Brad Sallows
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Is that also how the budgeting works now? One Army budget with no special containers for Res F acquisitions?
Preserving Army Fleets
- Thread starter FJAG
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God, I hope so.
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Until some good idea fairy in Parliament comes with an idea to buy something specific for the Reserves (usually from their riding).
daftandbarmy
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It's OK because the Reserves are usually used as an important part of the CAF's (personnel and equipment) recycling program
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I am not opposed to reserve forces getting hand-me downs. I am opposed to the two sides of the Army being treated as if they are foreign entities.
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The issue is that the CA tends to hang on to stuff in the Reg Force so long that it has no life left by the time it is scheduled to be replaced. So there is nothing to hand me down.
A realistic equipment model for the CA currently would have capability X with a service life of 10 years, be replaced at the 5 year mark, send to refurb and then send to PRes, the PRes items in use would be then refurbished and put into long term war storage.
A better model would have hybrid units and a plan for mass mobilization, but that would require significant infrastructure upgrades and huge improvements to equipment acquisition.
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That's pure bullshit. Democratic society is governed by laws. Once a citizen joins the CAF he is subject to the provisions of the NDA. It is not conscription in that the individual has voluntarily placed himself subject to those laws until he is released.
I haven't seen an enrollment form for quite some time, but AFAIK, the fundamental provisions respecting the terms of service which govern the length of time that a regular or a reservist is engaged for are substantially the same.
Voluntary release is governed by regulations and policies. Note this NDA provision.
All RegF members are currently on Active Service due to an OiC. That also covers ResF members outside the country. An OiC can be issued by the government in a heart beat and has been for most operations. Note that the NDA technically keeps everyone subject to the NDA for their entire term of service. Voluntary releases prior to the expiration of that term are subject to regulations and policies. They too can be changed in a heart beat.
Your libertarian notions have little force unless a government, in times of crisis, can be easily cowed. If it can be it deserves to fall.
Did they have libertarians in Prussia? We never had Frederick the Great in Britain. The closest we got was a warty little farmer from Cambridge name of Cromwell.
Hobbes and Locke. Locke won. For a few centuries. Seems we may have to relearn some old lessons.
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There is a reason why people are submitting annual budget authorizations for an army. It has been a requirement since 1689.
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Canada's problem, one among many, is that Canada cheaped out as always.
Canada tried to create a Reserve force on the cheap from the Militia.
Reserves and the Militia have never been the same thing. The Militia was the precursor to the Army. The Reserves were the retired Army.
The Army, the Standing Army, which has to be authorized annually hired willing volunteers for the King's shilling. After termination of their active service those trained soldiers were held on standby, often with a stipend paid. The Reserves were cheaper than a Standing Force but still cost money. But they retained the value invested in them through training. It cost as much to produce a Reservist as it did an active soldier because the Reservist was an active soldier that was retained at notice to move.
The Militia was never that. The Militia was the citizenry. Some of the citizenry signed up as Volunteers, or Territorials or Home Guards or National Guards.
In the US the references are to the Army Reserve and National Guard. Two distinct bodies even if the National Guard has been co-opted by the Federal Army - still a point of tension with the States.
Canada decided that they were simply going to skip over the whole matter by declaring that its part-time volunteer Militia was its Primary Reserve. Hey presto and Canada has its own Reserve Force.
Indeed, it is a reserve force, in the sense that it a force held in reserve, but it is not a force of Reservists in the sense known to most NATO countries where Reservists are time expired trained troops. Those trained troops, in many cases, got their training involuntarily as conscripts.
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There is a difference between a volunteer auxiliary of part timers and a body of recently released trained soldiers that can be recalled to the colours under the terms of the contract that they signed prior to receiving training.
The skills and motivations of the two bodies are entirely different. Expectations should not be the same. Both have their place. Both have their uses. But they are not the same.
FJAG
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The historical development and varying structures as between reservists and militias are not relevant in any way shape or form to our current military structure. The Canadian military structure is statutory. It doesn't matter what Canada's military looked like under the Militia Act of 1855 or its various successors, nor does it matter if the Angolan reserve force is made up of retired regulars.
For Canada, there is only one statutory distinction between the regular force and the reserve force and it is that the former is made up of members enrolled for "continuing, full-time service" and the latter for "other than continuing, full-time" service. How those terms are interpreted and applied is a matter for lawful regulations and policies developed within DND including the creation of sub-categories of both regular force (if it wants to) and reserve force (which it has) service.
It's the current legal framework by the government and military leadership that matters and little else.
There are numerous models of how a person becomes a reservist; whether by merely being a citizen where everyone is subject to serve, or a voluntarily recruited individual, or a retired soldier subject to recall or many others. How a person becomes a reservist does not matter. What matters is how the country structures and utilizes its reserve force.
There are only two premier reserve force models.
The first is where a country places all of the operational equipment and resources with the standing army (regular force) and reservists (regardless of how they obtained that status) are called up to fill in vacancies, replace personnel loses and (perhaps) build into new units and formations as new equipment becomes available.
The second is where a country arms and organizes its regulars and reservists similarly so that reserve organizations can be called up directly. The only major difference between the two groups in peacetime is that one trains full-time and the other trains part-time.
Obviously there can be systems that employ both models to varying degrees. And obviously, either model can also have secondary tasks in service of the country other than war. It varies greatly.
With respect, your reaching into history, isn't relevant to how Canada defines, structures and utilizes the regular force and the reserve force. It might help explain how we might have gotten to the statutes, regulations and policies that are currently in effect but ultimately its not the history that governs, but the current legal structure and the current application of that structure.
For Canada, there is only one statutory distinction between the regular force and the reserve force and it is that the former is made up of members enrolled for "continuing, full-time service" and the latter for "other than continuing, full-time" service. How those terms are interpreted and applied is a matter for lawful regulations and policies developed within DND including the creation of sub-categories of both regular force (if it wants to) and reserve force (which it has) service.
It's the current legal framework by the government and military leadership that matters and little else.
There are numerous models of how a person becomes a reservist; whether by merely being a citizen where everyone is subject to serve, or a voluntarily recruited individual, or a retired soldier subject to recall or many others. How a person becomes a reservist does not matter. What matters is how the country structures and utilizes its reserve force.
There are only two premier reserve force models.
The first is where a country places all of the operational equipment and resources with the standing army (regular force) and reservists (regardless of how they obtained that status) are called up to fill in vacancies, replace personnel loses and (perhaps) build into new units and formations as new equipment becomes available.
The second is where a country arms and organizes its regulars and reservists similarly so that reserve organizations can be called up directly. The only major difference between the two groups in peacetime is that one trains full-time and the other trains part-time.
Obviously there can be systems that employ both models to varying degrees. And obviously, either model can also have secondary tasks in service of the country other than war. It varies greatly.
With respect, your reaching into history, isn't relevant to how Canada defines, structures and utilizes the regular force and the reserve force. It might help explain how we might have gotten to the statutes, regulations and policies that are currently in effect but ultimately its not the history that governs, but the current legal structure and the current application of that structure.
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How we got here is dependent on the history of the rules that governed us.
If you want a notice to move ready reserve of trained soldiers you are going to have to pay for it.
And nobody, in government or uniform, has indicated by word or deed, over the last 40 years, any inclination to spend that money.
The government has been happy enough to pretend that its auxiliary corps of part time volunteers met the NATO requirements. Apparently the Generality has been willing to play along with that fiction.
It was better than taking money they didn't have from the proper soldiers of the real army.
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Canada has never actually paid for a reserve. Its peak reserve was created from veterans of WW1 and WW2. Those people and their gear represented a sunk cost and a retained value. As they quit and died off they were never replaced.
The trickle of bodies coming through the peace time system couldn't sustain a useful reserve.
If you want a notice to move ready reserve of trained soldiers you are going to have to pay for it.
And nobody, in government or uniform, has indicated by word or deed, over the last 40 years, any inclination to spend that money.
The government has been happy enough to pretend that its auxiliary corps of part time volunteers met the NATO requirements. Apparently the Generality has been willing to play along with that fiction.
It was better than taking money they didn't have from the proper soldiers of the real army.
....
Canada has never actually paid for a reserve. Its peak reserve was created from veterans of WW1 and WW2. Those people and their gear represented a sunk cost and a retained value. As they quit and died off they were never replaced.
The trickle of bodies coming through the peace time system couldn't sustain a useful reserve.
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