My .02
First off, I‘m not in the army (working on it. First it was my medical, now it‘s my background check, but I‘m not going to start about that), I‘m not a professional anything yet. Yes I‘m still in university, no, I‘d like to think I‘m not an arrogant little puke (although I may very well be). That said, these are just opinions (some more informed than others) and ideas, usually brought on by animated conversation over the beer table with my anarchist, vegan, union building friend. He is the exact opposite of me
Secondly I‘d like to reply to Fred a bit.
>>Only reason we‘d might want to consider nuc boats is if there‘s a threat coming from the Arctic Ocean. With the Russian navy a mere shadow of its former self, the expenditure isn‘t worth it.
The way I see it, it‘s not a matter of whether the threat is present at the moment or not. What really matters here is the question of sovereignty. Right now, Canada make claim to arctic territories up to the pole as Canadian land, however without an ability to patrol our great white north our claims are mocked but American and Russian exercises that are conducted in Canadian territory without Canadian permission. It‘s true that there‘s no impending doom coming out of the artic, but it‘s important that we be able to patrol our own backyard. Now I‘m not saying that we need a dozen LA class subs, for what we need them for, the Victoria‘s do a fine job, but we should have one or two (or as many as it would take) to have a presence in the north, something we‘re not even capable of right now whatever that under-ice presence might be.
That‘s about all I had to say about that.
Without getting into wishful thinking about aircraft carriers and heavy armor. I think it‘s important to look at the role of future combat, too me it looks like the days of regiments squaring off are largely gone, and we‘re moving towards smaller squad based combat, based on speed and accuracy. Although I might be wrong, wouldn‘t this make things like heavy armor more a liability more that anything else. Also the heavier we make ourselves the harder it will be to generate the air-lift capacity we need to function. It would make more sense, in my mind, to move towards lighter armor, IE: the americans and they‘re switch to Stryker vehicles.
A topic that always comes up is the question of funding. I realize that we can‘t spend as much in real terms as the americans, but it‘s the per capita spending that matters, and reveals a glaring canadian deficiency. If we look at NATO as a whole, the average defence spending per capita is 589 USD the average in the G-7 is 508 USD. Canada spends 265$.
That figure seems greatly out of proportion to me. It‘s easy to look at the US and say that they have no social safety net and that that‘s how they can afford it, but it‘s alot harder to say that of France, Germany, Italy (actually not so sure about there social net...anyone?) but any of the european countries have both comprehensive safety nets for the populace and a well funded military. Why not Canada?
This is when we get into the argument over public opinion, and the fact that some, if not most
Canadians, don‘t even think we need a military. As much as I‘d like to go and beat some sense into them with a sack full of history and political science books, I don‘t think I could swing that sack as many times as I‘d have to to get people to understand. I have no idea how to change the Canadian perspective on the military, maybe someone does?
Another interesting fact, if we look at Canada‘s international role is Canada‘s peacekeeper status. There is no denying it, our days of peacekeeping limelight following the first missions the Pearson government involved us in are over. In the heyday of peacekeeping we gave the world 10% of it‘s peacekeeping forces, now countries such as Nepal supply almost 4 times the peacekeepers we do (263 CAN vs 914 NEP) we won‘t even get into Bangladesh‘s 4000+ troops. Now bear in mind that these are UN figures, not NATO. I‘m not counting the 1269 troops in Bosnia, nor the others on NATO deployment, but in no way trying to dimish their role.
There are fundamental flaws in the UN charter which explain the switch from UN to NATO peacekeeping. The same flaws that allow it to sit idly by during atocities in Rwanda and Somalia. And in Iraq and Bosnia. Timor and Liberia. Palestine and Israel. And many other regimes that deserve military attention from the international community. That‘s why the Amercan‘s decided to to move into Iraq.
Although I‘m sure they had their own self-serving *cough*oil*cough* reasons, the fact remains that something had to be done about Iraq, that should have been done 10 years ago, and done by the UN. As it stands right now, the UN is in danger of becoming another League of Nations......but I‘m getting off topic here.
Another large problem I see with the CF is personel, be it recruitment, training or retention, the CF has some serious problems with personel.
The biggest visible problem I can identify, is that the CF has no drawing power to the average public. If the military is to draw people, it needs to think like a business. Serving in the army isn‘t like anyother job. Even the desk jockey could end up in the field one day (god-forbid!) there has to be a recognition of the special status our armed forces serve. Substandard housing, and mediocre pay compared to the private sector is not the way to go.
Personally I think that CF members should get above industry average for their trade. They should be able to get below market rate housing, both on and off base (already mentioned by someone earlier).
The recruitment process leaves a bit to be desired. Someone who comes off the street is looking at 4-6 months for enrolment, that just doesn‘t make sense. Although I understand the argument that if they want it, they‘ll wait, it‘s still demoralizing to be stonewalled by red tape (maybe I‘m just bitter). It‘s even more ridiculous that you have to wait 6-12 months for your VFS. That means that I‘m going to be starting my switch from Res. to Reg. With a year left in school.
There needs to be an incentive for people to join the military, and to stay in the military. One the ideas I came up with was an income tax break from CF personel, using a graduated scale over the years until you hit a certain plateau. Maybe even a complete income tax dispensation after X years of service. The tax base of the military isn‘t enough to affect GC revenue that much.
They need a complete financial restructuring. I‘m double majoring, and one of my majors is economics, and some of the things the CF do are just plain stupid. Look at Fort St.Jean. They sell the base to a private sector firm that rents it out to a whole bunch of things, then the CF just rents space from the fort so they can do courses? The smart thing to do is to rent the spaces out themselves.
Anywho, I‘ll stop there, what was originally going to be a quick post, turned into a marathon, but who knows, maybe I raised a good point or two.
Slainthe Mhath!