lenaitch
Senior Member
Conscription would be pointless. Modern warfare wouldn't be like WWI or II where we took prairie farmboys and made sailors and pilots out of them in a few weeks and had small shipyards burp out corvettes in a month. Besides, what would they fly or sail? Modern war machines take years to design and build - an industrial base we no longer have.What on Earth are you talking about?
Conscription wont be necessary til the war with China actually starts, first of all.
Second of all, there is no need to go mental on the spending ramp up.
A modest increase (oh, I don't know to 2% of GDP as it is supposed to be according to our NATO obligations) will suffice.
All that is required is regular and substantial military patrols in the area....and maybe debunking China's asinine claim to being a "near Arctic" nation. Maybe tell them what's what at the Arctic Council.
Anyway, the collapse of the Roman Empire was a lot more complex than the size of the thing.
Debunking China's 'near Arctic' claim needs to be an international effort of real arctic nations. One thing that would help is for the US to abandon its assertion that the NW Passage is international waters. It would aid our position - and theirs - and would not hurt their strategic interests. US flagged vessels, including warships, ply Canadian waters everyday.
We have a history of not defining our strategic interests, be they physical or economic security, in a comprehensive way. I have less concern about profits flowing offshore; we've done that for years all the way back to HBC. I am more concerned with actual offshore companies, particularly those that are not allies, from setting up shop. A wholly-owned Chinese mine in the arctic gives them licence to service it and haul the product back home, and we know that, under Chinese law, a company must do the bidding of the government. I don't want a Chinese-flagged 'supply ship' plying our waters.