an industrial-nation with all the engineers, resources, and skilled-workers like this one has will have leaders who will seize up with mental vapor-lock over an idea like that because it's not something anachronistically purposed like F-35s, such that one would have to go to the states to have any hope of seeing something like that built... but I digress...
Supersonic fighters are likely to be the least useful aircraft in any future wars. It is one of the reasons why the US government recently canceled production of the F-22.
Indeed. I think it might be the first time ever that the US actually pulled the plug on something because it was too advanced... they designed and built an insanely wicked fifth-generation fighter, and then Russia and China refused to come out to play, such that there was *no* need for the things.
The navy needs transport and patrol vessels - especially ships capable of patrolling all regions of Canada.
Yup.
Since no single vessel can do this it needs to have a variety of craft to deal with all situations.
What do you think about the idea of a combination ice-breaker/helicopter-carrier?
It looks as if the current government is simply equipping Canada's military with weapons that were used during the Cold War. Such weapons may be of little use in future military missions. What is needed is a reassessment of Canada's military requirements.
Yup.
I wonder... what would a federal NDP government do? I know that some gong-heads think that NDP would want to drop flowers on an enemy, but that's simply not true - they might be harder to push into a fight, but if done, they hit-hard - and I have a hunch that the Liberals would do more-or-less what the conservatives are doing, so I'm just curious... what's Layton said about the F-35 boondoggle?
I'm betting he would automatically thumbs-down it for political reasons, but, given that the forces are due for an overhaul and an upgrade, has his party said anything about what they'd do if somehow they got into power?
