Canada needs to take charge of own interests
The StarPhoenix
04 May 2009
Fortunately for Canada, almost all its major allies are digging deeply into their treasuries and rubbing raw their sensitivities trying to breathe new life into their defence budgets and strategies.
That's a good thing because it apparently so offends the sensibilities of Canadians to discuss military matters, even as our soldiers are fighting a war half way around the world, that we'd rather our allies took over the difficult task of protecting our interests.
From Australia to Britain to the United States, all have recently begun the difficult process of laying out individual and collective defence strategies, and warned their citizens about the tens of billions of dollars (or in the case of the U.S., hundreds of billions) these new strategies will cost.
The latest was a white paper released on the weekend by Australia's Labour government to position that country as the most formidable non-nuclear military power in the world. Toward that end the Australians will spend some $87 billion to buy new ships, submarines, fighter jets, and surveillance and armoured vehicles.
The Australians also are stepping up their military strategy to combat cyber attacks aimed at its information technology.
The government in Canberra makes it clear the goal is to counter what it sees as a potential threat from China's unprecedented military buildup. It also believes the Pacific could be home to a clash of world powers, requiring Australia to defend its own interests.
To do this the country will build 12 new generation submarines to double its current force, eight new frigates, add more submarine-detection capability and more modern helicopters, a new sealift ship, heavy landing craft, cruise missiles and 100 ultramodern F-35 "Lightning" jet fighters.
But what's most striking about Australia's proposal is that it runs counter to the U.S. recommendation to gear up for non-state aggression and its insistence that Australia should not and cannot depend on anyone else to protect its interests should push come to shove, particularly off its north shore.
"We do assume that, except in the case of a nuclear attack, Australia has to provide for its own local defence needs without relying on the combat forces of other countries," says the document.
Meanwhile, the much-embattled British Prime Minister Gordon Brown also recently released a plan to update his country's military, including massively boosting its nuclear and Trident submarine capacity and expanding the Royal Air Force with a large number of Eurofighter jets.
The United States, in spite of its imminent withdrawal from Iraq and a massive budget deficit it has amassed in trying to fight two wars while cutting taxes and ignoring balance of trade deficits, proposes to spend half a trillion dollars to modernize what already is the world's most powerful military regime.
According to a paper written by Defence Secretary Robert Gates and published in the Foreign Affairs journal, America needs a new strategy to prepare to fight increasing non-conventional conflicts, such as in Afghanistan.
Although our soldiers have fought valiantly on the most dangerous terrain in Afghanistan, seven years after Canada committed to the fight, our military still can't get 1,000 fighters at a time outside its fortified compound.
Canada fully understands the vulnerability of its Arctic waterways. Yet, although the government has promised to defend the North, compared to what other nations are doing, this country isn't even in the game.
Canada may have a plan for the North -- last month the NDP found reference to a Department of National Defence project code-named Polar Breeze that apparently went 30 per cent above its original $134-million budget -- but DND officials initially denied its very existence.
"No such project exists in DND ... called Polar Breeze project or anything close to that," spokeswoman Capt. Isabelle Riché told The Globe and Mail, before the military's manager of pubic affairs adjusted the message to: "It's unfortunate the name Polar Breeze appears in any public documents, because it wasn't supposed to."
Canada not only has come in conflict with our allies of late for catching and releasing pirates near Somalia, but its necessary strategy of chasing the Taliban in the south of Afghanistan, only to allow their return, is also seen increasingly as counterproductive.
Canada should know from comments such as those by U.S. Senator John McCain and Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano that our failure to look after ourselves and our interests is wearing awfully thin on our allies.
It's time we began the debate on trying to remain at least as self-reliant and strong as Australia.
