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Getting more than that 1% is more than a budget issue, cut administration like I have said and you will find that funding would increase significantly. To get more money to the military it will take actual reform, otherwise it will just be cut when the next idiot PM decided to spend us into a major deficit.

   

Haven't looked at it in ages, I use various actual textbooks and common sense.

   

I dont think we are that different, I agree with most of what you said about the military at times (even about getting out of Astan). Its this statement that I think you're just grasping at.

   

Uh, no we're spending more than 1%. The article notes it will be around $22.3 billion and our GDP is about 1.2 trillion, which means we're spending closer to 2% (which would be roughly $24 Billion).



That all depends on how you measure it.

In total dollars, Canada usually ranks in the top 6 or 7 in total dollars spent. The USA, UK, France, Germany, Italy and Turkey usually outspend us in total dollars, and for the most part, they all have larger militaries than us, and in most cases, one that is better equipped.

In per capita spending we're at the bottom of the 2nd third.

I've always maintained that measuring our defence spending using the per capita ratio is misleading. Like any statistic, it can be easily twisted. After all, there are half a dozen countries (most of them in the Middle East) that spend far more per capita than the USA, but have far smaller and less effective militaries than the US does.

Denmark spends more per capita than Japan (which is constitutionally limited to 1% of its GDP), but Japan's Self-Defence Forces are far larger and better equipped than the Danes. Why? Because the Japanese economy is almost ten times larger than the Danish economy of course. The Japanese defence budget usually runs around $50-55 billion a year, which is far more than most other countries.

The same argument can be said for Canada. Which would you rather have at your back - the Danes with half a dozen frigates and 48 F-16s or Canada with its 3 destroyers, 12 frigates and 120 (or so) CF-18s?

I'm a believer in total dollars spent period. That, not per capita spending, accurately determines how many fighters you have or how many surface combatants your navy has or how many troops you can deploy.

   

I would agree with bootslegga that generally the statistics used are often somewhat misleading, and I feel the Rideau Institute might be misleading us here. We are spending more on military in nominal terms than ever before, certainly. However, what happens if we adjust how much we are spending in real terms, as in, what if we do away with inflation and show how much we are spending in dollars directly compared to the second world war?

I wish I could find the actual article and read it for myself to see if and how they adjusted for inflation to come to this conclusion. I recognize that they have done it in other studies as well, but the calculations, and GDP deflation measures are never mentioned, defined or cited in those studies and that makes me intensely uncomfortable. The same is true for some figures, bits of data, and such, along with a lack of mentions of methodology in their reports. It doesn't help that figures never really announce they are adjusted for inflation, nor do I ever really hear about adjustments for all values outside of those from the past few years -- usually those values which are "GDP adjusted" or something similar extend back only a few years.

Unfortunately, the Rideau Institute's website does not contain their report, or at least, I have not yet found it. Does anyone have access to this report? Much like cars have become more expensive, so has military spending, and it would be highly misleading to not correct for that amount of growth. They could have also adjusted it correctly and this could all be rambling.

More to the point (since I could not find an adequate historical GDP deflation set for the period I had available and I cannot simply assume they are off the mark without it), I used the federal government income and defense columns for series from CANSIM II (v499985 and v500019 respectively) and noticed that the amount of income per military dollar spent has been increasing generally fairly steadily. It's measured quarterly since 1961, and we're still are spending between a third and a quarter as much as we spent in 1961 of our income. There are recent quarters where we spent a fifth or less compared to our government's income.

In other words, with a war on, we're still spending comparatively less money on war expenditures via the government than we were in the 1960s, or the 1970s, or the 1980s because federal income has increased so much. Likewise, it's possible that with real rates, we are still spending less than other periods as well. It depends very heavily on how they decide to display their statistics to get their message across. Personally, I become suspicious of any source which refuses to allow the public to access the report with ease, as well as reports which don't show data or calculations, or even a methodology to their report.

I'm no expert on military matters so I have no opinion one way or the other on the actual worth of the spending and how things should work. I only wanted to note that the use of statistics in the ongoing debate seems fairly wonky at times.

   

The Rideau 'Institute' is a left-wing, anti-military organisation that would be very happy if we had no military at all and used the money for 'social action', wind turbines, hemp farms, ensuring chicks don’t shave their legs and providing platforms various unions such as CUPE.

They are biased in the extreme and I can't believe they get so much airplay.

   

So here's nothing I haven't said before:

Canada needs a military that's adequate to securing Canada. Right now much of your 'security' is based on the assumption that no one is willing to invade your country. For the time being, that's true. But the absence of an adequate military absolutely has envious eyes cast upon your country. Low hanging fruit is always the most tempting.

Who's your #1 worry? The USA is. While it's pragmatic on Canada's part to just let the USA spend a fortune on defense and Canada reaps the rewards of being defended by default (as Jeff pointed out) the problem is that your sovereignty will always be one US election away from disappearing. Plenty of you anti-military and anti-American Canadians are eager to point out how the USA went to war in Iraq base upon the flimsiest evidence. Okay, then assume you're right!

Yeah...the USA goes to war for the flimsiest of reasons.

So imagine a politically vulnerable anti-Canadian President is in office and the media swings anti-Canadian. Right...yes, imagine it's this week. Okay, and the media starts ginning up a reason for an unpopular President to look all Presidential on the eve of an election by invading Canada and dealing with some BS 'threat'.

You all say we invaded Iraq for the oil? Well, you got more oil than Iraq does.

You'll say that it's ridiculous to try to stop the USA but the truth is that all you need to do is make us take pause. Look again at Iraq. 4,000 casualties and we damned near surrendered. All you need to do is promise the pansies in the USA that there'll be 10,000 dead Americans if they invade and the invasion will be off. We'll fold before we even play.

Or you can assume that the USA will always love Canada. I don't.

The other side of this is that anti-Canadian thing takes off in the USA and the US government cancels all of our treaties and tells the world that no American blood will be spilled to defend Canada. I think this could really happen and I won't rule it out with Obama.

What then?

Again, I'm not proposing you need to be a superpower, not at all. You just need to be able to show your flag anywhere in your country in a reasonable amount of time is all. And you need to be able to put metal on target anywhere in your country at that same time.

Let me close for the day with this: I love my country. I have bled for it. And I know better than to trust it.

Why do you, the anti-military and anti-American conspiracy champions trust my country more than I do when it comes to your national security?

Which of us is the delusional one, eh?

   

I doubt you'd cease and desist with a cheque in hand anyway.

   

The only point in this entire post that makes any sense is that the USA is the only nation (currently) capable of invading and occupying Canada.

Most of the rest of it though, is gibberish.

First off, Canada could never afford a military capable of "giving the US pause" as you put it.

Given the vast difference in the size of our population and economy, we would never really be able to field a military (that would give you pause for invasion) for any real length of time. To honestly give the US pause, we'd need to spend at least four to five times what we currently spend on defence ($80 - 100 billion). That simply is not possible for any prolonged period of time(anything more than a few years would ruin the country just like North Korea is).

Secondly, while Iraq may have given the US pause for about 30 seconds, no one with any real understanding of military affairs ever expected the Iraqis to provide much real opposition. The only real difficulties were in the logistics of the invasion - for example Turkey refused the US permission to stage out of Incirclik air base if I remember correctly.

Given our geographic location - right next to you - there would be very little in the way of logistical issues for an invasion force, either by air, sea, or ground. Our rail lines and major highways connect to each other, offering easy access for ground forces. North American air space is tracked and controlled through NORAD in Colorado - which bodes poorly on any attempts by Air Command to deny the USAF air superiority. Tack on the closeness of most major Canadian cities to the US border, and within a matter of days, most major population centres, major airports and transportation hubs would probably be in US hands.

Perhaps, after the USA had occupied Canada for some time, it might tire of guerilla warfare, but given the similarities in culture, language, ethnicity, etc, counter-intel/counter-insurgency operations here in Canada would be far easier than in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Finally, Canada has the ability to defend itself from anyone else in the world trying to invade us. Our air force and navy are quite capable of operating well out to sea, denying any nation an easy go of simply landing a force on Canadian soil. But the fact is that currently, other than the USA, no nation in the world has the wherewithal to land more than perhaps a battalion or two of troops on Canadian soil (mostly due to a lack of sealift/airlift). Though small, the Canadian Army is large enough to deal with such a force.

The idea that the US defends Canada is preposterous. There is no nation on the planet with the capability to actually invade Canada (other than NATO allies). Those capable of attacking us (say through long range air strikes or naval attacks on coastal shipping) can only do so in limited fashion - and Canada would be able to deal with such attacks on its own (even if its allies refused to come to its aid).

   

I'd +1 Bart's post, but apparently i do too often.

Even for iraq, logistics were not really a big issue. Iraq has ports, and the USN controls the oceans. What ended the war was the court of public opinion, not logistics. As we stand now we could probably do more harm to the US than Iraq because of language and cultural similarities, shared border, etc. But it's better the army be able to kill 50 000 yanks to end the war than canadian civvies sacrifice themselves to kill american troops and civilians in guerilla warfare.

   

Things like not being able to stage out of Incirclik and Basra, Iraq's main seaport, not falling for three weeks after the invasion started, all put a crimp in US supply efforts I'm sure. I'm not saying that they failed at it, but that it was probably one of the biggest challenges in mounting Op Iraqi Freedom.

As I said it was probably the only real military difficulty US troops faced in that conflict - Saddam's troops surrendered en masse and the Feyadeen, bastards that they were, still did not provide all that much real resistance to US forces.

However, the main reason I pointed it out is that if the US were to invade Canada (which I find highly unrealistic at this point in time), its lines of supply and communication are a few hundred KM long, not thousands of KMs long. Supplying troops moving across our border is far easier than trying to supply troops on the other side of the globe.

   

Are you wanking yourself off here? You're seriously proposing that the Canadian forces could stop the US invading and holding Canada if the US put their mind to it? You really even think the Canadian forces could kill 50,000 yanks, or could with any sort of realistic bump in capability?

   

You mean you don't want to try to keep up with Cuba, Libya, Iran, or North Korea? Or even the Taliban, for that matter?



Kind of unclear on the notion of 'giving pause', eh?



That was 'payback' for 1991 when we annihilated a Turkish armored column that was in northern Iraq killing Kurdish refugees.



Canada's navy is a littoral force with minimal ability to project power past Canada's territorial waters absent assistance and support from an ally.



Japan can. They won't, of course, but their strategies can be adopted by other countries such as China. It has to do with all those nice cars you import. Think about that and get back to me.



Talk to Jeff. You two will have fun, I'm sure.



Again, you're not informed and you're not thinking in terms of how nations use the assets at their disposal in time of war.

Canada had no troop transport capabilities at the outset of two world wars yet managed to put troops into Europe. How'd that happen? Go answer that question for yourself and then reassess your thoughts on who can and can't do things.

   

Woah, you're catching on...



Not at all. To give the US "pause" we'd need an armoured division or two (and a couple of infantry division to back them up, a carrier battlegroup or two, and 500 or so 5th generation fighters.

Given that 65 F-35 are going to cost us $9 billion, and a carrier battlegroup costs around $5 billion for capital costs (and another half billion or so to operate annually), the cost of all that would be almost $100 billion just to buy, with billions more for annual maintenance and upkeep costs (the fighters alone would cost almost $70 billion).

Short of a major war, Canada doesn't have the wherewithal to field such a force for any amount of time. Even then, it would take all sorts of sacrifices on the part of Canadians (rationing for example). And to "give pause" to the US, we'd have to have it BEFORE hostilities start - which means building them now for a future conflict.

Doing so would turn Canada from a prosperous western nation to a third world nation in under a decade.



Yeah, we've never sent ships anywhere without US support...

Canada may not have carrier battlegroups, but one of our meagre little task groups (1 DDH, 2 FFH, 1 SSK and 1 AOR) are more than capable of operating well off our coastlines. And our Cf-18s, coupled with the aerial refuleing planes are capable of hitting enemy task forces more than a thousand KMs off our coastline.



Someone's been reading Red Storm Rising again (your scenario reminds me of the fall of Iceland)...I guess I should have said barring sneak attacks. I suppose the US is just as vulnerable, given that it imports far more cars than Canada does.

Yes, there are ways to sneak in troops and vehicles, however, I skeptical of China's ability to pull something like that off. And again, even if someone did sneak a battalion or two onto Canadian soil, how long would it last without air support?



Nah, it's more fun punching holes in your tin foil conspiracy theories...



Canada may have put troops in Europe in WW1 and WW2, but most of them were sent by freighters and troop carriers (converted cruise ships), not assault ships. It didn't have the capability for an assault landing until the war had been going on for years.

A nation wanting to invade Canada in strength would need lots of amphibs (unless of course they use your strategy to embark a tank battalion or two on car carriers). Right now, the only nation with lots of amphibs is the USA. China doesn't even have the capacity to lift a few divisions across the Taiwan Strait, nevermind all the way across the Pacific. Even the Russians don't have nearly as many amphibs as they used to. The Brits and the French could maybe lift a brigade.

If you're going to talk about WW3 and other such scenarios, then everything changes. I'm talking about what people have today, right now, not what nations may have in five years or a decade or a generation.

   

Boots posted;

Both the Brits and French did it in the past in wooden wind powered boats.

I don't think we need to revisit our conquering of Canada again, plus the French types get all weepy if you quote actual history to them.

   

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