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The Defence Budget [superthread]

Tcm621 said:
I think most people agree HQs are over staffed

I am in one that is very lean at the best of times, and which is also short-staffed in many areas. It is very effective because of its small size - decisions are generally made at low levels, and there are only one or two levels to pass through to get to the top so there is almost no drag. I am also only a few paces away from anybody with whom that I need to speak.

More staffmembers also generate more work, which is not often a good thing.
 
Your HQ doesn't grow because it is busy - it gets busy because you let it grow......
 
PPCLI Guy said:
Your HQ doesn't grow because it is busy - it gets busy because you let it grow......

220px-Parkinson%27s_Law_Book.jpg
  ???

Although I personally preferred this

images
 
PPCLI Guy said:
Your HQ doesn't grow because it is busy - it gets busy because you let it grow......
Well, I have observed that feeding the information/product wants of a bloated higher headquarters can cause lower headquarters to grow to produce the extraneous reports and products for the higher staff.  So, in principle, your statement is correct but it is worth noting that HQ bloat is contagious to subordinates.
 
On another note, where the government gives a giant chop to our vote 5 funds, there is no guarantee we would get to keep substantial vote 1 savings that we might realize from cutting the size of the force.  Our infrastructure and equipment are lacking, and that is where the cuts are happening.  The day-to-day pains many have described in this thread are not the result of budget cuts so much as the government not separately funding the increase in international operations.
National Post View: Which branch of the military, exactly, do the Liberals plan to gut this time?
National Post
24 Mar 2017

This week’s budget deferred $8.5 billion in defence capital expenditures to beyond 2030. That really means the government has absolutely no idea when it will spend that money, if ever. So, a question for the federal Liberal government: which particular branch of the Armed Forces does it feel is currently properly and fully equipped? What, exactly, does the government feel that the military can do without?

This is not just another lamenting of the longstanding multi-party tradition of underfunding the Canadian Armed Forces. As we noted in a recent editorial, Canada’s neglect of the military warrants its own Heritage Minute. Nor is this a gripe over Canada’s continuing failure to honour our pledge to NATO allies to spend 2 per cent of GDP on defence, a prospect so remote as to best be deemed science fiction.

No, we’re simply wondering what branch of the Armed Forces Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Finance Minister Bill Morneau and National Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan believe is so fully and lavishly equipped that billions of dollars in equipment purchases can be punted off to some unknown and unknowable future without compromising readiness. The budget was rather vague on this point, glossing over the gutting of the military in a mere few pages. Some clarity would be appreciated.

Perhaps it’s the Army? There are any number of projects that the government may have decided simply aren’t needed before the 2030s. Perhaps the long-delayed plan to replace the Second World War-era 9 mm pistols carried by military personnel (mostly but not exclusively in the Army) will be postponed, to save the government a few million bucks. After all, these 70-year-old guns can probably be kept in service for a generation longer. Some might even reach a century of service before being retired. But, no. That’s too ridiculous, and would only save a little bit of money. Perhaps the much more expensive plan to retrofit the LAV III combat vehicles that form the backbone of our infantry battalions, the core of our Army, will be delayed instead. These vehicles were driven into the ground through hard and honourable service in Afghanistan, but can remain effective weapons if properly taken care of. But maybe that can wait 20 years. Or perhaps maintenance of base facilities and barracks will be deferred instead.

Or maybe it won’t be the Army. Perhaps the government has decided that the Navy is simply too flush with cash and really ought to make do with less. But that would be silly, seeing as we still haven’t replaced the 50-year-old Sea King helicopters, we’ve retired both our supply ships without replacements, we no longer have any destroyers, our submarines have perhaps a decade of useful service left in them and the 12 frigates we’re left with are barely enough to patrol our own coasts, let alone contribute meaningfully abroad. So no, surely, the government won’t defer spending from the Navy or its shore bases (as quiet as they must be these days, as our fleet rusts itself into retirement).

That leaves the Air Force, then. With the Army and Navy both clearly in need of as much new equipment as we can provide, the cuts — sorry, the “reprofiling” — must be intended for the Air Force, which, presumably, the government believes has all it needs. But wait! What of the Liberals’ insistence that our fighter squadrons are in such dire shape that only an urgent purchase of 18 “interim” F-18 Super Hornets, at a cost of as much as $7 billion, can save them? This is in fact so urgent a priority, say the Liberals, that there isn’t even time to hold a proper competition to choose our next full-time fighter. The Super Hornets must be rushed into service, whatever the cost. So, maybe we’ll just wait until the 2030s to acquire those fancy new search-and-rescue aircraft we just announced. Try not to get lost, everyone.

You see the problem here, then. The government recognizes the urgent need for new Army weapons and refitted vehicles. It admits the Navy has rusted out and needs dozens of new ships and support vessels. It insists the Air Force is in such crisis that only a rush-buy of fighter jets can keep it flying. And yet it also proposes to cut billions from the equipment budget.

On the face of it, it doesn’t seem to make much sense. But it can’t be that the government hasn’t thought this through, or is daring to talk a good game on supporting the military while starving it for funds. Perish the thought! Some clarity from the Liberals on these matters would certainly put our minds at ease. 
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/national-post-view-which-branch-of-the-military-exactly-do-the-liberals-plan-to-gut-this-time
 
I did a quick google - so Vote 1 is "operating". Does this include both personnel costs, and O&M? And then Vote 5 is capital?

Thanks.
 
Well if anything we seem to be waiting to see when our supreme overlord America tells us to go to Mali, cause we are not capable of independent decisions. However if our Vote 1 costs are frozen or reduced the government will be faced with hard choices with Iraq, Poland, Latvia on the go, I just read CF-18's are heading to Iceland and Romania for air policing ops. Adding Mali to this mix, we'll have more deployed then we did in Afghanistan, without the same budget.
 
MilEME09 said:
Well if anything we seem to be waiting to see when our supreme overlord America tells us to go to Mali, cause we are not capable of independent decisions. However if our Vote 1 costs are frozen or reduced the government will be faced with hard choices with Iraq, Poland, Latvia on the go, I just read CF-18's are heading to Iceland and Romania for air policing ops. Adding Mali to this mix, we'll have more deployed then we did in Afghanistan, without the same budget.

Wait a minute! Are you suggesting that the Trudeau government is going to "Whip out its big CF-18", as if they were a Canadian phallic symbol? Say it ain't so, Joe".
 
Oldgateboatdriver said:
Wait a minute! Are you suggesting that the Trudeau government is going to "Whip out its big CF-18", as if they were a Canadian phallic symbol? Say it ain't so, Joe".

...but this time would be different, and for the right reasons...and if it can be done with SUPER big CF-18s, even better!  ;)


Regards
G2G
 

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About the talk of cutting the fat, from my experience, the people doing the job are to busy to protect themselves and end up being cut. The people you really want to cut, spend almost all their time protecting themselves and sniffing the wind, they are very good at surviving cutbacks and layoffs.
 
I'll chip in from the civvy side.

A pretty universal phenomenon.

Techs and sales before management.
 
Chris Pook said:
I'll chip in from the civvy side.

A pretty universal phenomenon.

Techs and sales before management.

Because only management can re-baseline the funnel...  ;)
 
MilEME09 said:
How big of a failure are we talking here? embarrassment on the world stage such as borrowing equipment from allies and such? Honestly I think our NATO allies need to step up and slap Canada, hard, and say get your crap together, at the end of the day we (as in Canada) agreed to the 2% NATO target at multiple NATO meetings over multiple governments. You can whine all you want about it and say there are other ways to calculate contributions but at the end of the day we said yes, yes to 2% of GDP on defense spending. The fact that we turned our back yet again on that promise should raise a flag with NATO, and find ways to get Canada to play ball.

One thing that would definitely do it is cutting off all trade with Canada. I seem to remember that the Germans told Trudeau Sr. "No tanks, no trade (with Germany)." And guess what happened next? The government bought new Leopard I tanks and even stationed some of them in Germany. So, if the threat to cut off trade worked in the mid-1970s, why wouldn't it work now?

I find it really disturbing that the Liberals will once again gladly let the entire military rust out and be incapable of doing even the most minimal jobs we ask it to do, just so that money will not have to be spent on the military. At this rate, why don't we just lower the flag, fold it up, and have the provinces apply for statehood, if it is so difficult to have a properly funded and equipped military?
 
It's really hard to blame the Liberals for simply continuing what the Harper government did post 2009.
 
Eland2 said:
I find it really disturbing that the Liberals will once again gladly let the entire military rust out and be incapable of doing even the most minimal jobs we ask it to do, just so that money will not have to be spent on the military. A

What task(s) exactly have we failed at?
 
Eland2 said:
One thing that would definitely do it is cutting off all trade with Canada. I seem to remember that the Germans told Trudeau Sr. "No tanks, no trade (with Germany)." And guess what happened next? The government bought new Leopard I tanks and even stationed some of them in Germany. So, if the threat to cut off trade worked in the mid-1970s, why wouldn't it work now?

I find it really disturbing that the Liberals will once again gladly let the entire military rust out and be incapable of doing even the most minimal jobs we ask it to do, just so that money will not have to be spent on the military. At this rate, why don't we just lower the flag, fold it up, and have the provinces apply for statehood, if it is so difficult to have a properly funded and equipped military?

No such threat of cutting off trade was ever made, Eland. And there never was any obligation to buy German tanks. We could have bought British or American ones and it would have had the same effect.

What Trudeau senior was told, in diplomatic (almost) terms, was: "Until you put your money where your mouth is in financing your defence burden, you can go sit in the corner over there and let adults discuss security matters at the NATO table. When you are ready to play with the adults, you can come back, but in the meantime, shut the hell up". It was very insulting for someone with an overinflated ego like Trudeau senior, who actually thought he mattered on the international scene.
 
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