I'll believe it when I see it.
Justin Trudeau hints at boosting Canada’s military spending
- Thread starter Maxman1
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Most of those 4’s are supposed to be 10hrs X 4 days still for the 40hrs.
My wife does nationally 4x10 for LocMart, and it’s generally a lot more than 40hrs a week. As it’s generally 0730 to 1800 (with time for lunch) and occasional stuff on evenings, Fridays and weekends.
Of course salary/exempt positions don’t track hours like that - just billable to programs.
Oldgateboatdriver
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I was not talking USA but Canada and Europe. The 35 hours week for clerical work is pretty well the norm here.
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Well no wonder you freeloaders don’t get anything done…
daftandbarmy
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Well, my experience working with the USAF, etc in staff jobs is that we do the same amount, but they stay longer at work for reasons.
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GR66
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Not in my world in the GTA. 40hrs is definitely the norm.
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“Do we really need a weekly touch point meeting for something that we can do via email blast” has crossed my mind once or twice.But just think of the work you could get done in the off time if you were at work…
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Oldgateboatdriver
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GR66
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Ah...so the 35 hour seasonal work week then!
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Don’t forget the PPT’s
I swear MS Office has made us go backwards.
I thought we relied on PPTs until I started working with the Americans.
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Did she ever do 9/80s? (5x9 + 4x8.75 and every 2nd Friday off). That was a thing for the big US D&S contractors for a while.
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No, when she moved to LocMart they were already on the 4-10’s. Most contractors have realized that DoD rarely gets anything done on Fridays anyway so…
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The Economist looks at the geo-strategic situation within which Canada must operate:
The answer seems to be “probably not for much longer”, to judge from striking recent statements by senior American officials. Indeed, President Joe Biden’s administration has begun preparing for the expansion of America’s deployed nuclear forces, after decades of deep cuts.
The build-up could begin in 2026, with the expiry of New start, a treaty between America and Russia that restricts the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals. “If the president were to decide, upon the expiration of New start in February 2026, that we need to increase the size of the deployed force, we want to be in a position to execute relatively quickly,“ says a senior American defence official. How far and fast any build-up goes will depend in part on whether the next president is Kamala Harris, who may try to preserve efforts to limit nukes, or Donald Trump, who was a nuclear hawk in his first term.
Biden administration sources are careful to say that the current arsenal meets current threats, that they still hope for agreements to limit nuclear weapons and that no decision has been taken to deploy more. But carefully in June, and now bluntly, officials are warning of growing risks. “We now find ourselves in nothing short of a new nuclear age,” said Vipin Narang, a senior Pentagon official, in a speech on August 1st. He pointed to the “unprecedented mix of multiple revisionist nuclear challengers who are uninterested in arms control or risk-reduction efforts, each rapidly modernising and expanding their nuclear arsenals”. Their actions “have forced us to shift to a more competitive approach”.
Thanks to arms-control treaties, the world’s nuclear stockpile shrank from more than 70,000 warheads in 1986 to about 12,000 today. In 2009 Barack Obama spoke of seeking “a world without nuclear weapons”. As recently as October 2022 the Biden administration’s nuclear posture review clung to the notion of “reducing the role of nuclear weapons in us strategy”.
Now Mr Narang says the quarter-century of “nuclear intermission” is over. Russia has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. America says Russia also plans to deploy nuclear weapons in orbit, designed to destroy satellites, in breach of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. China’s arsenal, meanwhile, is expanding rapidly. The Pentagon estimates it could grow from a few hundred warheads to perhaps 1,500 by 2035. North Korea has intensified tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles (icbms) to carry its nukes. In June it signed a mutual-defence treaty with Russia. North Korea has supplied Russia with artillery shells. What is Russia giving in return? America fears it could be missile and other weapons technology. Similar worries apply to Iran, now a nuclear “threshold” state, which has supplied Russia with drones and missiles.
Russia has suspended parts of New start, though both sides abide by its limits for “strategic” (long-range) weapons: 1,550 deployed warheads and 700 missiles and heavy bombers. Russia does not seem interested in resuming arms-control talks; China, wanting something closer to parity with its peers, has never much cared for them. Preparing for a nuclear free-for-all, says Mr Narang, may yet “help incentivise our adversaries to engage in strategic arms-control discussions”; if not, America is “prepared to do what is necessary” to deter rivals and assure allies.
James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think-tank in Washington, dc, says such talk points to “the increasing inevitability of a new arms race”. It is also evidence that, as he puts it, the Pentagon and Strategic Command, which would oversee any nuclear war, “are increasingly convinced that they need more nukes” and are winning the bureaucratic battle.
The fate of the nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (slcm-n) highlights the new mindset. The system was proposed in 2018 by the Trump administration to provide “low-yield” or “tactical” nuclear weapons, to be fired from ships or submarines in potential regional conflicts. The Biden administration tried to cancel slcm-n, arguing it would “divert resources” from an already ambitious programme to modernise all three legs of America’s “triad” of land-, sea- and air-launched nuclear weapons. The upgrade includes new icbms (Sentinel missiles replacing Minuteman IIIs), new ballistic-missile submarines (Columbia-class boats succeeding Ohio-class ones) and new bombers (b-21 jets superseding b-2s and b-52s), as well as new nuclear command-and-control systems.
Congress, however, has preserved slcm-n. Now Mr Narang extols its virtues. Using tactical nuclear weapons in a regional crisis, he argued, would free strategic ones to strike at the growing number of strategic targets (eg, China’s large new icbm silo fields which, officials say, are already straining the capacity of America’s nuclear force). He said slcm-n would also reduce the “risk of miscalculation”, ie, that a foe could mistake a limited nuclear exchange for an all-out nuclear attack.
To comply with New start, America disabled some launch tubes on submarines, tipped long-range missiles with single rather than multiple warheads and converted some nuclear bombers to conventional use. America can still reverse the process by “uploading” some or all of the 1,900 warheads it holds in reserve. In 2002 an air-force general, Franklin Blaisdell, suggested it could take just days to load reserve warheads onto aircraft; months to add them to submarines; and a year or so to convert icbms. Building a larger total stockpile would take longer, experts say.
Critics decry such reckoning as the madness of modern-day Dr Strangeloves. They also argue that, in a war over Taiwan, say, China is unlikely to distinguish between tactical and strategic attacks on its forces. Some want a “minimum” deterrent: just enough to destroy the enemy’s main cities after a surprise attack. “What nuclear weapons are good for is destroying countries that use nuclear weapons against you,” says Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. To confront the likes of Russia, he says, America’s 5,000-plus warheads do not offer much more deterrence than France’s 300-odd.
Yet China, the most prominent proponent of minimum deterrence, has adopted the logic that more nukes are better. What of China’s rival, India; and of India’s rival, Pakistan? A new nuclear arms race could be more complex than the terrifying Soviet-American rivalry of the cold war. ■
And yet, according to the poling I've read about, something in the range of 35% to 55% of Canadians believe that a Liberal (Trudeau)/NDP (Singh) coalition (supported by Elizabeth May's Greens ) is what Canada needs to face the world in the 2020s and 2030s.
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America prepares for a new nuclear-arms race
Its build-up could start as early as 2026
In the pentagon these days, those who plan for Doomsday have a new nightmare: no longer yesteryear’s dread of one big nuclear foe, but of several at the same time. What if, asks one official, Russia attacked a nato country, drawing America in to defend Europe; then China seized on America’s distraction to invade Taiwan; and then North Korea decided to attack the south? Three wars; three sets of friends and allies; three unpredictable nuclear crises. Could America handle them all?The answer seems to be “probably not for much longer”, to judge from striking recent statements by senior American officials. Indeed, President Joe Biden’s administration has begun preparing for the expansion of America’s deployed nuclear forces, after decades of deep cuts.
The build-up could begin in 2026, with the expiry of New start, a treaty between America and Russia that restricts the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals. “If the president were to decide, upon the expiration of New start in February 2026, that we need to increase the size of the deployed force, we want to be in a position to execute relatively quickly,“ says a senior American defence official. How far and fast any build-up goes will depend in part on whether the next president is Kamala Harris, who may try to preserve efforts to limit nukes, or Donald Trump, who was a nuclear hawk in his first term.
Biden administration sources are careful to say that the current arsenal meets current threats, that they still hope for agreements to limit nuclear weapons and that no decision has been taken to deploy more. But carefully in June, and now bluntly, officials are warning of growing risks. “We now find ourselves in nothing short of a new nuclear age,” said Vipin Narang, a senior Pentagon official, in a speech on August 1st. He pointed to the “unprecedented mix of multiple revisionist nuclear challengers who are uninterested in arms control or risk-reduction efforts, each rapidly modernising and expanding their nuclear arsenals”. Their actions “have forced us to shift to a more competitive approach”.
Thanks to arms-control treaties, the world’s nuclear stockpile shrank from more than 70,000 warheads in 1986 to about 12,000 today. In 2009 Barack Obama spoke of seeking “a world without nuclear weapons”. As recently as October 2022 the Biden administration’s nuclear posture review clung to the notion of “reducing the role of nuclear weapons in us strategy”.
Now Mr Narang says the quarter-century of “nuclear intermission” is over. Russia has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. America says Russia also plans to deploy nuclear weapons in orbit, designed to destroy satellites, in breach of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. China’s arsenal, meanwhile, is expanding rapidly. The Pentagon estimates it could grow from a few hundred warheads to perhaps 1,500 by 2035. North Korea has intensified tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles (icbms) to carry its nukes. In June it signed a mutual-defence treaty with Russia. North Korea has supplied Russia with artillery shells. What is Russia giving in return? America fears it could be missile and other weapons technology. Similar worries apply to Iran, now a nuclear “threshold” state, which has supplied Russia with drones and missiles.
Russia has suspended parts of New start, though both sides abide by its limits for “strategic” (long-range) weapons: 1,550 deployed warheads and 700 missiles and heavy bombers. Russia does not seem interested in resuming arms-control talks; China, wanting something closer to parity with its peers, has never much cared for them. Preparing for a nuclear free-for-all, says Mr Narang, may yet “help incentivise our adversaries to engage in strategic arms-control discussions”; if not, America is “prepared to do what is necessary” to deter rivals and assure allies.
James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think-tank in Washington, dc, says such talk points to “the increasing inevitability of a new arms race”. It is also evidence that, as he puts it, the Pentagon and Strategic Command, which would oversee any nuclear war, “are increasingly convinced that they need more nukes” and are winning the bureaucratic battle.
The fate of the nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (slcm-n) highlights the new mindset. The system was proposed in 2018 by the Trump administration to provide “low-yield” or “tactical” nuclear weapons, to be fired from ships or submarines in potential regional conflicts. The Biden administration tried to cancel slcm-n, arguing it would “divert resources” from an already ambitious programme to modernise all three legs of America’s “triad” of land-, sea- and air-launched nuclear weapons. The upgrade includes new icbms (Sentinel missiles replacing Minuteman IIIs), new ballistic-missile submarines (Columbia-class boats succeeding Ohio-class ones) and new bombers (b-21 jets superseding b-2s and b-52s), as well as new nuclear command-and-control systems.
Congress, however, has preserved slcm-n. Now Mr Narang extols its virtues. Using tactical nuclear weapons in a regional crisis, he argued, would free strategic ones to strike at the growing number of strategic targets (eg, China’s large new icbm silo fields which, officials say, are already straining the capacity of America’s nuclear force). He said slcm-n would also reduce the “risk of miscalculation”, ie, that a foe could mistake a limited nuclear exchange for an all-out nuclear attack.
To comply with New start, America disabled some launch tubes on submarines, tipped long-range missiles with single rather than multiple warheads and converted some nuclear bombers to conventional use. America can still reverse the process by “uploading” some or all of the 1,900 warheads it holds in reserve. In 2002 an air-force general, Franklin Blaisdell, suggested it could take just days to load reserve warheads onto aircraft; months to add them to submarines; and a year or so to convert icbms. Building a larger total stockpile would take longer, experts say.
How many nukes are enough?
Mr Narang insists that America does not need to match its foes warhead for warhead. Officials add that much depends on esoteric calculations about the probability of destroying a particular target, whether nuclear-armed submarines can be destroyed by conventional means, how many weapons are likely to survive an enemy’s first strike and so on. Franklin Miller, a former Pentagon official, has suggested roughly doubling the current force to 3,000-3,500 deployed warheads.Critics decry such reckoning as the madness of modern-day Dr Strangeloves. They also argue that, in a war over Taiwan, say, China is unlikely to distinguish between tactical and strategic attacks on its forces. Some want a “minimum” deterrent: just enough to destroy the enemy’s main cities after a surprise attack. “What nuclear weapons are good for is destroying countries that use nuclear weapons against you,” says Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. To confront the likes of Russia, he says, America’s 5,000-plus warheads do not offer much more deterrence than France’s 300-odd.
Yet China, the most prominent proponent of minimum deterrence, has adopted the logic that more nukes are better. What of China’s rival, India; and of India’s rival, Pakistan? A new nuclear arms race could be more complex than the terrifying Soviet-American rivalry of the cold war. ■
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And yet, according to the poling I've read about, something in the range of 35% to 55% of Canadians believe that a Liberal (Trudeau)/NDP (Singh) coalition (supported by Elizabeth May's Greens ) is what Canada needs to face the world in the 2020s and 2030s.
FJAG
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And yet, according to the poling I've read about, something in the range of 35% to 55% of Canadians believe that a Liberal (Trudeau)/NDP (Singh) coalition (supported by Elizabeth May's Greens ) is what Canada needs to face the world in the 2020s and 2030s.
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Dont let the Liberals see this
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That could actually be a win to repair our road infrastructure that is in dire need….
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In Army base training areas, roads and bridges and culverts need significant upgrades to support the significantly heavier vehicles.
McG
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In Germany’s defence, there is pressure from NATO for the Germany (and a few other countries) to improve its east/west road infrastructure to support operations. In the event of war the US & UK will arrive at Western European ports with fleets of the worlds two heaviest in-service tanks and the intent to move these by road through Germany.
Unlike Germany, most of Canada’s roads fill no military essential requirements for NATO or even for ourselves.
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