AOR Replacement & the Joint Support Ship (Merged Threads)

[suffolkowner]

Do you mind expanding on the bit about the government being unable to negotiate with Irving or Seaspan?

Do you mean there wasn't much room to negotiate due to them being the only players when this program started?  Or are there regular difficulties between the government and shipyards?

The first one except it's actually worse. It's not Irving and Seaspan the government is negotiating with it's only one of them. There is no competition once the yards were pre-selected. Seaspan and Irving and now Davie were given contracts to build ships without there actually being a contract or bid until after the fact. The only way to fix this is in the next batch of shipbuilding some 20 years from now if the approved shipyards bid on the actual ship contracts and a winning bid(s) selected. I've been put in this exact position in private industry and it was a disaster.

 

[Navy_Pete]

5 more years for Asterix based on the current schedule seems like good value.

Personally I would have Seaspan build the third ship in the class, which they originally quoted at $500M. Inflation has ballooned the shipbuilding programs costs of course so I would be curious what it would be today.

The other problem being that the government has been unable to effectively negotiate with Seaspan and Irving and why I welcome the addition of Davie into the field so that hopefully in the next batch of shipbuilding contracts that come due, the projects can actually be bid on, instead of given away and then hoping for the vendor to hold themselves to account

The whole reason it's an NSS (and not individual projects) is that it is a strategic level project intended to result in two shipyards capable of making the combat/non-combat ships respectively though, so instead of a fixed cap for projects the idea was to partner with shipyards, give them enough work that it made sense to modernize, than build in performance expectations when they go through the negotiations for each phase of the contracts that all the projects are divided up into. At the time, there was exactly zero shipyards in Canada with the capabilities and experience to build anything.

That's the structure the three yards bid under, and Davie lost because they were a great facility but a corporate shamble at the time. They've really sorted themselves out since, but they still aren't doing a comparable level of work so it's not fair to compare their output to the NSS yards.

If Davie had to deliver Asterix as a new build under the NSS construct with all the IRBs and other requirements they also would have had to upgrade their shipyard, retool it for ship building, and not have been able to build the superstructure overseas. Also they had set ship performance requirements beforehand (vice all the other projects where the design requirements aren't fixed). Seaspan started the whole thing concurrently designing three new classes of ship while managing the builds on top of the upgrades and gaining experience. That's a big ask for even an established shipyard.

I think Davie is pretty capable and have a great facility, as well as really good PR, but it's really easy for them to sit outside the fence taking aggressive potshots when the other two yards have to coordinate their responses with the GoC. I'll withold judgement until they actually deliver something comparable, but suspect they would have run into a lot more problems if they had won the non-combat package then they ever saw with Asterix, and wouldn't be tooting their own horn for being on time or on budget (because I don't think anyone could have met those initial timelines or budgets with how the whole suite rolled out).

People get really wrapped around individual project performance and keep forgetting that wasn't the point of the NSS. We wanted to have two yards that could build ships, that takes time and means your first number of ships will take longer and cost more than if you got them built somewhere that had experience and an established supply chain. The additional icebreakers and other CCG ships that will get tacked on just weren't identified or planned at the time, otherwise the projects may have been grouped/sequenced differently.

The other big thing that gets forgotten is Canada doesn't know how to put together big projects, set up RFPs, negotiate contract terms etc for ships either. The CPF experience was gone, and there wasn't much in the CCG side either, so we were (are?) an inexperienced customer as well.

Not sure if it means we'll just get a bigger boom before a bust of two or three yards, or if this is a better approach then just running each project as a silo, but I don't think it's reasonable to dump on the projects without taking that NSS goal and context into consideration, or the context of where all the shipyards were in 2011.  :dunno:

 

[Colin Parkinson]

We haven't had 3 AORs since the late 90s, and we frequently had periods where there was only one AOR of the two available (or none, before they were both paid off). It's not really a big deal, and we don't have enough of a mix of assets to operate one TG on our own, let alone two.

It would be nice on paper, but if it means the crews never get any non-deployment time because we would have 2 crews spread between 3 ships, just makes retention worse. I think two oilers is enough for our pretty limited resources, and unless we figure out our recruitment/retention not really sure how we would keep the CSCs, AOPs and JSSs going at the same time anyway under the existing numbers of ships, let alone adding on more hulls.  :dunno:

Then again the people that want more hulls also don't like planning work periods that are long enough to actually get the planned maintenance done (let alone the major corrective maintenance required for 25 year old hulls) or doing things like load leveling the schedule so that the entire fleet isn't in a work period at the same time, so not really holding my breath. Does make coastal postings a bit less appealing though; as much as I like hands on work don't feel like volunteering to be Sisyphus.

I really think Canada is going to have to expand the Fleet Auxiliary (FA) model to look more like the RFA. Crewing is not only a DND issue, it's a Canada wide issue, in CCG, ferries, commercial shipping, Pilotage. The FA is an opportunity to provide Merchant Marine Cadets with valuable deep sea experience, the various marine schools on both coasts can feed into dedicated slots for Deck officers, Seaman and Engineers. These people will go to working deep sea ships, tugs, ferries, lakers and then become senior Engineers, Captains, Mates and finally Pilots providing a much needed resource to keep our marine economy running.

The RCN and CCG can offer promising FA personal bonuses for jumping over into the services and the FA personal can flesh out the crews on the AOR's and perhaps even an AOP or Kingston if needed. They can even be a place to have a supplemental reserve for people who want to get out but still have lot knowledge/skills the RCN does not want to lose completely. Not to mention the Naval Reserves as well.

Some of the money for the above can also come from other non-DND Ministries (they have to be told to do so) Sort of like how SYEP was partly funded by HRDC back in the day.
 

 

[FJAG]

I really think Canada is going to have to expand the Fleet Auxiliary (FA) model to look more like the RFA. Crewing is not only a DND issue, it's a Canada wide issue, in CCG, ferries, commercial shipping, Pilotage. The FA is an opportunity to provide Merchant Marine Cadets with valuable deep sea experience, the various marine schools on both coasts can feed into dedicated slots for Deck officers, Seaman and Engineers. These people will go to working deep sea ships, tugs, ferries, lakers and then become senior Engineers, Captains, Mates and finally Pilots providing a much needed resource to keep our marine economy running.

The RCN and CCG can offer promising FA personal bonuses for jumping over into the services and the FA personal can flesh out the crews on the AOR's and perhaps even an AOP or Kingston if needed. They can even be a place to have a supplemental reserve for people who want to get out but still have lot knowledge/skills the RCN does not want to lose completely. Not to mention the Naval Reserves as well.

Some of the money for the above can also come from other non-DND Ministries (they have to be told to do so) Sort of like how SYEP was partly funded by HRDC back in the day.

I've argued in several places that Canada's military, unless we are planning on fighting the Americans in North America or not fighting at all, is an expeditionary force that conducts all of it's operations overseas. Notwithstanding this, while our Air Force has some transport capability, our Navy has absolutely zero and, to the best of my knowledge our plan is basically to ad hoc transport when the time comes.

IMHO, we need a plan. I don't care if we own our own ships or rent them or have a contract with a sea-going ferry company or if they are run by reservists or a Fleet Auxiliary or a hybrid crew. The big issue is that we have a plan and exercise it regularly to ensure that it works smoothly from embarkation to escorted transit to designated disembarkation ports and assembly areas. Ad hocing only works in a very permissive peacetime environment. We need to do much, much better.

:cheers:

 

[Pelorus]

I really think Canada is going to have to expand the Fleet Auxiliary (FA) model to look more like the RFA.

I agree. Notwithstanding recruiting and retention challenges in the RCN (which as you state is an issue across the entire Canadian marine sector), I will go on a tangent here to say that I think that it would also be an avenue to address cross-licensing issues that are wasting talent among the majority of seagoing trades in the RCN.

As it stands, personnel from RCN hard sea trades are typically offered a civilian licensing equivalent well below their qualifications and experience. For example, a senior NWO (i.e. D-Level/ORO) may be offered almost nothing of value by Transport Canada as far as TC/IMO-certified tickets go (often the equivalent of writing off 3 months' worth of off-the-street private marine institute coursing) due to a lack of understanding between DND and TC as well as a lack of institutional effort to rectify the issue. Speaking to others in the RCN, the issue seems to exist across all departments to include Bos'n's and Engineers.

I have met a number of skilled and experienced sailors over the years who ultimately released from the CAF as their family commitments couldn't handle the personnel tempo demanded by the RCN, but who would have still liked to serve the country in some capacity. They would have readily accepted employment within the Canadian Coast Guard's 1:1 time on, time off model of rotating crews (which is very similar to what Asterix is running and I would expect to be somewhat in-line with any sort of RFA crewing model), but due to a complete lack of institutional support to obtain equivalent mariner certifications that would be accepted by the rest of the GoC ultimately gave up and found employment ashore where their considerable seafaring skills and experience have gone completely to ground.

Perhaps an RFA crewing model for auxiliary ships could act as an initial bridge between the two worlds? Assuming that DND was able to influence hiring of the initial RFA crews, could they mandate a hiring pool which accepted a mix of both IMO-certified civilian mariners as well as RCN-certified ex-naval personnel?

 

[Colin Parkinson]

CCG fleet is built around ensuring the "Fellowship of the ring" (CCG college) have a job  ;D
If it's any consolation, when CCG wanted to move a ship from the West coast to the East coast, they realized they no longer had anyone with the correct ticket, they were all college grads and their ticket was worthless outside of Canadian coastal waters, so had to have a civy skipper take them around. TC finally fixed that. TC Marine Safety is not exactly a progressive bunch, they will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the table and have grownup stare down at them to ensure they work with DND. DND, needs to sit down and write out in simple language how their qualifications matches equivalent Marine Safety requirements. Likely part of the problem is a "translation" issue and "burning issue" Having a clear path to civy tickets, makes RCN more attractive and it needs to work the other way. Making a guy with a 3000 GT ticket start from square one is not good either.

 

[FSTO]

I've argued in several places that Canada's military, unless we are planning on fighting the Americans in North America or not fighting at all, is an expeditionary force that conducts all of it's operations overseas. Notwithstanding this, while our Air Force has some transport capability, our Navy has absolutely zero and, to the best of my knowledge our plan is basically to ad hoc transport when the time comes.

IMHO, we need a plan. I don't care if we own our own ships or rent them or have a contract with a sea-going ferry company or if they are run by reservists or a Fleet Auxiliary or a hybrid crew. The big issue is that we have a plan and exercise it regularly to ensure that it works smoothly from embarkation to escorted transit to designated disembarkation ports and assembly areas. Ad hocing only works in a very permissive peacetime environment. We need to do much, much better.

:cheers:

This sounds like our National Covid 19 response.

 

[Underway]

I've argued in several places that Canada's military, unless we are planning on fighting the Americans in North America or not fighting at all, is an expeditionary force that conducts all of it's operations overseas. Notwithstanding this, while our Air Force has some transport capability, our Navy has absolutely zero and, to the best of my knowledge our plan is basically to ad hoc transport when the time comes.

There is a plan.  It is and has been since GTS Katie to deploy everything by air (with follow on stuff shipped by sea traditional ways).  There is literally no situation outside of North America where Canada has a live or die must send troops geopolitical interest.  Therefore we will never have a proper expeditionary force because any conflict we get involved in outside of NA is a choice, not a requirement for the survival of the state.  This is why the military fights for every dollar in Canada.  There is no threat.  Everything we need for these choices can be deployed by air for the small/token forces we prefer to use to help allies out or to live up to treaty requirements.

Given this, I would double down on air deployable.  C17's and the like are extremely useful all the time and much more value for money than a naval expeditionary ship.  They can reach everywhere in Canada and improve the army's strategic mobility domestically as well as internationally. 

All this refers however only to the army/airforce.  The navy is expeditionary by nature, and AOR's improve that capability by orders of magnitute.

 

[FJAG]

...  There is literally no situation outside of North America where Canada has a live or die must send troops geopolitical interest. Therefore we will never have a proper expeditionary force because any conflict we get involved in outside of NA is a choice, not a requirement for the survival of the state.  This is why the military fights for every dollar in Canada.  There is no threat.  ...

Everything is a choice until it isn't anymore. There is no "live or die" situation, until there is one.

Strong, Secure, Engaged at p. 50 seems to think that there is a threat:

The re-emergence of major power competition has reminded Canada and its allies of the importance of deterrence. At its core, deterrence is about discouraging a potential adversary from doing something harmful before they do it. A credible military deterrent serves as a diplomatic tool to help prevent conflict and should be accompanied by dialogue. NATO Allies and other like-minded states have been re-examining how to deter a wide spectrum of challenges to the international order by maintaining advanced conventional military capabilities that could be used in the event of a conflict with a “near-peer.”

How much of a deterrent is the Canadian Forces if it's opponents know it to be incapable of responding to major threats and only capable of responding on minor missions if there is time for a long, drawn out deployment?

It's very true that we only deploy when Canada chooses to deploy. But how much of a choice is it for our government when we have built a force structure that does not give it a capability to deploy if and when needed? Absolutely none. The CAF is supposed to be the insurance policy the country can rely on in extreme emergencies. Otherwise why spend tens of billions every year on it? If "[t]here is literally no situation outside of North America where Canada has a live or die must send troops geopolitical interest" then why don't we simply pack the whole thing in for a better coast guard and a cyber security defence and save ten to fifteen billion a year?

The GTS Katie should not be a lesson that leads to the conclusion that we need to deploy everything by air. The lesson is that Canada's Navy needs an expeditionary sea transport capability with it's own crews that are subject to the CSD. That capability also comes with a need for regular exercises even if only moving 5 CMBG from Quebec City to Halifax by sea for a subsequent road move for an exercise in Gagetown.

Sorry. What we have is not a plan, its an excuse. Lets face it; the CAF is a bureaucracy that continues to set low goals for itself because that is all that it is capable of meeting.

:brickwall:

 

[Dale Denton]

It's very true that we only deploy when Canada chooses to deploy. But how much of a choice is it for our government when we have built a force structure that does not give it a capability to deploy if and when needed? Absolutely none. The CAF is supposed to be the insurance policy the country can rely on in extreme emergencies. Otherwise why spend tens of billions every year on it? If "[t]here is literally no situation outside of North America where Canada has a live or die must send troops geopolitical interest" then why don't we simply pack the whole thing in for a better coast guard and a cyber security defence and save ten to fifteen billion a year?

Sorry. What we have is not a plan, its an excuse. Lets face it; the CAF is a bureaucracy that continues to set low goals for itself because that is all that it is capable of meeting.

:brickwall:

I agree with FJAG completely. CF should be able to provide more varied options for gov't in order to maintain its relevancy as well. The UK has recently fundamentally changed the way the Royal Marines operate, with forward-placed groups and 2 nearly-dedicated Amphib ships to provide a fast response to emergent threats. The thought behind it should be the same (while being executed differently with different assets) for us. If we had a LPD or LHA type, the benefit of having a joint rapid response group to respond to natural disaster (or even conflict) would far outweigh the costs.

You gotta sell the organisation to the gov't of the day as worth the cost. If something happens and a new gov't down the line wants to respond with the CF, but we can only respond with "it would take us 3 weeks to get the equipment to [Caribbean/Pacific] for the disaster, we'd have to lease a commercial ship at exorbitant cost, and make a million C-17 trips" only begs the response "why are we spending $15B on something that can't do what it should?". You'd heavily defund the local fire dept if they strictly responded to house fires and nothing else. The more agile, versatile and specialized a dept is the more important it becomes.

Have HII design a Canadian San Antonio derivative (already being done LPD-29/San Antonio Flight II), build it here after the JSS/AOR. Make a Canadian "2RAR Amphib" and train it with RM, 2RAR, Korps Mariniers, USMC, etc... Turn the CAF into a USMC/RM type expeditionary organisation. Role in the Naval Reserve as small boat drivers and give some stone frigate units a CB-90 to drive that new Amphib/Riverine capability from the LPD/LDH to the beach. Now we can be one of the first to be on the news somewhere doing HADR in a big way.

 

[Halifax Tar]

I agree with FJAG completely. CF should be able to provide more varied options for gov't in order to maintain its relevancy as well. The UK has recently fundamentally changed the way the Royal Marines operate, with forward-placed groups and 2 nearly-dedicated Amphib ships to provide a fast response to emergent threats. The thought behind it should be the same (while being executed differently with different assets) for us. If we had a LPD or LHA type, the benefit of having a joint rapid response group to respond to natural disaster (or even conflict) would far outweigh the costs.

You gotta sell the organisation to the gov't of the day as worth the cost. If something happens and a new gov't down the line wants to respond with the CF, but we can only respond with "it would take us 3 weeks to get the equipment to [Caribbean/Pacific] for the disaster, we'd have to lease a commercial ship at exorbitant cost, and make a million C-17 trips" only begs the response "why are we spending $15B on something that can't do what it should?". You'd heavily defund the local fire dept if they strictly responded to house fires and nothing else. The more agile, versatile and specialized a dept is the more important it becomes.

Have HII design a Canadian San Antonio derivative (already being done LPD-29/San Antonio Flight II), build it here after the JSS/AOR. Make a Canadian "2RAR Amphib" and train it with RM, 2RAR, Korps Mariniers, USMC, etc... Turn the CAF into a USMC/RM type expeditionary organisation. Role in the Naval Reserve as small boat drivers and give some stone frigate units a CB-90 to drive that new Amphib/Riverine capability from the LPD/LDH to the beach. Now we can be one of the first to be on the news somewhere doing HADR in a big way.

Wasnt that one of the goals of uninfication ?

 

[Cloud Cover]

Halifax Tar: the government creates its own options. No explicit instructions have been given to the CAF to really do any of that. And I think the RCN would oppose it as there is no pressing need unless the government creates that too. If BBQAnon invade and take over Toronto Island then perhaps that might rapidly change.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The various branches and cabals within the forces will oppose any change to the status quo. The Van doos have already practiced some amphibious operations from a French Mistral, so our forces can certainly do it. I would happily give up a couple AOP's and one of the planned CSC for two amphibious landing ships which are ice strengthened. This allows them to support northern ops and huge variety of ops around the world. Frankly I am astounded that the Liberals don't understand the political capital they could milk from an extra AOR and a amphibious landing ship. Domestically there are jobs involved. An AOR can support various Allied efforts and exercises without any political risks. A amphip ship has huge "Canada helping the world" potentiel. They are certainly more attractive to their mindset then Fighter jets, subs and CSC.

 

[suffolkowner]

The whole reason it's an NSS (and not individual projects) is that it is a strategic level project intended to result in two shipyards capable of making the combat/non-combat ships respectively though, so instead of a fixed cap for projects the idea was to partner with shipyards, give them enough work that it made sense to modernize, than build in performance expectations when they go through the negotiations for each phase of the contracts that all the projects are divided up into. At the time, there was exactly zero shipyards in Canada with the capabilities and experience to build anything.

That's the structure the three yards bid under, and Davie lost because they were a great facility but a corporate shamble at the time. They've really sorted themselves out since, but they still aren't doing a comparable level of work so it's not fair to compare their output to the NSS yards.

If Davie had to deliver Asterix as a new build under the NSS construct with all the IRBs and other requirements they also would have had to upgrade their shipyard, retool it for ship building, and not have been able to build the superstructure overseas. Also they had set ship performance requirements beforehand (vice all the other projects where the design requirements aren't fixed). Seaspan started the whole thing concurrently designing three new classes of ship while managing the builds on top of the upgrades and gaining experience. That's a big ask for even an established shipyard.

I think Davie is pretty capable and have a great facility, as well as really good PR, but it's really easy for them to sit outside the fence taking aggressive potshots when the other two yards have to coordinate their responses with the GoC. I'll withold judgement until they actually deliver something comparable, but suspect they would have run into a lot more problems if they had won the non-combat package then they ever saw with Asterix, and wouldn't be tooting their own horn for being on time or on budget (because I don't think anyone could have met those initial timelines or budgets with how the whole suite rolled out).

People get really wrapped around individual project performance and keep forgetting that wasn't the point of the NSS. We wanted to have two yards that could build ships, that takes time and means your first number of ships will take longer and cost more than if you got them built somewhere that had experience and an established supply chain. The additional icebreakers and other CCG ships that will get tacked on just weren't identified or planned at the time, otherwise the projects may have been grouped/sequenced differently.

The other big thing that gets forgotten is Canada doesn't know how to put together big projects, set up RFPs, negotiate contract terms etc for ships either. The CPF experience was gone, and there wasn't much in the CCG side either, so we were (are?) an inexperienced customer as well.

Not sure if it means we'll just get a bigger boom before a bust of two or three yards, or if this is a better approach then just running each project as a silo, but I don't think it's reasonable to dump on the projects without taking that NSS goal and context into consideration, or the context of where all the shipyards were in 2011.  :dunno:

Thanks Navy Pete, I don't disagree with much of what you've said but to there has to be an end date to the babysitting/subsidizing of the yards at some point. Right now Seaspan and Irving have 20 yrs booked and now we have added probably a good 10 years for Davie with the icebreakers. I think there were a lot of assumptions by people like Ian Mack about the behaviour of Seaspan and Irving that might have been naive (something he has commented on as well). In the end for this to work there will need to be a continued commitment to ongoing shipbuilding from the government, but for that to happen I think that we are going need the individual projects to be competively tendered at some point. If Seaspan, Irving, Davie and the government aren't capable of that by say 2030, then I would judge the NSS a failure and question its long term survivability no matter how many ships are delivered in the short term.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Had the NSS been invoked some 20 years ago, things would be much different, by the time it got done, both the RCN and CCG were in crisis mode as far as ship failures go and with more rust out looming.

 

[FJAG]

Semi kidding here but if we built a couple of ROROs we could always rent them out when we're not using them and earn some income for the Navy.

;D

 

[Underway]

Everything is a choice until it isn't anymore. There is no "live or die" situation, until there is one.

Point to one. Give me one non-continental live or die geopolitical critical situation for Canada's survival. Our continental security is guaranteed by the US.  Europe could burn, Asia could fall to warlordism again and the worst we would deal with would be a semi crappy economy and a refuge problem. There is nowhere we have to be militarily, but here, on our island continent. We choose to go other places and fight in other people's wars. Even WW2 was a European problem.  We could have pulled a US and stayed out of it until we were pulled in.

We always have the option of staying home.  Whereas most countries don't have that option.  They have to stand on borders or protect trade routes far from home.  And as such unlike the US, the Australians, the French or the British we don't need to have a marine expeditionary capability.  It's a nice to have, not a need to have.  And so the government understands this, and most Canadians have no geopolitics muscle to think about these things.  Because we live in the most secure and most safe place in the world. 

Would I like to have an marine expeditionary force.  Hell yes.  Gives us options and more choices.  But we'll never have one.

 

[YZT580]

I would suggest that the Germans proved that we DO need a navy.  There was enough sub activity in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to certainly justify maintaining a fleet to protect our ability to ship goods out of country and it is definitely better to take the battle into the enemy's waters rather than limit your efforts to defending your own.  There is certainly an argument to be made that if we hadn't gone into the war with Great Britain we wouldn't have had to worry about subs in the Gulf.  However unless we wanted to limit our industry to this continent only, our ships would have needed protection as soon as they left sight of Cape Breton so escort vessels would also have been needed.  Hiding behind the skirts of the US is fine up until the moment that they are too busy to pay attention and at that moment, it is too late to build up our own capacity.  Witness Trudeau's statement that we are as a county incapable of producing our own vaccine.  Therefore we will have to wait in line along with Zambia, Venezuela and Lower Slobovia to receive the necessary doses.  Some of us will therefore die unnecessarily.  Not having a navy means that potentially, in the future, some of us will die unnecessarily.  IMHO

 

[FJAG]

Point to one. Give me one non-continental live or die geopolitical critical situation for Canada's survival. Our continental security is guaranteed by the US.  Europe could burn, Asia could fall to warlordism again and the worst we would deal with would be a semi crappy economy and a refuge problem. There is nowhere we have to be militarily, but here, on our island continent. We choose to go other places and fight in other people's wars. Even WW2 was a European problem.  We could have pulled a US and stayed out of it until we were pulled in.

We always have the option of staying home.  Whereas most countries don't have that option.  They have to stand on borders or protect trade routes far from home.  And as such unlike the US, the Australians, the French or the British we don't need to have a marine expeditionary capability.  It's a nice to have, not a need to have.  And so the government understands this, and most Canadians have no geopolitics muscle to think about these things.  Because we live in the most secure and most safe place in the world. 

Would I like to have an marine expeditionary force.  Hell yes.  Gives us options and more choices.  But we'll never have one.

NATO Article 5 on collective defence says we are automatically involved although the level of such participation is up to us. It's why we went to Afghanistan which had significantly less importance to our national interest than Europe has. Not showing up has consequences as our young friend Trudeau is learning in his recent attempt to capture a seat on the UN Security Council. More importantly are trade arrangements and the like. Article 5 makes aggression in Europe "our" war, not "other peoples".

More importantly is the fact that we want to deter active conflict. I'm a firm believer in the following:

The gold standard of deterrence and assurance is a defensive posture that confronts the adversary with the prospect of operational failure as the likely consequence of aggression - David Ochmaneck

I expect that currently we are a line item far down on the Russian military's opfor order of battle as a Bn Hq and a single rifle company which will not be able to be reinforced, replaced or even have it's battle casualties replaced. We currently provide zero deterrence which is a very, very low defence output for some 20 plus billion dollars per year.

I'm not sure why you say that "unlike the US, the Australians, ... or the British we don't need to have a marine expeditionary capability". All three of those countries, like Canada, are secure behind a watery moat. All three of them could cut themselves off from participating in the world's woes and go their own way as you suggest we do. Further, WW2 was not merely a "Europe" problem. It grew into a Middle East, and pan-Asia problem as well, and--like dominos--effected everyone. WW2 taught America, Australia, the UK and us that events may require us to take the option to be involved offshore and that this requires the capability to get to the fight (The US ended up building three cargo ships every two days to supply it's force).

We've forgotten that lesson, or even worse, we've deliberately taken that options off the table for our Government. We usually cloak our negligence in saying that we just don't have the money for such "esoteric" capabilities. Personally, I think that is rationalization as we seem to be able to afford a national headquarters which contains some 20% of our full-time personnel pushing paper around from cubicle to cubicle. DND has as more people working in Ottawa than it's three full-time mechanized brigades.

Just to be sure we do not misunderstand each other, I'm not advocating for a "marine expeditionary capability" in the manner of a marine corps or an amphibious assault ship capability. That we don't need although it could help us deal with incursions on our coastlines. I'm simply referring to one or two Navy owned and operated RORO transport ship capable of carrying heavy Army equipment and containers and the like to foreign ports both to deploy and sustain a heavy force complemented with a system of joint plans and exercises to ensure that if and when required the system will function well.

The cost for this is relatively low (The capital cost for a commercial RORO capable of lifting a battalion's worth of personnel and vehicles comes in around $100 million - although I'm sure a Canadian shipyard could discount that to $300 million  ;D). The ships could truly be operated by reserve force crews and need only be active for a few months a year. They would, however, be a major force multiplier as it would actually give us the ability to transport and sustain up to three brigades into whatever incident that we want to be or must be involved in. We suddenly become a credible deterrent force.

:cheers:

 

[Underway]

NATO Article 5 on collective defence says we are automatically involved although the level of such participation is up to us. It's why we went to Afghanistan which had significantly less importance to our national interest than Europe has. Not showing up has consequences as our young friend Trudeau is learning in his recent attempt to capture a seat on the UN Security Council. More importantly are trade arrangements and the like. Article 5 makes aggression in Europe "our" war, not "other peoples".

Treaty obligations are not a geopolitical necessity.  It's still not our war.  It's their war, which we as good allies choose to help in. I'm not trying to play semantics, it's a philosophical divergence.

I'm not sure why you say that "unlike the US, the Australians, ... or the British we don't need to have a marine expeditionary capability". All three of those countries, like Canada, are secure behind a watery moat. All three of them could cut themselves off from participating in the world's woes and go their own way as you suggest we do.

All three of those countries have (or have had) national territory far from their home land mass. US with the Philippines, Australia multiple places in the South Pacific and the UK multiple places around the world.  Both Australia and the UK are absolutely dependant on the flow of resources from the ocean.  Without their ability to intervene both near and far to their home islands they would suffer enormously (aka starvation in the UK, economic collapse in Australia). Also Australia has been directly attacked and their territory violated by a northern Asian enemy.  Australia has experienced in their history a direct threat to itself both territorial and against their people.  They need to be able to intervene in their neighbourhood in order to protect Australia.

The US's national security requirements were globe-spanning.  They saw threats to themselves everywhere and thus require an expeditionary capability to keep the threats far from home.  The now that the Cold War inertia is over you're going to see a period of US retrenchment and a return to semi-isolationism.  But until recently the US had strategic interests in freedom of the seas to ensure their own security.  And that requires a water based heavy lift capability.

Canada has no such restrictions or requirements.  North America can, if it had to, could be completely self-sufficient.  And Canada is neither a threat nor in a strategic location (currently... global warming gets a vote here).

Just to be sure we do not misunderstand each other, I'm not advocating for a "marine expeditionary capability" in the manner of a marine corps or an amphibious assault ship capability. That we don't need although it could help us deal with incursions on our coastlines. I'm simply referring to one or two Navy owned and operated RORO transport ship capable of carrying heavy Army equipment and containers and the like to foreign ports both to deploy and sustain a heavy force complemented with a system of joint plans and exercises to ensure that if and when required the system will function well.

The cost for this is relatively low (The capital cost for a commercial RORO capable of lifting a battalion's worth of personnel and vehicles comes in around $100 million - although I'm sure a Canadian shipyard could discount that to $300 million  ;D). The ships could truly be operated by reserve force crews and need only be active for a few months a year. They would, however, be a major force multiplier as it would actually give us the ability to transport and sustain up to three brigades into whatever incident that we want to be or must be involved in. We suddenly become a credible deterrent force.

That's on me.  I used the shortand of marine expeditionary vs air expeditionary so any confusion is born by my choice of words.  I was trying to draw a distinction between air deployable and sea deployable and unintentionally muddied the waters.

My premise was that air deployable is better, more useful domestically and more value for money.  Until Canada extends our interests far from our shores (I'm looking at you potential annex target Turks and Cacos) to a place where we will need to operate independent of allies air deployable is best.

:cheers: