F
FriarVic
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I would be interested to see what kind of a "white paper" a soldier might produce. I am aware "ours is not to reason why...", but what would you, the members of this forum, have your budget look like?
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Wow - if the online statistics can be trusted, apparently this is a topic near and dear to your heart (since it evoked your second post since November 25th 2002 ... ).
Well, we‘d better make the most of it!
One of my best friends summed it up simply:
Canada is geographically challenged - a large land mass, with long coasts, and physically separated from most of the world‘s trouble spots by the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
Thus, for sovereignty purposes, we still need stuff to patrol and protect our coasts.
Next, if anything gets past our coastal defences, we‘d need something that could be launched to any location within Canada - his solution was two formations: One Airborne, the other Airmobile.
These two formations would and could then be readily deployed internationally, since from their inception they‘d have been designed for both deployment and transportation (hmmm ... entirely too much common sense here ...).
So, if the CF were to take a "systems" approach, we‘d have maritime assets to patrol our coasts, and maybe even the means to deploy land troops (in another thread, ships such as the LPD ROTTERDAM are being discussed - they‘re a personal favourite, but I‘m just a landlubber - definitely not my area of expertise - however, I note the ROTTERDAM is also capable of being the command ship of a task force ... hmmm ... kinda makes sense to me ... but, I digress ...).
Continuing with this imaginary "systems" approach, the Air Force would have aircraft to patrol our coasts, and support the two deployable formations - helicopters seem to be useful for Search and Rescue, as well as moving troops ... (hmmm ... too much common sense again, eh?)
However, when all is said and done, I concede that our Armed Forces have slipped below the level of "critical mass" - our Air Force is too small to do everything, ditto for our Navy, and the Army ... ? "Poor buggers", as they say.
Any White Paper that would repair our Armed Forces would have a hefty price tag, and the Liberal Party would never let that happen (they‘d rather manipulate public opinion such that the polls would support musical fountains in Papa Doc Crouton‘s home riding, or a floating maritime museum in She-Witch Copps riding, or ... do I need to go on?)
So, although I‘d dearly like to, I‘m going to save my silver bullet for a battle I can win.
Somebody else with spare time to burn is welcome to write a Defence White Paper that would restore Canada‘s Armed Forces to a respectable level - and I hope they sub-title either "A nation gets the Army it deserves", or "A nation will always have an army - theirs, or somebody else‘s".
Well, we‘d better make the most of it!
One of my best friends summed it up simply:
Canada is geographically challenged - a large land mass, with long coasts, and physically separated from most of the world‘s trouble spots by the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
Thus, for sovereignty purposes, we still need stuff to patrol and protect our coasts.
Next, if anything gets past our coastal defences, we‘d need something that could be launched to any location within Canada - his solution was two formations: One Airborne, the other Airmobile.
These two formations would and could then be readily deployed internationally, since from their inception they‘d have been designed for both deployment and transportation (hmmm ... entirely too much common sense here ...).
So, if the CF were to take a "systems" approach, we‘d have maritime assets to patrol our coasts, and maybe even the means to deploy land troops (in another thread, ships such as the LPD ROTTERDAM are being discussed - they‘re a personal favourite, but I‘m just a landlubber - definitely not my area of expertise - however, I note the ROTTERDAM is also capable of being the command ship of a task force ... hmmm ... kinda makes sense to me ... but, I digress ...).
Continuing with this imaginary "systems" approach, the Air Force would have aircraft to patrol our coasts, and support the two deployable formations - helicopters seem to be useful for Search and Rescue, as well as moving troops ... (hmmm ... too much common sense again, eh?)
However, when all is said and done, I concede that our Armed Forces have slipped below the level of "critical mass" - our Air Force is too small to do everything, ditto for our Navy, and the Army ... ? "Poor buggers", as they say.
Any White Paper that would repair our Armed Forces would have a hefty price tag, and the Liberal Party would never let that happen (they‘d rather manipulate public opinion such that the polls would support musical fountains in Papa Doc Crouton‘s home riding, or a floating maritime museum in She-Witch Copps riding, or ... do I need to go on?)
So, although I‘d dearly like to, I‘m going to save my silver bullet for a battle I can win.
Somebody else with spare time to burn is welcome to write a Defence White Paper that would restore Canada‘s Armed Forces to a respectable level - and I hope they sub-title either "A nation gets the Army it deserves", or "A nation will always have an army - theirs, or somebody else‘s".
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