Justin Trudeau hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[FSTO]

As if getting rid of drill would help with all that.

All we need, of course, is a damned good little war

And uniforms...............

PIRATE RIG FOR ALL! That'll bring em in!

 

[Brad Sallows]

I doubt armed forces which are just another kind of corporation is the correct path.

 

[MilEME09]

I doubt armed forces which are just another kind of corporation is the correct path.

Atleast not in its current form

 

[GR66]

I doubt armed forces which are just another kind of corporation is the correct path.

Agreed. Sounds more like a recipe for an armed bureaucracy than a warfighting military.

While we don't necessarily need a "damned good little war" as @daftandbarmy suggests, we certainly should be preparing and organizing as if we were going to have to fight one.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Agreed. Sounds more like a recipe for an armed bureaucracy than a warfighting military.

While we don't necessarily need a "damned good little war" as @daftandbarmy suggests, we certainly should be preparing and organizing as if we were going to have to fight one.

And everyone I've ever worked with below, roughly, the rank of Major/MWO is wholly in agreement with you.

Above that level? Experiences differ greatly...

 

[CBH99]

As if getting rid of drill would help with all that.

All we need, of course, is a damned good little war

You aren’t wrong.

When I was doing recruiting back in 2008-2009 timeframe, we had a line out the door. Literally.

If I recall correctly, during a town hall style meeting with our 41CBG senior guys, the CAF had a list of close to 5000 people waiting to be enrolled…compare today’s recruiting picture with that, and bleak isn’t even the right word.

Why did people want to join up so badly back then, compared to now? Just like you said D&B, we had a little war on our hands

People want a sense of purpose, and they want to contribute to something noble and worthwhile.

When we had “legions of murdering scumbags pouring acid on little girls & decapitating villagers who were seen talking with infidels” - people who didn’t agree with that showed up wanting to join the fight.

Now? Can you have so many operations going on simultaneously, yet none of them garner more than a mention in the evening news.


The next little while we find ourselves in will result in something similar I imagine.

This time we can’t allow all of the great leaders and potential leaders to leave once the war is over, like we did last time.

 

[Kirkhill]

Agreed. Sounds more like a recipe for an armed bureaucracy than a warfighting military.

And why nobody ever hired a management consultant to fix the military....




Department of Militia and Defence -1906
Department of National Defence - 1922
War Deparment becomes the Department of Defense - 1949
War Office becomes Ministry of Defence - 1964

Canada was ahead of the curve in recognizing that War was a hard sell. Defence is what the citizenry wanted. The citizenry don't want to go to war and be heroes. They want to drink their beer in peace.

They put up umbrellas to keep the sun and the rain off. Their ideal defence is an umbrella to keep the bullets off. A full spectrum Nav Canada would probably meet much of Canada's National Defence expectations.

Nav Canada is a privately run, not-for-profit corporation that owns and operates Canada's civil air navigation system. It was established in accordance with the Civil Air Navigation Services

 

[daftandbarmy]

And why nobody ever hired a management consultant to fix the military....

Kennedy did...

 

[Kirkhill]

See you and raise you....

Kennedy did...

View attachment 75256

The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development")[7] is an American nonprofit global policy think tank[1] created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed by the U.S. government and private endowment,[6] corporations,[8] universities[8] and private individuals.[8]

RAND Corporation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Bell Labs Quality Assurance Department gave the world and the United States such statisticians as Walter A. Shewhart, W. Edwards Deming, Harold F. Dodge, George D. Edwards, Harry Romig, R. L. Jones, Paul Olmstead, E.G.D. Paterson, and Mary N. Torrey. During World War II, Emergency Technical Committee – Quality Control, drawn mainly from Bell Labs' statisticians, was instrumental in advancing Army and Navy ammunition acceptance and material sampling procedures.

Bell Labs - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[CBH99]

You aren’t wrong.

When I was doing recruiting back in 2008-2009 timeframe, we had a line out the door. Literally.

If I recall correctly, during a town hall style meeting with our 41CBG senior guys, the CAF had a list of close to 5000 people waiting to be enrolled…compare today’s recruiting picture with that, and bleak isn’t even the right word.

Why did people want to join up so badly back then, compared to now? Just like you said D&B, we had a little war on our hands

People want a sense of purpose, and they want to contribute to something noble and worthwhile.

When we had “legions of murdering scumbags pouring acid on little girls & decapitating villagers who were seen talking with infidels” - people who didn’t agree with that showed up wanting to join the fight.

Now? How can we have so many operations going on simultaneously, yet none of them garner more than a mention in the evening news?


The next little war we find ourselves in will result in something similar I imagine. Give people an opportunity to fight for something noble, to protect people who need protecting, and be heroes - they’ll come.

This time we can’t allow all of the great leaders and potential leaders the war uncovers to leave once the war is over, like we did last time.

Had to fix some errors that were bugging me, sorry

 

[dimsum]

Now? Can you have so many operations going on simultaneously, yet none of them garner more than a mention in the evening news.

Because none of them are big (for us) "shooting wars". OP REASSURANCE in Europe has lots of people, but they're not directly engaging anyone so it's a bit tough to write headlines. OP UNIFIER is a training mission for the right reasons, but it's hard to make "train others" sound sexy or interesting enough for continued coverage.

OP NEON, etc aren't really big enough to hit front page news except when they trudge out the article (again) about dangerous intercepts on Auroras or the PRC govt being pissy about our Frigates sailing by their waters.

The next little while we find ourselves in will result in something similar I imagine.

Yup. And I would bet that a bunch of the people who recently VR and swore never to return to the CAF (as I read on CAF Reddit) will beg to re-join.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Watching this video and thinking "This could so be done here as well"

 

[Kirkhill]

Finland's Prime Minister in Australia - a world of hurt without the USA.

Sanna Marin: Europe is not strong enough to stand against Russia alone

Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said Putin's attack on Ukraine has exposed European weaknesses and the strategic mistakes it made regarding Russia.

yle.fi

 

[CBH99]

Because none of them are big (for us) "shooting wars". OP REASSURANCE in Europe has lots of people, but they're not directly engaging anyone so it's a bit tough to write headlines. OP UNIFIER is a training mission for the right reasons, but it's hard to make "train others" sound sexy or interesting enough for continued coverage.

OP NEON, etc aren't really big enough to hit front page news except when they trudge out the article (again) about dangerous intercepts on Auroras or the PRC govt being pissy about our Frigates sailing by their waters.


Yup. And I would bet that a bunch of the people who recently VR and swore never to return to the CAF (as I read on CAF Reddit) will beg to re-join.

The British have really upped their production quality in both Forces News, as well as the Royal Marine Commandos.

CANSOFCOM did a FANTASTIC job with their new recruiting video for CJIRU. Top notch.

If you took that level of production quality, and applied it to some short blurbs about CF-18’s ‘Protecting Romanian Skies’ or our eFP in Latvia being the ‘pointy end of the stick to make sure the war doesn’t spread’ - you could probably have some pretty cool, recruitment friendly videos


But agreed. A real conflict & given the chance to ‘be heroes’ of sorts is a huge attractor.

(I say ‘be heroes’ because I think we’ve all had/have a hero complex of some sort, hence being attracted to the kind of work that we are)

 

[GK .Dundas]

Some years back I saw some posters for the Singaporean Army. Showed as I recall a young soldier's face streaked with sweat and mud . He has some in his outstretched hand. Caption reads " It's not just dirt, it's soil. Our soil !"
Simple and powerful.

 

[rmc_wannabe]

Some years back I saw some posters for the Singaporean Army. Showed as I recall a young soldier's face streaked with sweat and mud . He has some in his outstretched hand. Caption reads " It's not just dirt, it's soil. Our soil !"
Simple and powerful.

But that would run counter to the post-nationalist brand of Canada the Liberals have been pushing over the past 7 years.

 

[Czech_pivo]

Watching this video and thinking "This could so be done here as well"

I'm sure there are of a couple of operations in the Windsor, ON area that would be well suited for something like this with some re-tooling and cross-training.

 

[quadrapiper]

But that would run counter to the post-nationalist brand of Canada the Liberals have been pushing over the past 7 years.

It's also harder to sell that particular sort of we will keep what is ours as a credible campaign with our neighbours: the US is sufficiently large that, even if they got land-grabby rather than just buying whatever they wanted, even the most enthusiastically equipped and recruited, well-trained and properly organized CAF would have issues keeping them out, and nobody else is really positioned to threaten Canadian territory militarily. Singapore's in a much rougher borough.

 

[dimsum]

But that would run counter to the post-nationalist brand of Canada the Liberals have been pushing over the past 7 years.

Also, the Singaporeans aren't really an "expeditionary" force. Can't really use "our soil" when we have troops around the world.

Much easier to use that angle when your homeland has been invaded and occupied within the past century.

 

[MilEME09]

Of course it will take two years...... no wonder we have issues

Military received 2,400 applications from permanent residents in November

The Canadian Armed Forces says it has received hundreds of applications from permanent residents interested in joining the military, but getting those prospective recruits into uniform could take up to two years.

www.ctvnews.ca