Canada gives up on their military. I wonder who they're depending on now?

The BBQ Pit
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Canada’s military budget is presently about $13 billion a year.

It’s quite easy (and apparently very easy for Americans) to say Canada should spend more money on the military. Fine. Our country is $500 billion in debt. Where’s the money going to come from? Don’t tell me you’re going to fire Adrienne Clarkson; aside from the fact that amending the Constitution would cost more money than the Governor General wastes in twenty years, it’s a drop in the bucket.

  1. What do you want to buy? What extra capabilities do you want?
  2. What will it cost?
  3. Where are you going to find the money?

Canada has a military. We have a decent navy and air force and the army would be fine if it wasn’t for the fact it’s stretched over too many commitments right now.

The fact is that what’s really happening here isn’t that Canada does nothing. It’s that a small number of Americans don’t like what it is we’re doing. Oh, sure, the Forces needs some more cash and really needs to be reorganized but that’s not really what’s happening here in this thread.

What’s happening is that this “you Canadians do nothing” is simply a bullshit lie. Of course we’re doing something, lots of things - but we’re acting like a soverign country and doing what WE want, not what THEY want. They don’t want Canada messing around with all these UN deployments and peacekeeping missions. They don’t like the idea that Canadian soldiers are deployed in Bosnia stablizing that country, or in Afghanistan, or the Golan Heights. Elvis and Airman Doors are displeased that we aren’t following President Bush’s orders and sending troops where the U.S. wants, like the cute little war built on lies in Iraq. This is invariably followed up with the “We’d defend you!!!” whine which is not actually based on any sort of a case history.

I’m sorry that our values and priorities are different from yours, Elvis and Airman. Regrettably, you see, we’re a different nation-state and reserve the right to do that sort of thing. We’ve opted not to suck your cocks. I am amazed you find fault in a sovereign nation acting, well, sovereign, but I guess if them damn furriners don’t act just like good ol’ American boys, there’s something wrong with us in your eyes.

When you were actually attacked, in 2001, we jumped to help. We were the only country on 9/11 to actually DO anything to assist. We got snubbed for that, but we sent soldiers to fight in Afghanistan; you very nicely gave some of them medals for bravery. We did it because it was the right thing to do. You don’t remember or care because we didn’t then join your little oil war? Well, that’s too fucking bad. If you don’t like it, you could always make up some bullshit story about an “imminent threat” and invade. I must give credit where it’s due, you’re better at that than we are.

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I, for one, thank you for helping us in Afghanistan. I also appreciate why you didn’t go to Iraq. I was duped, and Elvis never bought it to begin with.

But that’s not really germane to what we were talking about, so thank you for your contibution, but you’re focusing on irrelevancies with that.

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C42,
I think you missed the part about the US not being there. If Canada with its current level of preparedness found itself alone the it would be ripe pickings. I used this example as a counter to another’s contention that the US would have to spend what it does on its military if Canada didn’t exist anyway. I hope you agree that that argument can go both ways. If the US didn’t exist Canada would have to spend far more than it does to defend itself. In other words, the only reason Canada can get away with its military spending as it is today is because it has the US to the south of it to defend itself.

Gorsnak,
There is no reason a modern army can’t live off the land. The purpose of marching across Canada wouldn’t be to hold the land, but to cause as much confusion with the population as possible while fresh troops kept arriving. The frigates would be handled by small boats loaded with explosives coordinated to strike at the same time. Again this is all ‘what if’, but if I was in charge I’d do it like Ghengis Khan and leave mountains of skulls behind me. By the time I reached Quebec/Ontario (assuming I’m moving west) word of my passing would cause the locals to run away and hide in their cellars. Give me 50,000 fanatics and I would crush you like a soda can! BWAHAHAHAAAA!!!..(er, excuse me…kind of carried away there!)

RickJay,

I shouldn’t have said we do nothing. We do somethings and some of those things we do very well. That you seem to have blinders on because, heaven forbid, an American points it out to us that we could do more doesn’t make what they say wrong.

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So what is your point? That the U.S. is out money defending Canada? That we’re asking you to defend us? I don’t rememebr Canada ever asking that. Sorry, but I don’t see how the United States is out anything in this arrangement.

Or your could answer some questions for me:

  1. Exactly what is the marginal cost the United States has incurred to defend Canada? What specific military capacity is the U.S. forced to maintain to make up for us only spending our $13 billion a year on the Armed Forces?

  2. Precisely when and how has the United States been asked to defend Canada in the recent past? What did it cost in marginal dollars? (I can add up some numbers for what WE’VE spent defending YOU, if you want to draw some cost comparisons.)

  3. What threats seem reasonable to defend against that Canada CAN’T defend itself against, but the United States would be capable of defending against and would have no reasonable alternative but to do so?

A lot of assumptions are being made by the “You Canadians don’t contribute” argument that don’t hold water. Well, yes, we do. We contributed hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars and five lives so far defending the United States from terrorists since 2001, and we continue to do so, not that apparently many Americans notice. We do have an armed forces with a number of significant capabilities, as evidenced by their stellar performance in Afghanistan and elsewhere. We do, in fact, pay a reasonably large amount of money towards maintaining an armed forces, whatever you may have read. I’m sorry our economy is only one twefth the size of yours and we’re in so much debt, but math is math; there’s little we can do about that right away. The military budget is in fact NOT going down.

Now, if you would like to bring those men back to life and pay us back all that money, then perhaps you could say we’ve “given up” (your words) and don’t do anything.

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Well, first of all, now you’re just positing something utterly bizarre. What possible motive could anyone have to invade Canada without the intent to actually capitalize on that invasion?

Second, artillery shells can’t be looted from the storage rooms of Tim Horton’s. I’m sure a modern army wouldn’t starve trying to live off the land in Canada. They could likely acquire the gas and diesel they would need as well, since I doubt we’d be disciplined to deny them that by destroying it all. But for ammunition they’re fucked, and modern armies go through huge amounts of ammunition.

Third, if they’re going east to west, they don’t get past the Soo (assuming they get that far), since the transportation options at that point narrow to one highway and one railway. At this point it becomes trivial to stop this merry band. If they’re going west to east, they don’t make it to the Alberta border, for similar reasons. That’s without using any military forces whatsoever, just a few civil engineers and some dynamite.

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Good questions.

Did you hear A. Whitney Brown on CBC radio last year. His anti-war rant was a work of art. It aired on Definitely Not the Opera… Check it out in the archives.

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Perhaps they could institute an additional sales tax, proceeds devoted to compensating America for its expenses in protecting Canada. They could call it a “Yank Off”.

Of course, it would be better if it were more voluntary. Say, put up little boxes on street corners in major Canadian cities, so that the average Canadian can express his deep and abiding gratitude for living so close to the USA.

It would need a spokesman, of course. A recently mustered out veteran would be ideal, one with a gift for smooth talk and diplomacy. One willing to endure a princely salary and who’s wife might not object to living in a country with affordable day care…

But where could we find such a man?

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Of course it’s bizarre. It could only happen if all of the US fell into the sea.

Which is why I said, ‘as fresh troops arrived’. They would hold the land. Behind us.

Are you fighting an army that has artillery? No, you aren’t. You’d be fighting partisans and isolated army units who aren’t much better armed than you are.

Well, you do have a point there. Hopefully, by the time I’d need it I’d have arranged air drops from my port in Halifax. Where I’d be now unloading my main armament to do mop up.

And the French had the Maginot line to stop the Germans, too. Very effective that was.

Hey, this is all mental masturbation based upon the supposition that the US doesn’t exist. If they didn’t then there might be a plausible threat. As they do, there isn’t one. If the US disbanded their army tomorrow and all they all became pacifists a threat would probably arise shortly. I’m guessing the former USSR for one. China most assuredly. If this was the case then we’d have no choice but to spend more for our defense. Money that the US is now spending on our behalf whether we want them to or not. Yes, they’d spend it whether we were here, or not. I guess the debate is what is the amount that we would have to spend to make us viable. My suggestion is, as I stated earlier, not to base it upon money but upon building an effective unit that can fulfil many roles and not concentrate upon the high cost items that the States does so well now.

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Uzi, you’re nuts.

A couple more plausible hypothetical scenarios:

Encouraged by the creation of Nunavut, Inuit become increasingly restive, and declare independance. Inuit outside the current borders of Nunavut agitate to have parts of NWT ceded to them. Canadian fishing boats start getting hijacked and forced to pay taxes.
…
By 2020, as the United States continues to fall under the godless influence of the heathen Mud People, the far-right extremists already drawn to Idaho and Montana grow in number and strength. The US government starts to crack down on them, so they head north. Eventually there’s a string of extremist enclaves all over western Canada. They’ve got assault rifles they smuggled in, along with a few M60s, a mortar or two and the occasional Stinger.
…
As the Airman Doors pointed out, it’s not a matter of just having a military to defend against known threats; it’s about preventing situations that you don’t forsee from arising in the first place.

I don’t think either of these is likely to happen; but when you open the door, you never know what will walk through.

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Well, it certainly is when you start pulling hundreds of thousands of occupation troops out of thin air, plus the transport capacity to support a trans-oceanic war by air. And, just as a point of order, if you think that a thousand miles of Pre-Cambrian Shield with only a few easily sabotaged roads is a barrier to be dismissed with the wave of a hand, remind me not to let you be in charge of any military planning on my behalf.

Your initial suggestion was that a force that could fit on a single cruise liner could march the entire breadth of Canada unsupported. That is bullshit.

Now you are positing that a country with a massive logistic capacity and huge numbers of troops could successfully invade us, in the absence of the US. This is obvious.

I am left entirely unsure of what your point actually is, beyond being difficult.

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I don’t remember suggesting a single cruise ship, but if it makes you happy.

What is massive? Could the Germans have done it in WW2 if they were given the ability to get across the Atlantic? Most likely they could. Why couldn’t anyone else with similar industrial capability?

Christ on a pogo stick! I’m just reversing the argument that was put forth on the first or second page saying that the US would spend the money if Canada was here, or not, and thus Canada has no obligation to help out any more than minimally. Your argument boils down to that if there is no plausible threat to Canada because of a vast ocean and the logistics of getting an army here then there is also no threat to the US and maybe they shouldn’t have much of an army, either. I’m quite sure a guy like Cortez wouldn’t have wanted you as his military planner, either. You’d be saying it was impossible to fight all them Aztecs.

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There’s your problem right there: you worry about your national debt! You big silly! We’re $7,092,335,756,887.55 in debt. That’s in US dollars, too. Do you see us worrying about it? NO! We can have debt, cut revenues and still spend like crazy. How do we do it? Volume.

Oh, and location, location, location.

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Let’s all get back to original OP (or what I think it was) something along the lines of Canada does not have sufficient military forces and relies upon the US for its protection.

All I’m saying is we have a bunch of people saying that, Canada doesn’t have sufficient military forces to protect itself and its sovereignty, and I’ve yet to see any cogent argument that shows this.

Is there a fight brewing over spending in the Canadian parliment? Yes.

Are people using rhetoric to argue that the military is underfunded? Yes.

Could Canada defend itself against an outside invasion (that is not coming from the US). Yes.

Could Canada defend itself against an outside invasion that is coming from the US. No.

Is the Canadian military underfunded? It depends on how you define this and how you assess the risk facing Canada. I for one see the risk being much more likely to come from internal factions and terrorism that from outside conventional forces.

SB

PS. I agree Uzi is nuts.

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Well, I’m certainly not going to contest that point. After all I’ve been arguing with you guys, haven’t I? :wink:

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RickJay, you too would do well to drop the excluded-middle stuff and then call it bullshit. It certainly is. Nobody is saying, as you contend, that Canada does “nothing”. The accusation, made sufficiently clearly enough times already, is that you don’t do your share. Clear now? Can you now stop misrepresenting what you’ve been told, at least enough to make your own motivations suspect?

“A small number of Americans” is not so fact-based an assertion that your bolding is appropriate, either.

Where does the money come from, you ask, as if you don’t know about governments as well as households having to do that kind of income/budgeting balancing act constantly? That’s for you to deal with. Where does the money come from for anything else you do? What process do you use to set your priorities? Who do you say No to? No, not everything one wants to do can be done - what’s your point? Really, I’m astonished at the juvenility of that answer from a purported adult. All we’re talking about is acceptance of responsibility in accord with the levels the world expects and requires of its great industrial democracies, and gets from all the others (New Zealand possibly excepted, based on above posts).

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RickJay, I hate to argue with you because I agree with a hell of a lot of what you’re saying, but I think you and Buliwvf need to sit down and have a chat. As it is, you can’t both be right:

On the other hand, I would be thrilled to be wrong about the rate of pay for Canada’s soldiers (and on that point you and Buliwvf seem to at least partly agree).

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I don’t think the “where does the money come from” question has any legs. The quoted shortfall in the military budget is 1/2 billion, and they’re set to spend 2 billion on the gun registry. It’s a matter of priorities, and Canadian priorities are for Canadians to set.

The idea that Canada should concentrate on developing peacekeeping forces has a lot of merit, in my opinion. It’s something they are demonstrably very good at, and our guys just aren’t well suited to the role. Horses for courses. We all contribute in our own way.

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From what I heard on the news yesterday. The government is projecting a $7b budgetary surplus. We should be able to cover the military shortfall and then some without running a deficit.

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Ah, and this “share” would entail what exactly? NATO missions? UN Missions? Patrols in the Atlantic and Pacific?

At this point I actually am interested in hearing what exactly you think we shoud do?

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Two posts to follow.

And you have done nothing to explain what that “share” is, so I’ll assume you are, as usual, full of shit. It was the assertion of the OP that Canada is relying on the United States for some sort of national defense, that Canada had “given up” on national defense, which is funny because I don’t recall the government announcing they were laying off all the soldiers and stopping military spending. I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to ask this question before someone gives me a straight fucking answer, but I will ask it again:

How is Canada relying on the United States for anything?

Is the United States paying for our military expenditures? No. Canadian taxpayers pay for their Armed Forces. Is the United States deploying troops to Canada to defend it? No, it is not. Is the United States maintaining any sort of military presence for the express purpose of defending Canada because Canada can’t defend itself? Nothing I’m aware of. Can someone please tell me, if we’re relying on the USA for something, where there is a marginal cost to the United States of America? Anything at all?

Can you at least point to an expense that exceeds what we’ve spent and lost to defend YOU in the last two years plus? That’s up to well over half a billion and five lives now, BTW. Can you at least match that number?

Canada does plenty. I think we do our share. I’d love it if we did more, but I think our current assignment of priorities is within the realm of reason. What I think our “share” is is likely based on very different priorities than what Americans think it should be, which is fine. How can that be disproven? If this is just a subjective debate over what constitutes our “share,” it’s pointless.

I somehow doubt many Americans care very much about Canada’s military capacity. I certainly don’t give a crap about the military capacities of Luxembourg or Jamaica. I believe the “small number” claim is quite correct.

Well, exactly. And we have chosen to deal with it by spending about $13 billion a year on it, plus some capital upgrades to take place over the next few years. If you have a problem with that, move here, become a citizen, and then you can vote for change. Otherwise, tough shit.