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NYCTrancefan
Destination Everywhere!

Registered: Jul 2003
Location: New York City in a Café del Mar mood
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Aug-24-2005 20:32
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TheNobleEu
Senior tranceaddict

Registered: Jun 2005
Location: Toronto, Canada
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Re: Canada whips it out...
| quote: | Originally posted by Fir3start3r
The fact that we have two working ships sailing together must mean the other is for parts... |
Actually Canada had the second (some would say third) largest Navy in the world toward the end of, and just after, WWII. We took that tradition directly from the British, and took it very seriously.
Arguably, the Navy has always been the most technologically advanced service branch of Canada's (anyone's?) armed forces. During the recent Iraq invasion, it was Canadian destroyers and missile frigates in the Persian Gulf that were escorting the American carriers (like the one in the picture you see above); moreover the command ship for fleet defense was Canadian, HMCS Iroquois. There's a good reason for this:
During the Atlantic campaign, when American merchant marine shipping to Britian was taking a terrific mauling at the hands of the u-boat flotillas (something the US Navy was powerless to prevent), Canadian technology was called upon to ensure the materiel made it to its destination. Destroyers, destroyer escorts, and anti-submarine warfare patrol hardware and tactics were all developed by Canada, who then trained the Americans in how to build them, and then how to use them to hunt u-boats. This was the foundation of allied victory in the Atlantic campaign, and then the Battle of Britian, and then the European T.O.O.
The world after WWI and WWII had extreme anti-war sentiment. Canada's culture was one of voluntary disarmament. When the fighting was over after WWII, the fleet was mothballed, and most of it was sold to the US Navy, and the rest were ripped apart for scrap iron (swords into plowshares). It's useful to understand why Canada disarmed.
The real tragedy is how the Liberal government single-handedly destroyed the Canadian military, and then treated our tradition of military excellence so blithely and dismissively, first with their lack of funding, their abuse of the core cadre, and then with their ideology of "peacekeeping" (no such thing).
And then of course you have Canadians that hop on the wagon and do the same thing...
There's no legitimate question of Canada's sovereignty over the artic. The real reasons there are:
1. Massive (industrial quality) diamond deposits discovered in the Northern Northwest Territories. Certain parties now want certain sections of the NWT and the NW passage to be declared "international" so they can be commerically exploited;
2. American shipping cost would be substantially reduced to Asia if the NW passage could be used and used toll-free, relative to the sail all the way down to Panama.
-N
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Last edited by TheNobleEu on Aug-25-2005 at 15:36
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Aug-25-2005 15:26
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DaveSZ
When The Levee Breaks

Registered: Jan 2003
Location: ATX
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Aug-25-2005 15:37
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TheNobleEu
Senior tranceaddict

Registered: Jun 2005
Location: Toronto, Canada
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Re: Re: Re: Canada whips it out...
| quote: | Originally posted by St_Andrew
I tend to think quite the opposite, militairy in a small modern western country is complete waste of money. There is no threat to Canada, why waste billions upon billions on an army then?! |
This is very European attitude.
In many ways Canada is much more European than North American (something I'm not sneering at). And there is a leftist culture in Canada that does argue, as you do, that spending money on an army to make war in a time of peace is backward planning, barbaric, uncivilized.
This is a very real component of the equation in Canada, and I daresay, in many Euopean countries as well, when we share a culture of anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-aggressionist sentiment.
The topic to hand in this thread is a good reason why a strong military is needed:
1. To enforce one's national sovereignty and make a presence in said territories (on this Canada rightly deserves ridicule, as on this it has been woefully derelict);
2. Operational and security reaction to insurgency/counterinsurgency;
3. Operational and security reaction to terrorist threats;
4. Rapid operational reaction to international situations of crisis demanding peace enforcement and/or civil defense;
5. Emergency response to pandemic, natural disaster, industrial accident or other national domestic crises;
6. Development of new and maintenance of already established domestic and military intelligence networks;
7. Assistance to allies in their times of the above need.
The military also provides international security for summits, the government, important government buildings, and trains all the personal bodyguards for all diplomats, foreign and domestic.
One of the primary problems experienced by all militaries is the degredation of the quality of the individual soldier and his training once time progresses and those with practical wartime experience begin to die off. If serious training for war (and not "peacekeeping") during peacetime is not continually maintained, if the development of subsequent generations of highly trained cadre in order to perserve the benefits of practical wartime experience is not an operational goal, a gang of civilians in uniform being called an "army" results. Training an army to last on a battlefield from this foundation is almost impossible -- I direct you to the difficulties experiences by many nations at the beginning of WWI and WWII.
A very important reason to maintain an army is therefore maintenance and advancement training/technology of all branches of military personnel, for the time when an army could or would be needed again. There is much to be said about the psychology of the above readiness for operational action, and its ability to ensure that those called upon to serve the national need are competent to do so. Nothing need be said about the deterrence-factor of the above either.
More on this later.
-N
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Last edited by TheNobleEu on Aug-25-2005 at 16:09
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Aug-25-2005 15:57
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