This time you’re *defending * it, though. Why? If, as you believe, most Canadians are even worse than you, that’s hardly something to be defending here.
Tell me more about this “smug insularity” you claim to slam. I’m fascinated.
YOU missed the point that military obligations in an interconnected world extend outside one’s own damn borders.
No, we’re talking about Canada’s refusal to accept its full responsibilities as a member of the world community.
Such venom! And not based on any facts, either.
Just in case you’ve run out, here’s another “fuck off” for you. If that isn’t enough, “fuck off” again. You are pretty damn proud of things that are only possible because of things you ought to be totally fucking ashamed of. If you won’t accept the responsibilities of living in an industrial democracy of your own, you don’t deserve to have it at all.
Balduran, as I understand **Airman’s ** well-taken point, it isn’t just this latest round of base closings he’s concerned about, it’s the continuing process that has led to this situation, and the attitudes that underlie it.
DEAL!!!
Molson’s is fine. If you get Dion out of our country, and promise to never let her return, or record another CD, we’ll throw in a couple of squadrons of better aircraft. 
That’s not true- I noticed them right around the time Debbie Travis got a TV show. Maybe they should invest more money in her show then?
BTW- I think we discussed this before.
Airman, what threat is Canada facing that they scaled down military couldn’t handle?
BTW, we is the US shouldn’t bring up meeting Treaty obligations in general, especially under our current administration.
I would assume Canada would be responsible for defending its territorial sovereignty…how can you say they are not? Last time I was in Canada I saw Canadian border guards, police and military.
Now who exactly would invade Canada? I’m serious. You might as well ask, who would invade Sweden. Security also comes from geographically isolation, friendly relations with neighboring countries, trade and economic ties. I would certainly agree that the US location next to Canada provides a deterent but realistically what country would invade Canada even if the US had no military?!? Any scenario I can come up with is very far-fetched. Circumstances certainly change but in today’s world it seem unlikely in the extreme.
Terrorist attacks seem to be a much more likely scenario but I don’t see how having a strong military (versus border patrol and police force, etc.) protects Canada from this more realistic threat.
Are you kidding? Even Switzerland would get in on that action.
The Swiss can invade us anytime they want, provided that they bring lots of their cheese.
FINALLY - an opportunity to wear my laiderhosen!!
Despite the fact that most people here seem to be missing the point entirely, I want to point out that the Canadian Forces, (Don’t kid yourself folks we don’t have an army, navy or air force, merely elements of the forces.) IS NOT AN EFFECTIVE FIGHTING FORCE. We have a military that is not set up for routine peacekeeping duties or a serious laydown fight like Afghanistan. Here’s a few facts: During Gulf War I, one of the ships we sent over had a deck gun bolted to the deck that was taken from A MUSEUM. During one peacekeeping mission, soldiers from another countries contingent had to be hired to protect our soldiers as they went about their duties. Remember when we used to be called the Canadian Armed Forces? Ever wonder why it’s just the Canadian Forces now? Because Armed Forces was deemed to be too threatening. (God I wish I were kidding about that!) And hey, in recent news, remember when we sent a ship over to the middle east to support operations there but it had to turn around and come back for repairs because the helicopter (sea king) that was sent with it crashed into it due to systems failure. People I was at an airshow not too long ago, it has become standard procedure to maintain the sea kings with Duct Tape! One of these venerable birds recently celebrated over 100,000 flying hours. There is the reality of your Canadian Forces. Many of us laugh when we see these commercials for the forces saying STRONG, PROUD, Todays Canadian Forces. and showing soldiers working on top of the line equipment. Try Weak, Useless and Embarrassed. Todays Canadian Forces! For those of you not paying attention earlier I am in the forces, We are not declining in usefullness, we are not going to become useless and bankrupt. People, WE ARE THERE! I don’t like the attitude that some americans take when speaking about these issues but like it or not THEY ARE NOT WRONG! And here’s the kicker, whether you, the canadian taxpayer, want to hear it or not. It’s your fault! I too want my social programs and health care and the like, but don’t be surprised when the military ceases to exist. Because you have elected officials who have allowed us to become what we are. You have chosen this path. Are we in danger of being attacked? I don’t know, but I do know it’s short sighted to assume that a military of effective strength is not required. Ahh, never mind. Ottawa is content to let the Americans defend us so I guess I have to be too.
Buliwyf
btw, it is possible for a country (1) not to have a military; (2) be located in a relatively turbulent region; and (3) not be invaded by anyone (including the Swiss.
Costa Rica has no military (although they certainly have police and border forces).
It’s not what threat a scaled-down military can’t handle, it’s what threats are created by a scaled down military. I’ll give you an example, if you can forget the politics and keep it in a strictly military perspective for a moment.
Take the Red Army. Once upon a time they were able to lay the beatdown on Czechoslovakia and Hungary when they got out of line. Their ability to control countries was unparalleled. Well, when the Soviet Union collapsed, the Army fragmented and became a pale shadow of its former self. And no sooner did that happen than some people realized that hey, we can beat these guys. Voila, I give you the clusterfuck that is Chechnya. And why did it happen? Because they could do it. A weakened army emboldened people to attack.
If Canada lets their military go to hell, which has been the trend for the last 10 years, they become a target. Large expanses of land, vast oil resources, timber, food, and a relatively small population for all the land they have. My my my, how fine it would be to have that all to ourselves, the dictators say. Is it so hard to believe that Canada is making themselves a target?
This is a long-term issue. The demise of a military force will require the reinvention of the wheel at substantial cost when it is finally necessary, and then you have the loss of institutional memory, i.e. nobody really remembers what a professional military force is all about, so you suffer growing pains and large-scale inefficiency during the reconstitution (look at the current army situation in Iraq for an example of that, and those guys aren’t even far removed from being in the army, for Pete’s sake). Armies are grown and sustained, you can’t just call one up out of nowhere.
In the long-term, this will make Canada a target, and if the US starts to decline and show any sort of weakness (which it will, eventually), Canada is finished.
Besides, as I’ve stated before, you have the issue of sovereignty. If Canada cannot defend their own borders, you have long-forgotten issues like piracy and other major issues like smuggling going on. It’s a mess all around. And with a shared border, the US cannot afford to let any of that craziness go on.
Again, I’m only torqued because it’s obvious what will happen if Canada continues to let their guard down. It’ll be Poland, 1939 all over again (eventually, inevitably). They’ll be overrun, and we’ll have to help them. And why? Because they knew we would, so they let their guard down.
Doesn’t that bother anyone but me? Probably not, I’m sure that despite all of history confirming what I’m saying some of you are calling me a paranoid delusional nutso, like what I’m talking about could never happen. Well, so be it. But history doesn’t lie. How many examples does one need before it becomes obvious?
I disagree. Chechnya was not an example of an outside force coming in but a people attempting to assert nationhood in a context of disintergrating empire, i.e., the rebels came from within not from outside.
The obvious parallel in the Canadian case is Quebec and is it the might of the Canadian military keeping Quebec in Canada? No.
OK. Where is this dictator coming from? Look around the world and a very likely source is a military coup or a dictator supported by the military. Hence, if anything a reduction in the military reduces this threat.
Defending borders requires a coast guard not a military
Again please put this in context. Poland was between Hitler and Stalin…very easy to connect the dots. Who is Canada between? Who would invade?
Well, IIRC, Canada has been part of every UN peacekeeping mission save 1 or 2. Is that the type of responsibility you mean? Or do you mean going around sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, like Iraq? I imagine that stretching the truth (at best) or outright lying (at worst) to try and garner support for a war is not the most responsible way to go about things.
Poping across a land border with some troops on a moment’s notice is a freak of a lot different than mounting a massive amphibious assault, so your analogy doesn’t really hold.
No question does Canada rely on the U.S. for a certain part of it’s defense. But it is a tradeoff. You receive the benefit of access to our natural resources (among other things) at a bargain cost. You might not like how the trade affects your personal situation but that is the arrangement that has been made by the people upstairs.
For the record, I agree with Airman and Elvis, the underfunding of our military is shameful.
Although, I would probably disagree with you on the amount of funding. A nuts and bolts debate about the appropriate levels would be interesting.
Underfunding of our military has been an issue for some time now, you can’t go a day here without hearing about lack of proper equipment for peacekeepers, our sea-kings falling out of the sky, or the above mentioned threat to close bases on the news. Airman starting a thread to set us straight cheesed me off because :
a) Most of us are very aware of the issues facing our military.
b) America harps on us at least as much as we do on them.
c) The article is a preliminary internal report on the dangers of our present levels of funding. So in fact there is movement on the issue.
Airman, you’ve now blurred your OP. If you want to argue that the Canadian military is rusted out and ineffective I’ll back you up and add some. But originally you come in about how Canada doesn’t pick up the tab to defend itself and leaves that to the US. The fact is that there is no near term threat, there is no hostile bordering country, and there is no way the US would not assign assets to protect the area Canada currently occupies even if we weren’t here.
Your Poland example is a stretch. I know you admitted as much but, there is no bordering horde about to blitz through the lines. There are no dictatorships able to mount a naval invasion of the country. There are no dictatorships able to *logistically * hold the country even if they did invade. In the future? Perhaps, but is there a need for a 120,000 strong military now?
Elvis, Canada has applied its forces abroad on various NATO and UN missions (e.g. Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Arabian Sea, Crete, Suez Canal, West Germany, Korea, Kuwait). You need to understand that the past ten years have seen the government of the day use the military as political and budgetary cannon fodder. Should it be increased? Yep. Should it be applied more judiciously? Yep. Should it be inflated to meet some American criteria of fairness? Nope.
“Being part of” something is hardly the same as “being effective at doing something”, ya know. Just look at the list of countries that are part of Rumsfeld’s “coalition of the willing”. Canada’s real * ability to do anything substantive continues to decline into insignificance, and it is the only industrial democracy about which that can be said. Is there any peacekeeping, much less peacemaking*, mission that Canada can still even do anything worthwhile in? What is Canada willing to do to help make the world a better place anywhere outside its own unthreatened borders? Do you even give the smallest shit about anyone but your own selves up there? Only a few of you, it seems. Only a few.
I’m not referring to Iraq, btw - there is much more going on than that. Not even a good strawman there.
As long as Canada has a healthy stockpile of hockey sticks, they’re safe. 
As long as Canada has a healthy stockpile of hockey sticks, they’re safe.
Elvis, how far back do you want to go? Was 20 years in Cyprus enough? How about running the Afghanistan NATO mission? What about the Bosnia mission? Rwanda maybe? Are there regions I should know about that require a nice quick invasion to straighten them out perhaps?
First of all, you can’t start from zero, unless you want to start all over, and that would be a clusterfuck of the highest magnitude. Second, I never said 120,000 strong. What’s the biggest army you ever had? 158,000? What’s far more important is that you equip them well and maintain their level of preparedness, rather than letting the bases go to pot, the equipment get obsolete, and the ships become rustbuckets.
And you’re still thinking short-term. Think 50 years from now. Or 100. To repeat, if you wait until you’re attacked, you’re fucked (and the day that North America gets attacked is inevitable). And then who are you gonna turn to? The short-sightedness of your government puts the responsibility on us to defend both our borders and yours so there’s no possibility of anything like that happening. Which, of course, means larger force structure for us, because your government is unwilling to maintain your own force structure. So we eat your costs, we shoulder the responsibility, and you get to spend the money elsewhere.
It’s as simple as that. I’m simply in awe that there is this massive refusal to recognize that, even with your own military man telling you that your forces aren’t anywhere near where they should be.