Justin Trudeau hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Kirkhill]

Ah, ok. Yes I agree - the % metric is dumb when NATO doesn’t specify what it’s used for.

We could also get to 2% or more if we just gave everyone a huge pay raise, and do nothing else.

Heck you could sign up the entire welfare community as members of the Reserves and meet the goal.

 

[FJAG]

The point is not about the command structure so much as the budget and the taskings. In Europe countries may or may not include state costs as part of their 2% argument but they certainly include gendarmeries, coast guards, border guards and firefighting. Domestic intelligence services? I believe they count as well?

All I am saying is that nobody, in my opinion, is dedicating 2% of their national economy to fighting foreign wars.

I'm not sure where that leads to anything.

All defence forces are first and foremost to provide for the security of the nation. It's allocation to domestic security of its borders and within the country and expeditionary operations outside the borders are subject to shifting priorities and circumstances.

The reality is that modern military forces can't be conjured out of thin air. They need an existing establishment of both full-rime and part-time resources that are predicted to be necessary for certain possible threats. Its an art rather than a science and almost always include determining what is an acceptable risk and political factors that have nothing whatsoever to do with defence.

NATO has certain standards, guidelines for what is counted towards the 2%. The trick is to ensure that services such as coast guards, gendarmeries etc meet the technical requirements associated with them being counted.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Heck you could sign up the entire welfare community as members of the Reserves and meet the goal.

OMG! Shades of 'National Survival' back in the '60s. (Canadian Army Manual of Training: Survival Operations) There was scheme to have 'survival' units in many cities - based on the existing superstructure of the militia but with volunteers recruited from the ranks of the unemployed.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Hopes and dreams of 2% - (somewhere just north of $42B) - have become suddenly less practical now that the NDP is threatening the confidence agreement unless the LPC join them in ponying up another $10B+ of annual spending for a public pharmacare program. Defence budget is typically in mid-$20Bs right now, so we'd need to come up with about $15B of new or re-defined spending.

 

[GR66]

Hopes and dreams of 2% - (somewhere just north of $42B) - have become suddenly less practical now that the NDP is threatening the confidence agreement unless the LPC join them in ponying up another $10B+ of annual spending for a public pharmacare program. Defence budget is typically in mid-$20Bs right now, so we'd need to come up with about $15B of new or re-defined spending.

Damn....just when we were so close!

 

[Brad Sallows]

Damn....just when we were so close!

We haven't been close since just before election night 2015. A $15B lift was doable then, and then became un-doable when the new government started executing on its deficit spending shopping list.

 

[Good2Golf]

The point is not about the command structure so much as the budget and the taskings. In Europe countries may or may not include state costs as part of their 2% argument but they certainly include gendarmeries, coast guards, border guards and firefighting. Domestic intelligence services? I believe they count as well?

All I am saying is that nobody, in my opinion, is dedicating 2% of their national economy to fighting foreign wars.

And for all those countries, national security and continental security, is first order, NATO security. Canada‘s interest in NATO *are a quarter of the globe away, so there is a commensurate lower factor of care from the citizens of Canada *than there is for nations that are right in the middle of the threat band that the alliance was designed to secure. We put more effort and thought into *NORAD to be honest then we really do NATO, because it’s our backyard, although things are changing with approaches and for peer and semi peer to threatening states or non-state actors’ influence on us (realistically as an approach to and or minor sun-state [effectively] of America.)

*edited for dodgey voice-to-text

 

[dapaterson]

We haven't been close since just before election night 2015. A $15B lift was doable then, and then became un-doable when the new government started executing on its deficit spending shopping list.

We spend a higher percentage of GDP today than we did in 2015.

Disinterest and disingenuous promises cross party lines.

 

[Good2Golf]

The one thing I’ve never heard broken out is how much of US DoD’s 3.5% GDP actually goes to NATO activities. Take away PACOM, SOUTHCOM and AFRICOM activities and most of CENTCOM, and then I’d be willing to bet the US spends less than 2.0% on NATO.

 

[Kirkhill]

And for all those countries, national security and continental security, is first order, NATO security. Canada‘s interest in NATO *are a quarter of the globe away, so there is a commensurate lower factor of care from the citizens of Canada *than there is for nations that are right in the middle of the threat band that the alliance was designed to secure. We put more effort and thought into *NORAD to be honest then we really do NATO, because it’s our backyard, although things are changing with approaches and for peer and semi peer to threatening states or non-state actors’ influence on us (realistically as an approach to and or minor sun-state [effectively] of America.)

*edited for dodgey voice-to-text

The only real "play" for the Canadian Forces is the Canadian Arctic and allying ourselves with the US North Command and the Joint Expeditionary Force countries, especially the Scandinavians to face the Sino-Russian threat from Eurasia.

It is a domestic threat.
It requires domestic resources spent domestically.
It extends from the existing well understood NORAD commitment.

The North German Plain and the Middle East are distractions these days.

We can best assist in maintaining world order by securing our own backyard and controlling access from the Arctic into the Atlantic and the Pacific.




Our primary responsibility to ourselves and our friends and allies is to control the traffic through our sector and cover our arcs.

 

[Good2Golf]

Our primary responsibility to ourselves and our friends and allies is to control the traffic through our sector and cover our arcs.

I think our friend and ally beside our sector knows quite well that we don’t even take our own sector seriously…hence why they have both an existential and conditional back-up plans to look after their own sector’s approaches.

 

[Kirkhill]

I think our friend and ally beside our sector knows quite well that we don’t even take our own sector seriously…hence why they have both an existential and conditional back-up plans to look after their own sector’s approaches.

Understood and agreed.
Don't you enjoy snuggling up to them so they will share their umbrella?

 

[Brad Sallows]

We spend a higher percentage of GDP today than we did in 2015.

Do we? I looked at "budget" and "spent" vs GDP. Higher budget as % GDP in 2015, but lower actual spending. Failure to spend the budget isn't quite the same as being unwilling to spend.

 

[Kirkhill]

Sirius Patrol covers the area in red, between Qaanaaq (Thule) in
North West and Ittoqqortoormiit (Scoresbysund) in East Greenland

In 1950 the Danish government decided to establish a military dog sled patrol in Northeast Greenland. Due to the then cold war situation the existence of this special task force was kept secret. Within the military authorities the patrol simply had the code name Operation Resolute. In 1953 the patrol was made known to the public and was given the name SIRIUS - after the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major.

Today, more than a half a century later, the mission of SIRIUS remains the same, namely to maintain Danish sovereignty along the uninhabited coast from Scoresby Sund in East Greenland to Thule on the west coast. The patrol also exercises military surveillance and civilian police authority within an enormous area called Nationalparken Nord- og Nordøstgrønland (The National Park of North and Northeast Greenland), an area of almost one million square kilometers, larger than France and Great Britain combined.

SIRIUS is unique. It is the only military dog sled patrol in the world. Besides, it operates in one of the most spectacular and extreme places in the world - Northeast Greenland - a place of ultimate beauty as well as climate. The patrol is surprisingly small. At any one time it has never numbered more than a dozen members. Yet the results are impressive. To the present, the patrol and their Greenlander Dogs have traveled more than 750,000 km by sled. That is roughly nineteen times around the Earth!

This Danish solution was contemporaneous with the Canadian government relocating Inuit to Grise Fjord to claim sovereignty.

The assignment is for two years. During that period one has to work outdoors under arctic conditions. One joins a small team consisting of men only. In those days one had contact with one's family through traditional mail perhaps half a dozen times a year, as there are no vacations during one's service in Greenland. There is no native population in the patrol area - absolutely none. The nearest native Greenland settlement is located almost 600 km south of the patrol area.

Before going to Greenland we got a half year of training in such skills as winter combat and survival (training in Norway), medical, radio service, motor technology, meteorology, and much more.

The season for dogsledding in the North and Northeast Greenland coastal regions begins in October and ends in June. During that period the waters of the fjords are ice covered. Around the beginning of November five out of six sled teams leave Daneborg, heading out in different directions. One team remains at the station to run the headquarters. Each sled team consists of two members, eleven Greenlander Dogs and a fully equipped sled weighing 400-500 kg. Depots of provisions are located at hundred-kilometer intervals along the sled routes. The teams return to Daneborg around Christmas time.

At the beginning of February the teams again leave Daneborg. In order to cover the entire area, some teams are transported by plane to different starting locations. At a specific time one dog sled team may be patrolling in Hall Land, just some twenty kilometers from Canada's Ellesmere Island, across the Nares Strait. At the same time - more than 1,500 km away - another team may be traveling in Scoresby Land on the East coast.

On an average day one travels some 25-35 km. However, in difficult terrain that may be reduced to a mere handful of kilometers. In rare cases we covered up to 100 km in a single day. During travel we always skied beside the sled to ease the weight on the dogs. Because one must be in constant motion to maintain body temperature, SIRIUS travel clothing is light. This principle works perfectly, and in the history of SIRIUS there has never been any serious freezing accidents during the regular travel. Only when crossing smooth ice, free of snow cover, one might dress heavily and ride the sled.

Each year, the SIRIUS teams travel a total approximately 18,500 km along the coast of North and Northeast Greenland. During my two years of service, I traveled more than 7,700 km in the 337 days that I was sledding.

During July-October, when there is no snow for sledding, the patrol members are busy with such tasks as taking care of the Daneborg headquarters and taking fresh provisions out to the travel depots.

Journal of the Inuit Sled Dog International

A different perspective on SovPats.

 

[FJAG]

OMG! Shades of 'National Survival' back in the '60s. (Canadian Army Manual of Training: Survival Operations) There was scheme to have 'survival' units in many cities - based on the existing superstructure of the militia but with volunteers recruited from the ranks of the unemployed.

Been there; done that; got the T-shirt.

From a 16 year-old gunner's point of view, it sucked big time.

 

[Kirkhill]

Been there; done that; got the T-shirt.

From a 16 year-old gunner's point of view, it sucked big time.

How do you solve unemployment?

Put everyone in uniform and hand them a rifle or a broom.

Or you keep them in school longer.

 

[FJAG]

How do you solve unemployment?

Put everyone in uniform and hand them a rifle or a broom.

Or you keep them in school longer.

I wouldn't thank you for a broom. A rifle - or a big gun - on the other hand ...

 

[Brad Sallows]

The problem with playing cynical games to redefine what is part of the 2% is that others will be watching and deciding for themselves whether we are making useful commitments or playing cynical games. Canada could end up uninvited to even more parties.

 

[GK .Dundas]

The problem with playing cynical games to redefine what is part of the 2% is that others will be watching and deciding for themselves whether we are making useful commitments or playing cynical games. Canada could end up uninvited to even more parties.

Which quite frankly most Canadian politicians would be delighted if the those invitations would just quietly go away.
The funny or perhaps the sad part this isn't the result of planning on anybodies end.
This is just Canadian political version of business as usual.

 

[McG]

Ah, ok. Yes I agree - the % metric is dumb when NATO doesn’t specify what it’s used for.

Well, NATO does say that 20% of defence spending should go to equipment. So, if you are meeting minimum spending commitments, then 0.4% of GDP should be spent on the acquisition of new kit.