Canada and the World

[Admiral Beez]

Looks like the Conservatives are going to neglect the military as much as the Liberals.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-dumpster-fire-economy-nato-1.7261981

In 2014 then PM Harper cut the defence budget to its all time low of 0.9% of GDP. To his credit Trudeau has increased this since then by over 30%, but still no where near where we need to be.

 

[kEiThZ]

Comes just as the new CDS says we have 5 years to prepare. And given the briefs we get, she's not exaggerating.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/new-chief-of-defence-staff-change-in-command-ceremony-1.7266382

 

[Admiral Beez]

Comes just as the new CDS says we have 5 years to prepare. And given the briefs we get, she's not exaggerating.

In five years the CF-18s (intro 1982), CP-140 Aurora (intro 1980), Halifax class (laid down 1987), and pretty much anything pricey in the CAF will be over forty years old. IMO, it’s too late to prepare - the foundations are rotten. We need instead a complete strategic review of what the CAF does and can do. Do we need an Army, for example. Can we fulfill our NATO and NORAD commitments with just the RCAF and RCN and a small home guard?

 

[kEiThZ]

In five years the CF-18s (intro 1982), CP-140 Aurora (intro 1980), Halifax class (laid down 1987), and pretty much anything pricey in the CAF will be over forty years old. IMO, it’s too late to prepare - the foundations are rotten. We need instead a complete strategic review of what the CAF does and can do. Do we need an Army, for example. Can we fulfill our NATO and NORAD commitments with just the RCAF and RCN and a small home guard?

We go to war with the army (military) we have.

Harper really screwed us with the few billion in budget cuts when recapitalization was needed. Chretien didn't help. But at least they had a ton of stock they could burn through. Harper's cuts came exactly as all the 80s and 90s era stocks needed to be recapitalized.

Sure Trudeau hasn't done enough. And has had to be brought around kicking and screaming. But he's done a lot more than Harper and more than I would have expected.

The more I look at at the politics of the past, the more angry I get. Absolutely screwed over future generations by putting off everything. Military recapitalization is no different than infrastructure, housing, healthcare, etc.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Hong Kong is done. Nobody should be doing business there anymore. Either do business directly in China or elsewhere in Asia. There's no point in the intermediary anymore.

Looks like I may be sent out to Hong Kong again in 2025. It's still an intermediary for getting into mainland China.

 

[Richard White]

Looks like I may be sent out to Hong Kong again in 2025. It's still an intermediary for getting into mainland China.

I still say that Hong Kong is not the same as it was under British Rule. Say what you will but they were much better off as a British Colony.

 

[Admiral Beez]

I still say that Hong Kong is not the same as it was under British Rule. Say what you will but they were much better off as a British Colony.

It's too bad Hong Kong could not have been spun off from British rule into an independent island nation like Singapore. But Hong Kong's proximity to PRC and the fact that much of the colony's territory was on leased rather than ceded land meant Hong Kong was doomed to return to China.

Here's an interesting what if. In the 1840s during the Opium War the British tried to seize Taiwan, but their force was shipwrecked. Had Britain done so, they would have held onto and developed Taiwan for a hundred years until the Japanese invasion of 1941, and postwar the colony, being far enough from China would have likely have been granted independence but under British (and USA) protection. Less than a hundred years later, by the 2020s Taiwan would be a UK, US and Allied bastion against PRC expansionism.

 

[Northern Light]

RFI for New Patrol Submarines for Canada is out this morning.

Canadian Patrol Submarine Project - WS4772162365 | MERX

www.merx.com

 

[lenaitch]

RFI for New Patrol Submarines for Canada is out this morning.

Canadian Patrol Submarine Project - WS4772162365 | MERX

www.merx.com

The government's press release says "up to 12". I read somewhere (that, of course, I can't find now) that the RCN wants/needs the capability to have six in service at any given time. If that is true, 12 won't cut it when you consider the deployment-post deployment/training-refit cycle. That same source says that with the capabilities we are looking for, the Korean KSS-III has a leg up, and wasn't the Minister just there (or is going there)?

For those who will want to propose it, we have no expertise or facilities to manufacture them ourselves.

 

[Northern Light]

That same source says that with the capabilities we are looking for, the Korean KSS-III has a leg up, and wasn't the Minister just there (or is going there)?

That is my understanding from people who should know.

 

[afransen]

Kind of moot, I imagine, as this government won't be around to issue the RFP.

 

[lenaitch]

Kind of moot, I imagine, as this government won't be around to issue the RFP.

Indeed, but any future government will not be immune to allied/international pressure to up our game. Much if not all of the recent defence and security announcements have nothing to do with the government seeing the light or having a change of heart. Everything is intertwined; security allegiances, intelligence partnerships, trade agreements, etc. If we want to be on the teams, we need to be a player.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Coming after we've been left out of AUKUS, I think it's becoming apparent that everybody else is starting to notice how much we're slacking, despite talk of how much we plan to do years and years from now.

Maybe we’re getting another shot?

https://www.reuters.com/world/canada-talks-about-joining-expanded-aukus-defence-chief-blair-says-2024-09-13/