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The Philippines and China probably had a bigger role. Once the US decided to become an imperial power in Asia, they needed to have an expeditionary army to enforce their claim.

The Chinese seem to believe that they can throw up a ring of steel (in the form of an anti-access/area denial bubble), seize and annex Taiwan, and then declare peace, with the red flag flying over Taipei and the ROC leadership already shipped off to the re-education camps. The Americans believe...

The C5 didn’t entitely disappear in the Reg Force, it still stayed around in niche roles. In Canada-based Armoured units it was the coax machine gun in the Cougar AVGP — I think that switching out that coax from C5 to C6 in Cougar didn’t happen until the Bosnia days. Canadian Leopard 1s were...

But wasn’t riding in trucks only in the 4CIBG days? I think the redesignation to 4CMBG went hand-in-hand with the acquisition of the APCs.

Well, the alternative to nuclear is the even more evil diesel fuel — and Canada, unlike Australia, already has a domestic nuclear power industry and wouldn’t be starting entirely from scratch. Nuclear power is the future — it’s a pity not everyone sees it that way.

I think it’s a perfectly fine thing to have separate standards between the CAF and Defence civil servants. Civilian employees have to meet direction imposed by the Clerk of the Privy Council, and to be compatible with the wider civil service, while members of the CAF report to the CDS. Besides...

Well, there was that RAF Phantom pilot that shot down a RAF Jaguar on exercise in Germany in 1982 because they brought live Sidewinders on a training event. The Jaguar pilot successfully ejected.

The 3rd Mechanized Commando — although slightly ridiculous in execution — was a well-intentioned attempt to prioritize the needs of the army (one M113-equipped mechanized infantry battalion in Baden-Soellingen) over the wants of the regimental system (It should be RCR! It should be PPCLI!) What...

For the first rotation to Korea, absolutely, with experience in the 1939-1945 unpleasantness. But the first West Germany rotation was mostly without such experience. I do wonder if we could do a Special Force style rotation to Latvia right now. All Pte positions in the brigade are enrolled on...

The initial deployment of 27 Brigade to West Germany is an interesting story. The announcement of the deployment was made in May 1951, and the main body started sailing to Europe in November of the same year. More than half the Brigade was recruited off the street with no prior military...

The CAF was directed to re-establish the Personnel Administration Branch in the Strong Secure Engaged defence policy, in 2017. We haven’t exactly been quick about putting the old pillars of knowledge back on berets.

What I’d like to know is how these short term RCN enrolees are going to be rushed through the security clearance backlog. As noted in post #3916, “All trades onboard ship need higher than reliable.” And as we have a backlog in the clearance system, won’t large numbers of short-term hires just...

Promotion boards: I don’t like how he used to constantly bully the students and potential recruits, but I do like that he was posted to both a school and a recruiting centre.

Hey, I don’t have a degree in adult education - but if it works, it works! Who am I to judge?

Teaching functional French to everyone would take 4 months per member, based on the proven and well-established model of the French Foreign Legion. It could be done. But we’d have to collectively take that training deadly seriously, which we don’t.

The argument for a degreed officer corps is a a separate issue from the value-for-money of ROTP. 80% of British Officer Cadets report to Sandhurst having already completed a Bachelor’s degree — if we wanted to, couldn‘t Canada similarly delete/downsize ROTP and increase DEO? Would this require...

One argument that is trotted out is that reserves are cheaper than regulars — but how much cheaper? I’d like to see the math on that — certainly maintaining heritage buildings as glorified platoon houses to host 40 odd effectives has to be expensive, but I wonder what the actual numbers are.

The 1500 pers mission lead was probably envisioned by whoever wrote the policy as a Haiti/Rwanda type deployment, with a Canadian 1 or 2 star HQ, a light or medium QRF, and the remainder of the force bulked out by the usual semi-random assortment of troop contributing nations. Exactly the sort...

The availability of positions for one thing — the US Navy, Coast Guard and Air Force were all-volunteer throughout the Vietnam era, and could take their pick of suitable candidates.