You know, defence spending wouldn’t be all that bad, if we could say use our Forces to build new rail, renewable energy, affordable “barracks/military grade” housing in walkable cities. Energy and infrastructure resiliency, owned by the people are important goals that would make us stronger against potential threats, invasions and the ability to ramp up production when needed to support our allies.
I know… civilian infrastrucutre spending doesn’t count toward it which is unfortunate, but training and salaries to military personnel to accomplish civilian aims do count, and anything that can be accounted separately as specifically for military uses does count.
It’s just that we know from Ukraine and the Black Sea (and nearly every war since WW2) that it’s not necessarily who spends the most on shooty-shooty-boom-boom equipment who wins. We have to support our allies, but at home we also have many problems within our nation to deal with. With some creative thinking we could try and hit two birds with one stone, strengthen our military capability by tasking our military personnel to assist in major civilian infrastructure projects, that would help us respond to threats from both nature and our adversaries.
For anyone wondering why Canada is not eager for military spending, it’s because very little goes into our own Canadian economy. We don’t have much military industry (and we’re not big enough to ever get much) so most of the money spent goes to buying foreign equipment. It’s like a permanent export of cash. Planes, rifles, even ship building - we can build the ship, but then we buy all the electronics and weapons systems from someone else.
And not to sound too crass, but for what reason? No one is going to invade Canada because of geography. The US? We have no chance anyway. We could leave NATO and pretty much disband our military entirely. The only reason we’re in NATO and have a military is to help others. Again, at extraordinary expense because we don’t have our own domestic military industry.
TBF, being a member of a military alliance does give us certain economic advantages since it keeps us friendly with the other members, many of whom we trade with. But you’re right that the military industrial complex doesn’t pay back into Canada very much. And I say that as someone who grew up in London and so knew lots of people employed by General Dynamics. But one of Canada’s biggest exports after our natural resources has long been STEM graduates, many of whom go to work in private industry in Europe or the US. It would be great if we could entice them to stay more often. But that’s more a conversation about free trade agreements than military alliances.
We definitely build small arms here (though not the handguns anymore I suspect), there’s no reason we couldn’t have local industry doing the manufacturing with licensed designs.
I think as well what should the 2% spending be used for? Size of the forces? Equal split between army/navy/air force? Tech development? Tech manufacturing? Until those are answered that 2% spending would do nothing for the CF.
P.S. the F35 procurement shows even the best intentions can have the worst cock ups.
Even if we werent part of NATO the US does not want any hostile country occupying land on its continent.
If that is the only thing keeping us safe, then we do not have autonomy as a country. We must then do whatever the USA wishes to because if we don’t, they would just take our resources for “national security.”
If you think our defence has any chance against the US, then you are delusional, they could take us over any time they wanted. Even if the US left NATO and attacked us, all the remaining countries in NATO wouldn’t be able to stop them.
There’s just no benefit to them to take us over at this point and we keep it that way intentionally by remaining friendly and giving them most of what they ask for.
No, there’s no situation in which we get invaded because of oceans and proximity to the US.
Our arctic waters are desired by and are in proximity to several threat actors who are actively chipping away at our sovereignty. Just for one example.
Even if we werent part of NATO the US does not want any hostile country occupying land on its continent.
“our sovereignty” No, there are zero threat actors who have the capability to occupy the Canadian north where they want oil and gas from. They could not protect any sort of resource extraction sites from even our limited self-military capabilities.
NATO is a lot more than just the US-Canada alliance. NORAD for example is not part of NATO operations.
We agreEd to spend a certain percentage and we are not. Everything else is irrelevant, and NATO has every right to not be happy with us, we are not doing our part.
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You know, defence spending wouldn’t be all that bad, if we could say use our Forces to build new rail, renewable energy, affordable “barracks/military grade” housing in walkable cities. Energy and infrastructure resiliency, owned by the people are important goals that would make us stronger against potential threats, invasions and the ability to ramp up production when needed to support our allies.
Doesn’t count as military spending then.
I know… civilian infrastrucutre spending doesn’t count toward it which is unfortunate, but training and salaries to military personnel to accomplish civilian aims do count, and anything that can be accounted separately as specifically for military uses does count.
It’s just that we know from Ukraine and the Black Sea (and nearly every war since WW2) that it’s not necessarily who spends the most on shooty-shooty-boom-boom equipment who wins. We have to support our allies, but at home we also have many problems within our nation to deal with. With some creative thinking we could try and hit two birds with one stone, strengthen our military capability by tasking our military personnel to assist in major civilian infrastructure projects, that would help us respond to threats from both nature and our adversaries.
For anyone wondering why Canada is not eager for military spending, it’s because very little goes into our own Canadian economy. We don’t have much military industry (and we’re not big enough to ever get much) so most of the money spent goes to buying foreign equipment. It’s like a permanent export of cash. Planes, rifles, even ship building - we can build the ship, but then we buy all the electronics and weapons systems from someone else.
And not to sound too crass, but for what reason? No one is going to invade Canada because of geography. The US? We have no chance anyway. We could leave NATO and pretty much disband our military entirely. The only reason we’re in NATO and have a military is to help others. Again, at extraordinary expense because we don’t have our own domestic military industry.
TBF, being a member of a military alliance does give us certain economic advantages since it keeps us friendly with the other members, many of whom we trade with. But you’re right that the military industrial complex doesn’t pay back into Canada very much. And I say that as someone who grew up in London and so knew lots of people employed by General Dynamics. But one of Canada’s biggest exports after our natural resources has long been STEM graduates, many of whom go to work in private industry in Europe or the US. It would be great if we could entice them to stay more often. But that’s more a conversation about free trade agreements than military alliances.
We definitely build small arms here (though not the handguns anymore I suspect), there’s no reason we couldn’t have local industry doing the manufacturing with licensed designs.
I think as well what should the 2% spending be used for? Size of the forces? Equal split between army/navy/air force? Tech development? Tech manufacturing? Until those are answered that 2% spending would do nothing for the CF.
P.S. the F35 procurement shows even the best intentions can have the worst cock ups.
No, that’s exactly who I thought it was.
As a Canadian, the article is correct.
Why do I care about increased defence spending? There is no situation in which we get invaded.
This is essentially just a pledge to help others, and we do plenty of that already.
There is no situation in which we get invaded, because of NATO.
No, there’s no situation in which we get invaded because of oceans and proximity to the US.
Even if we werent part of NATO the US does not want any hostile country occupying land on its continent.
If that is the only thing keeping us safe, then we do not have autonomy as a country. We must then do whatever the USA wishes to because if we don’t, they would just take our resources for “national security.”
If you think our defence has any chance against the US, then you are delusional, they could take us over any time they wanted. Even if the US left NATO and attacked us, all the remaining countries in NATO wouldn’t be able to stop them.
There’s just no benefit to them to take us over at this point and we keep it that way intentionally by remaining friendly and giving them most of what they ask for.
Our arctic waters are desired by and are in proximity to several threat actors who are actively chipping away at our sovereignty. Just for one example.
NATO is nothing more than that formalized.
“our sovereignty” No, there are zero threat actors who have the capability to occupy the Canadian north where they want oil and gas from. They could not protect any sort of resource extraction sites from even our limited self-military capabilities.
NATO is a lot more than just the US-Canada alliance. NORAD for example is not part of NATO operations.
The best way Canada can adequately support Ukraine is by hitting 2% on defence
Why the clickbait? Just write who it is in the title and save us a click
I personally prefer the headlines remain non-editorialized, and the info added to the body text instead.
We’re not spending too much on weapons? Good.
It was who I thought.
We agreEd to spend a certain percentage and we are not. Everything else is irrelevant, and NATO has every right to not be happy with us, we are not doing our part.