ltmaverick25 said:
Have you read "Who's War Is It" by Jack Granatstein?
If not take a look at it. It was written a few years ago and does exactly what your asking for. Some may view his forecasts as far fetched, but they are realistic threats that we need to be ready for. Granatstein has devoted the 2nd half of his career to getting the message out. The problem is, very few are listening or are interested in what he has to say.
Granatstein is not just some pundit or think tank analyst. He is Canada's foremost Canadian military historian. And within the academic world, Granatstein is our best friend!
Sadly,
I guess, historians and polemicists – and sometimes it’s hard to figure out just where Dr. Granatstein fits in that spectrum – do not set public policy; they rarely even “inform” it. Even more sadly, the people who do set public policy (politicians, themselves; political
insiders and
activists and
operators; senior civil servants; opinion
makers (
some journalists/commentators); and opinion
leaders (a diverse group of influential (usually rich) people) don’t read much history.
There is NO credible, immediate, comprehensible threat to Canada and, consequently, there is no way that Canadians – whose opinions are “informed” by the opinion makers and opinion leaders, are going to tell* the politicians and in the
insiders and so on that they want more defence spending.
The “enemy” is an nebulous cloud of rag tag “movements” that would dearly love to toss a few bombs are way but, even on their best days, have very limited potential for doing real damage.
There are a couple of “nut case” countries out there: North Korea, for example, that pose real, serious dangers to some countries. Israel may have to deal with Iran. The USA may decide to blunder into that quagmire. There is no threat to Canada there, no reason to spend more on defence. North Korea might frighten Japan and South Korea but China is unlikely to sit idly by while its 3rd and 4th largest markets† are attacked by a band of starving lunatics. There are practical limits to China’s
non-intervention policy. Again, no threat to Canada, no need to increase defence spending. Pakistan is a problem – a big one. But, largely, it is India’s problem – and maybe, partially, China’s too. It is a
regional problem and the regional powers will have to lead the way in solving it.
Africa is a looming problem and
I believe it will suck all of the American led West into a long, dirty, bloody war – but very few people are talking about Africa, yet, so the opinion makers and opinion leaders are not, yet, seized with the issue. When they are it will be too late to do things right but they will want Canada, and specifically DND and the CF, to go there and
do something. But since the opinion makers and leaders will wait until it’s too late before they “inform” the public we Canadians will, once again, wait so long to do things right (increase defence spending, build up the CF) we will end up doing the right thing (combat operations in Africa) in an equivocal, erratic and expensive manner.
I’m with Michael O’Leary on this one.
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* And politicians do listen; even more, they ask. All the major parties poll assiduously and they do ask about foreign policy – albeit not as often as I might wish – and they regularly ask about spending priorities. Defence spending almost always comes at or near the bottom of most lists – and the questions are
not weighted to tell politicians what they want to hear (the political
operators are too smart for that) – down with symphony orchestras and ballet companies. Canadians may buy a few red T-shirts and a few of them may wave a few forlorn flags when the hearses pass by, on their way to the Toronto coroner’s office, but the overwhelming majority of them do not care about national defence and they do not want their taxes spent on it.
† See http://www.uschina.org/statistics/tradetable.html Table 8
