Recent content by Ostrozac

Pulling tanks out of Latvia I could live with, as they may not be supportable in the long term, but rotational infantry can’t be easily tied to a single brigade, or a single regiment. It risks burning out one part of the army while the rest is underemployed. Plus, specific to 5 brigade, 80% of...

US international borders can be changed by treaty — negotiated by the State Department, signed by the President, final approval by the Senate. This has actually happened, in 1977 the US and Mexico swapped some islands in the Rio Grande. In the US the county and state level seem to have no...

If we can staff them, we’re golden. Good to go for a generation. If we can’t, we’ve just wasted billions, and it’s going to be extremely challenging to get buy-in for future equipment with questions around whether there’s anyone who will be around to use them. I fear we’re drifting towards...

There’s hiring, then there’s hiring. It won’t help DND much if we get a sudden intake of a bunch of laterals from random departments whose positions got just deleted — experts in passport procurement won’t help. Bonus points if people come in to DND to retain their salary then suddenly claim to...

The USAF/RAF model of a security force formed completely within the RCAF is probably what is being envisioned, as it is compatible with the model used by the RCAF’s two closest partners, but an alternate model where security is provided by personnel drawn from the Army might also be doable. This...

That wasn’t good enough for nukes, and it won’t be good enough for 5th generation fighters. A proper security force isn’t optional — and everyone’s known this for a while. We were never going to be able to secure the world’s 3rd largest F-35 fleet with a padlock.

This idea keeps getting kicked around, notable was General Rick Hillier’s directive in January 2006 that we were to start emphasizing fitness. (How did the last 19 years go for our collective fitness? Do we even care enough to keep track?)...

Agreed. We might simply be splitting hairs on the definition of security. The official role of the USAF 425th Munitions Maintenance Squadron dets in Canada was “Custodial and Maintenance functions for US material in Canada” and to my mind custody doesn’t include security. There were no USAF...

At least 5 bases had nuclear weapons storage at the peak of the program — the Voodoo squadrons in Comox, Chatham and Bagotville and the Bomarc missile sites in North Bay and Mont Tremblant. Plus the sites in Germany, and possibly even more that I’ve missed. I own Sean Maloney’s book on the...

It’s also interesting to me that the prohibition on collective bargaining/unions for the CAF is held within QR&O and is not written into the National Defence Act, while the previous prohibition on unions for the RCMP was established in law (the Public Service Labour Relations Act). Policy tends...

The Winchester 30-30 lever action is one of the most popular deer hunting rifles in history — and it is usually found with a 7 round tubular magazine. Cracking down on 30-30’s, pump shotguns and sporterized Lee-Enfields (the “Fudd guns”) just might be a ban too far, politically.

Do we even do CAFSAC anymore? I thought that was completely eliminated a few years ago.

I have a plan for that marchpast. The marchpast for Maritime Forces Arctic (universally to be known as MARCTIC) will be Northwest Passage, by Stan Rogers. It won’t be in the public domain until 2053, but it might take that long to actually establish the formation. As an interim solution, pay...

I note with interest the contrast from when the Canadian Army changed its march past, in 2013, from “Celer Paratus Callidus” to “The Great Little Army”. This was the opposite sort of change from the Navy’s though, exchanging a distinctly Canadian march with a linguistically-neutral Latin name...

That’s a real risk of the RCN exceeding their authority on rank designations — that by the time the new “pirate ranks” make it to cabinet, it’s a cabinet formed by another party that makes the decision not to amend the KR&O — forcing the RCN to backtrack and sheepishly try to explain years of...