Canada moves to 2% GDP end of FY25/26 - PMMC

[daftandbarmy]

One country, two armies

Canadian Army overhaul looms as DND finalizes mobilization plans​

Army commander warns current force structure isn't fit for rising threats​

The military's operations command is currently drawing up an "all arms defence of Canada" plan which will lead to a major reorganization of the army this fall, says the country's top army commander.

Lt.-Gen. Mike Wright, speaking at a land forces conference at the University of Calgary on Thursday, said the army's existing four-division structure, which is largely administrative, is being torn down and replaced.

"The army we have is not the army we need," Wright said.

"That is not a critique of our people. It's a sober assessment of the strategic environment — one that led us to lay out a plan of action."

The new system will make it easier for the army to not only defend Canadian soil, but also deploy overseas and mobilize perhaps hundreds of thousands of volunteers in the event of a major crisis.

Wright did not speak to precisely what will be in the "defence of Canada" plan since it is being written outside of the army with input from the other services.

What he did say was that the army will be reorganized into three divisions — one of which will be dedicated specifically to the defence of Canada, notably the Arctic.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/army-canada-mobilization-soldiers-9.7145446?cmp=newsletter_Morning%20Headlines%20from%20CBC%20News_1613_2142677

 

[GR66]

Defence is a poor economic driver; rather more, it functions as an economic consumer. It looks like an economic driver to the benefit of the people who supply it, and to people who lack imagination to see what has been given up in order to pay for it. (Often those two sets overlap.) Anything which is mostly consumption can look like a driver from the point of view of the suppliers. Defence represents mobilization/conscription of resources to particular ends. It is what is "seen".

Seen and unseen. The entire defence industry is basically in the position of broken window replacers. Over and over again we replace things, with only very occasional spin-off benefits.

Defence is necessary, and people should properly understand that it is fundamentally a cost. Benefits lie in deterring conflict, or (sometimes) settling conflict while stakes are small, and in providing international security which does reduce and distribute some transaction costs (obvious example: counter-piracy). Defence does not really enhance productivity or economic development at scale and broadly across industry and commerce the way conventional infrastructure does.

Canada is embarked on an experiment to borrow a lot of money to sink into things that are all being touted as "investment". Some should properly be sold to the public as "necessary costs". Defence is at the top of the list of necessary functions of a government and therefore I approve of most of the improvements, but I deplore that more of it is not paid for with either increased revenues or reductions in spending elsewhere.

In general I agree with your statement but as your 3rd paragraph points out a portion of those expenses can be considered investments in capabilities that insure against greater future costs (be it preventing piracy, deterring against a major conflict or limiting the impact of natural disasters such as floods and fires).

The one exception I'd make to the general premise that military spending is a necessary cost rather than an investment is the current interest in dual use infrastructure expansion in the Arctic. This spending definitely has the potential to unlock some significant economic growth in the domestic economy and impact our balance of trade. There is also the potential that some of the move toward domestic acquisition of military equipment could spill over into making industrial partners that produce dual-use technologies more competitive internationally due to the boost in capacity driven by domestic military sales and economies of scale.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Harper did more than the minimum and, in fairness, so had Martin. The villains in this game were Chretien and Trudeau.

There were other bigger factors in play. Martin created, and Harper retained and extended, the Health Care Accord by which health care funding (ie. transfers to provinces) was to increase 6% per year. 2004-2014 was the original ten year period, and the Conservatives extended it two years, so it spanned the entire period of the Harper government. Canada's annual GDP growth rarely blipped over 3% in that period, and the 2008-09 crisis and resultant extraordinary spending binge and revenue contraction occurred very early during the Accord period.

The federal government is borrowing its way into this, which is a radical departure from the general fiscal policy of governments covering the 30 years from approximately 1985 to 2015.

There are few examples of governments successfully borrowing their way to economic improvement; on balance, the expected result should be failure.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Is it possible to say that the "the infrastructure, training, parts and maintenance on top of people to actually operate it properly" fits nicely with the increase in recruiting/retention(?) and overall numbers which will allow the CAF to better integrate these people and allow in the long run to have a more well rounded, capable and able CAF?

I think it's more of a side effect of getting the funding to actually roll things out properly, but will definitely help. Nothing is quite as frustrating to the techs as getting a new piece of equipment that they aren't trained on, with a manual that consists of photocopies of brochures and things they've been able to borrow off a company rep, and then not having parts for it (which is a true story). Similarly, doing training in buildings from the 30s with no potable water, hearing wind whilstling through a PMQ that you are paying to heat, and lots of other things on that side don't help retention.

It's not that we didn't know all this was required, but usually got $60 to do $100 of work, so the capitol procurements got cut down to the bare minimum and figured it would get sorted out in the operations side, except that usually only got $30 for $100 of work so didn't happen.

It's refreshing to able to actually just do things properly, and funny to see PMs that are so used to that talk about cutting that kind of things until they get reminded they likely don't need to, and it's fine to go back to TBS to ask for more money due to unforeseen cost increases.

If this bubble bursts and we go back to half assing things, that will probably be a genuine moral injury to a lot of senior people that are optimistic and changing their plans to actually stay longer to be part of the rebuilding, but really what we've always supposed to be doing but weren't able to.

 

[dapaterson]

Did he do that after telling Biden No TWICE over Haiti? Did he do that after receiving a couple of one way chats from NATO allies? Did he do that after being asked "what's your number" by Trump. Or did he start the money after Anand came up with a plan especially from General Kennie's staff planning for NORAD? Or did the Fuck have to spend juuuust enough to Beat Harper?
Read that last one again.

What do you call a Prime Minister who reduced defence spending below 1% of GDP?

Harper.

 

[DBNSG]

What do you call a Prime Minister who reduced defence spending below 1% of GDP?

Harper.

Harper also ordered DND to reduce the bloated Officer Corps after Afghanistan. Don't think that happened so the PMO does what it can. The Money. So he did and was able to cover it by attempting to balance the budget. How many times did Trudeau go North with the Forces? Harper did a number of times and the new Dude seems to like it up there too. Trudeau's are not serious about securing the Nation in anything except Rights.

 

[Eaglelord17]

Harper also ordered DND to reduce the bloated Officer Corps after Afghanistan. Don't think that happened so the PMO does what it can. The Money. So he did and was able to cover it by attempting to balance the budget. How many times did Trudeau go North with the Forces? Harper did a number of times and the new Dude seems to like it up there too. Trudeau's are not serious about securing the Nation in anything except Rights.

Trudeau, Harper, Martin, Chretien doesn’t matter. At the end of the day they all underfunded national defence for decades resulting in the poorly equipped under prepared military we have today.

Actions speak louder than words and the actions taken by the government of Canada over the last 38 years can best be described as negligent.

If Harper really cared he could have started firing generals/admirals until they started obeying orders. That is how you make things happen not playing with lives by underfunding DND.

 

[McG]

This thread isn’t in the political boards. Maybe, instead of partisan bashing on one party or the other, we talk about defence needs and what can be done to improve defence under the current funding climate?

 

[FJAG]

To me this is the key thing that Carney is doing that is different than previous PMs. It's one thing to fund the ships, vehicles and weapons but in order for a military to truly be effective it needs the infrastructure, training, etc. to enable and sustain the use of that equipment. To me, this will have the greatest impact on the effectiveness of the Canadian military.

As we all know there are three key elements to a defence budget: personnel costs, O&M and capital acquisitions. Canada's budget gets stuck. Personnel costs are virtually impossible to reduce because the number of personnel is already at its lowest. O&M has been poorly funded for some time and the result is ever deteriorating infrastructure and competence. It too has been at the margin. Equipment, however, is an easy one for a government to cut by simply striking the lower priorities on the shopping list. The result is as bad as all the others but isn't felt as quickly. The effects are mostly downstream and so fall into being some subsequent government's problem.

Both O&M and equipment are long overdue for some serious attention. Both need substantially more funding with an aim to not just replacing what is there but developing a real warfighting capability or else the funding is just an expense for a hollow capability; Billions spent on a paper tiger.

IMHO, Canada needs to carefully look at its personnel costs in order to ensure that sufficient funds are available for O&M and equipment. Canada is stuck with two gigantic impediments to creating an affordable armed forces: a mentality that remains stuck on having a preponderance of full-time forces and a national headquarters whose size is out of all proportion for the needs of the CAF. Time to quote some folks again.

In addition to having too small a field army, Canada possesses a regular force on the cusp of pricing itself out of business. The Canadian defence budget, while comparatively small in global terms, constitutes one of the largest national expenditure envelops, which, because it is discretionary, leaves it vulnerable to cuts. … As most of this money was consumed by pay and allowances, however, Canada could not field as large an armed force as other nations for about the same military expenditure. There is nothing new here as out of $12.1 billion allocated to defence in 1991-92—which represented 8% of total government expenditure—a weighty 57 percent went toward personnel related costs, mainly to sustain the regular force establishment.

… Simply put, the cost of maintaining standing armies in peacetime has always proven problematic. This is what General Dwight Eisenhower knew and what General Guy Simonds said: “No nation, not even the richest, can afford to maintain continuously ‘forces in being’ capable of meeting major unforeseen emergencies. There must be reserves of partially trained personnel which can be called upon in emergency.” And Canadians, Simonds went on to say, “have to get along as best we may with an entirely voluntary system, whatever the difficulties.” As the Americans have also discovered, the wage costs associated with maintaining an all-volunteer regular force continue to rise—in a land with no draft, voluntary reserves are the next best option.[1] (Emphasis added)

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[1] English, 23-24.

Just as an interesting side note, while the costs of a single soldier have risen dramatically, those costs have not risen much beyond the rate of inflation. I always remember the day that I was commissioned as a lieutenant in 1970, my pay was $600.00 per month. When one adds in the rate of inflation that is almost identical to what a new lieutenant would be paid today. In 1970, the budget had been dropping rapidly - from 4.19% to 2.19% and was heading for roughly 1.8% in the mid '70s. Concurrently, the total full-time Canadian forces in 1962 was 126,000. It has dropped to 72,000. Conversely, the headquarters has grown exponentially since then. Time for another quote:

The 2003 Report of the Advisory Committee on Administrative Efficiency alleged that National Defence Headquarters suffered from a “loss of strategic focus,” while its size of over 13,000 personnel supported a “bureaucratic, process driven culture.” This resulted in “a significant degree of self-generating work, much of it aimed at supporting the operation of NDHQ” and “an overwhelming focus on the current fiscal year.”[1] (Emphasis added)

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[1] English, 18

And yet

Notwithstanding this report, during the period 2004 to 2010: civilian personnel in the department grew by 33%; staff at headquarters above the brigade level by 46%; and within the National Capital Region by 38%.[1] In large part the expansion has been, and continues to be, fuelled by ever expanding business lines within the headquarters in response to the plethora of laws, regulations, directives and perceived needs which require some form or other of administrative process.

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[1] Leslie, 15-23. / Riedel, Unsustainable 50-51

More than anything else, Canada needs to wean itself of the high personnel costs associated with the current model of defence which a) supports a default to the preponderance of full-time personnel during peacetime and b) the unreasonably high ratio of full-time personnel dedicated to purely administrative v war fighting functions. (and yes, that means a massive culling of that plethora of laws, etc)

$0.02

 

[MilEME09]

One country, two armies

Perhaps but lets hope the talk is more then talk of the ARes being changed to "an army in reserve" rather then the current force it is. On paper it will be, but ill be waiting for the follow through.