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

[YZT580]

North Americans have plenty of experience with war, much of different than anything experienced by Europeans, who never had anything resembling a frontier during that time. North Americans knew what it meant to defend themselves, much of it spontaneously, against aggressors for a long count of years. It's just that 1930s socialism/fascism didn't find fertile ground here and no fighting of consequence took place here during the two big ones. The idea of "home defence" has a long history here.

I beg to differ. Their was the Scottish/British border wars, the Welsh/English border wars, the Irish wars and that is just GB. We could throw in a half dozen mini-wars between France and Germany or the German States (exclusive of Napoleon), the conflicts between Spain and Islam, Italy in fact, pretty well every European country I can think of had their border skirmishes. War is something we all have in common

 

[Rifleman62]

Perhaps we have to keep reminding Canadians that we do have real, actual enemies that act against our interests and have access to our waters, skies, shores and cities.

Possibly get Corporate to print that on Starbucks and Timmies cups.

 

[Kirkhill]

Having lived in Belgium I can say that I didn’t ‘trust’ them then and I don’t still today.
Nice people but little backbone and sense of national pride - it’s all about the language with them - Wallon this and Vlaams that.

Both the sides actively fought for the Nazi’s, Wallon and Vlaams, separately of course.

Two Solitudes.

 

[Brad Sallows]

In a very general sense, professional armies disappeared in Europe after the fall of the Roman empire. It turned into a home defence system of varying sorts until around the 1500s when it became hybrid and around the 1700s true standing armies made their return.

The period before and through the end of the Hundred Years' war from my (limited) amount of reading comes across as semi-legitimized banditry, especially when lords couldn't pay their men-at-arms.

 

[Brad Sallows]

I beg to differ. Their was the Scottish/British border wars, the Welsh/English border wars, the Irish wars and that is just GB. We could throw in a half dozen mini-wars between France and Germany or the German States (exclusive of Napoleon), the conflicts between Spain and Islam, Italy in fact, pretty well every European country I can think of had their border skirmishes. War is something we all have in common

Again, I was responding to a comment about the past 200 years, which is post-Napoleonic. The further back we go, the less I'm inclined to believe the events still have much of a residual effect on national or continental character - if there can even be such a thing.

If cultures have "ways of war", I usually don't look much further back than the last one they fought. What can sometimes run deep is the way people conduct themselves...

 

[Czech_pivo]

Again, I was responding to a comment about the past 200 years, which is post-Napoleonic. The further back we go, the less I'm inclined to believe the events still have much of a residual effect on national or continental character - if there can even be such a thing.

If cultures have "ways of war", I usually don't look much further back than the last one they fought. What can sometimes run deep is the way people conduct themselves...

"The further back we go, the less I'm inclined to believe the events still have much of a residual effect on national or continental character - if there can even be such a thing."

Depends on what part of Europe you are referring to.

Ask a Serb about the Battle of Kosovo that occurred over 600yrs ago and they'll talk about its affects like it happened last week Tuesday.

Ask a Pole about the Battle of Grunwald, again 600yrs ago, and they'll talk about how it defined Poland and their almost millennial battle against German invaders.

Central/Eastern Europeans have long, long memories and we don't tend to forget transgressions against us - ever.

If Poland and Russia still exist in some form in the year 2525 - 500yrs from now - I have little doubt that Katyn Forest will still resonate among those Poles.

 

[Brad Sallows]

"The further back we go, the less I'm inclined to believe the events still have much of a residual effect on national or continental character - if there can even be such a thing."

Depends on what part of Europe you are referring to.

Ask a Serb about the Battle of Kosovo that occurred over 600yrs ago and they'll talk about its affects like it happened last week Tuesday.

Ask a Pole about the Battle of Grunwald, again 600yrs ago, and they'll talk about how it defined Poland and their almost millennial battle against German invaders.

Sure, but those are essentially clan grudges. I doubt it much inflects how they organize and prepare for war.

 

[Czech_pivo]

Sure, but those are essentially clan grudges. I doubt it much inflects how they organize and prepare for war.

Please don't belittle and disrespect 37 million Polish citizens by referring to them as 'clans'.

 

[YZT580]

Sure, but those are essentially clan grudges. I doubt it much inflects how they organize and prepare for war.

ask a Maltese about the Arabs. On a slightly different note, a college of mine from Malta's ancestors immigrated to Malta around 1700. They are still considered to be foreigners. People over there just don't forget. It is like the Hadfield and McCoy's on steroids.

 

[FJAG]

The period before and through the end of the Hundred Years' war from my (limited) amount of reading comes across as semi-legitimized banditry, especially when lords couldn't pay their men-at-arms.

Yup. And that war in particular did lead a number of countries in Europe to start building royal or standing armies.

Again, I was responding to a comment about the past 200 years, which is post-Napoleonic.

You're totally right. That's why hold that Vietnam did more for our national attitude about the military as we watched on a daily basis film on TV from both Vietnam and the anti-war protests sweeping the US. Canadians revelled in the fact that it wasn't us there; and that we were fulfilling peacekeeping duties in places like Cyprus.

Americans developed a part of their country that greatly supported the military (and the draft) and another part that deeply despised the military. That later attitude was consciously reversed by a largely reformed volunteer army. Grenada, for example did not result in the national hatred of all things military as Vietnam did. By Gulf 1 it was a love fest. That was when the US public, in general, returned to having pride in its military as a fighting force and not merely a road to GI Bill benefits.

Canadian reaction to Vietnam was an ingrained sense of; "Not us." The country revelled in not becoming involved in conflict like the US and firmly believed the only need for a military was to do the peacekeeping. We gave up nukes and constantly shrank the real warfighting capabilities. Trudeau wasn't an aberration. He was a reflection of the national consciousness of the time. Even the October crisis didn't dispel that.

In short, when you look at where Canada's view of the military stands now, all you have to do is look back at the 1960s. That decade, reinforced by 50 years of peace, is what built the nation's belief system. Few of today's people remember those days, but the beliefs and attitudes formed then are now subconsciously deeply ingrained. The country has already forgotten Canada's military role in WW1 and WW2 (except for one day per year) so the colonial, frontier experiences of the 1700s and 1800s have only the tiniest effect.

IMHO, if we truly want to build a proper military, it starts with the kids - cadets - you bet, but you really want the high school kids. They're looking for a mob to be part of; they want to find pride in what they do; they want guaranteed full-time summer jobs; they want help to pay for their higher education. We do some of that but the military needs to double down on it several times over. You do not change several decades of attitudes by sitting back and hoping for the best. You need to be aggressive. Year-long waiting lists to get in or post enrollment waiting for a course are just plain nonsense. The military, especially the army, has a fetish for keeping initial individual training mostly away from the units and leaving it to under resourced schools. That might work for a fully resourced army but currently there is a need for a massive multi-year surge which heavily involves the units.

But I digress.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Please don't belittle and disrespect 37 million Polish citizens by referring to them as 'clans'.

I'm not. I'm characterizing those kinds of hatreds, which is why the word "essentially" is in there. Regardless, I'm not bound to refrain from expressing disrespect for discreditable behaviour.