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No disagreement about the integrity part, but as I have tried to illustrate the entire problem can be avoided at minimal cost by reforming the scale of issue and/or switching to a more modern boot design. The only reason I need special boots is that with my orthotics(prescribed by my civvy...

No, a pair of boots bought but not issued would be an ASSET, because it's still in stores and you haven't USED IT UP yet. Cost would imply that there was no further value left in the boot once you bought it, which plainly is not the case. Why don't we assign the pair of unissued boots a...

Already bought but as yet unissued, thus not accounted as cost, right? And since apparently there are a healthy number of troops who seem to like the silly things, the MK3 boots can still be issued and thus retain their full value. 

Look folks, I understand that our recent history has put us all in an austerity mindset but we ARE a first world army, and in a first world army the most valuable assets are the trained, experienced soldiers themselves. The army has spent $100k just turning me into a one hook pte, is it really...

Or we could just issue everyone better boots from the get go, at a nominal extra cost, or maybe just issue one pair of boots and then give the member an allowance for the second pair of "field" boots. All the man/hours saved on the MIR/Clothing busywork would more than pay for it, and I wouldn't...

You.....might want to think that one through again....... ???

If only all Canadians were smart like you!  :D

Yes, just like they did in Grade 6.

As an aside, this is exactly how the Israelis train soldiers. Entire companies rotate through training and deployment cycles together, with the NCOs and officers training the troops they eventually lead at the front. Guys basically work with the same company from basic to leadership and all the...

Well, how do they say, six of one and half dozen of the other? Perhpas I could add that the Joe public setiment in China right now ranges from "We can do Taiwan easily", to "We can do Taiwan but they'd give as good as they'd take", and that only the threat of US intervention currently limits...

What exactly am I saying that so offends you? I asked as politely as I could for clarification of the above statement because I've never encountered such a view in any of my readings, either Western or Chinese. For example, what/who is the source of the quote? If there is a "long history", then...

As I understand it is discredited in most scholarly circles, although I have not yet read it. Of course not. Took them the better half of a century to realize it though. See why I called it a pseudo-science? Cite? I grant you that the Japanese conquests during WW2 did have a racial element...

No it isn't. Cultural chauvunism is one thing, but the pseudo-science of scientific racism as a cornerstone and rationale of imperialist ideology is purely a Western European/American phenomenon arising out of a need to exlain in rational terms the holocaust that was unleashed upon the Native...

I meant in terms of purely military factors. Of course other socio-economic factors did play a role but there is hardly a military remedy for those. Besides, I think modern westerners have difficulty understanding how much the economic issues were a direct result of defeat in the Opium wars. For...

See TCBF's point about the decision to not maintain a seafaring capability. The Chinese of the Ming dynasty made a decision to b forego seaborne expansion "over the horizon", as it were. Chinese culture even before that had already been insular, and military thinking shifted from naval power to...

Examine the context of the Taiping rebellion more closely. The defeat of the Qing in the two Opium wars, their inability to check the expansion of western commercial interests, the bankrupcy of the Imperial administration due  to indemnities and looting in the aftermath of the peace treaties...

I didn't say it was anyone's fault, but as it turns out the USA spent a few decades trying to "contain" China, and they didn't like it. I meant Desert Storm, AKA GW1, not GW2, although the lesson is the same: A green, inexperienced but well equipped and technically competent western army...

The issue is far more complex than that, and your original statement that an internet query would result in imprisonment or death is still inaccurate. The people mentioned in your links were imprisoned for dissemination of subersive information, not seeking it. Look, you're going off on a...

You don't think that the US, with its historical attitude towards China, counts as an external threat? The large American armies and navies, and those of American satellite states like the Philippines and Taiwan surrounding China's borders seem to indicate otherwise. Perhaps American intentions...

Compared to almost 5 million under arms in 1985 with more cuts still on the way? Of course, both you and I know that these numbers are meaningless in the context of modern warfare, especially since the nature of socialist militaries like Chinas would mean that a large percentage of the...