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Canadian Policy Question?
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| Subey |
What would you think of a political party passing a referendum asking if they should (you don't have to be canadian to answer ;) ):
Convert 100% of the canadian military to UN peace keepers.
Bad Reasons to keep em:
- Nato - forget it (Cold war is long over, anything NatO currently represents should be channeled through the UN)
- Defense - forget it (2 ice breakers with machine guns, and a couple of subs = a symbol of arctic sovereignty)
- Defense - maybe the US will come for our fresh water... oh well
Good Reasons to get rid of them:
An important step towards world peace, how can you go wrong? :clown:
Or substitute your own nation. If Norway didn't have an army, would Sweden invade? |
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| Lilith |
No, because the political scene can change overnight, anywhere in the world and it's not going to be much fun if you're down to harsh language and hockey sticks if it blows up and you have to militarise overnight.
Isolation helps, friendly neighbour helps too but it may not always be that way. |
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| Sunsnail |
| Compared to some "other" countries, military expenditures in Canada really aren't too significant either. |
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| pmoisse |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lilith
it's not going to be much fun if you're down to harsh language and hockey sticks if it blows up
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LOL awesome :) but your forgot to include that the hockey sticks and foul words were fueled by beer ;)
Yeah, there isn't a whole lot of spending on the military here. There's also significant discussions & disagreement with how our role in Afghanistan has changed from one of peacekeeping & rebuilding to peace-making & fighting.
I guess my own opinion is that it's all well and good to have a small, well-trained force, but I believe they need to be used correctly as well. I'm not so sure they are in our current engagement in Afghanistan (but there are several limiting factors at hand too...). The useless submarines that we bought from the British (not your fault, Brits...we bought them lol) are one of the worst defense purchases ever. There have been several smaller scale poor purchase decisions (imo) as well over the past 10 years or so.
Yeah, the decisions made regarding the use of our forces, and the procurement of new hardware are more important to me that to have them at all or not. They also serve as a National Guard type organization when there is some form of natural disaster etc. |
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| EvilTree |
| quote: | Originally posted by pmoisse
They also serve as a National Guard type organization when there is some form of natural disaster etc. |
*sigh*
Not the primary job of CF. Yeah it looks good on the papers, but there are other civilian agencies whose purposes is to do these things.
As for military hardware purchases, I can just see the veins pop as Air Force is getting new transport planes and Army is rumoured to be getting new Leopards from Germany for Afghanistan. (What about the health care, the excuse for not giving military the money to do its job for many a years...)
And then we have poli sci profs running their mouth without having a clue what they are talking about and the media can't even get the details right when reporting stories about CF.
Yep. I'm bitter alright :p |
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| Krypton |
| Canada cannot sacrifice it's military for a "world peace" that will never happen. What leftist fringe group is advocating this? It's utopian. |
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| Omega_M |
| What if North America is invaded by a combined force of Russia and China ? 0_o The American armed forces will have to defend both US and Canada. :o |
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| venomX |
| quote: | Originally posted by Omega_M
What if North America is invaded by a combined force of Russia and China ? 0_o The American armed forces will have to defend both US and Canada. :o |
If America is invaded by a combined force of Russia and China theres two outcomes:
1) Someone uses a nuke, checkmate MAD.
2) The States and Canada get taken over and severely destroyed :p |
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| Subey |
| quote: | Originally posted by venomX
If America is invaded by a combined force of Russia and China theres two outcomes:
1) Someone uses a nuke, checkmate MAD.
2) The States and Canada get taken over and severely destroyed :p |
I was thinking, since the only nations that have the means to take over Canada (US, Russia) are both democracies, then we (Canadians) could just hold a vote to cede from whoever took us over...
Then they'd have to invade again and again, and we'd hold vote after vote till they gave up! |
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| EvilTree |
| quote: | Originally posted by Subey
I was thinking, since the only nations that have the means to take over Canada (US, Russia) are both democracies, then we (Canadians) could just hold a vote to cede from whoever took us over...
Then they'd have to invade again and again, and we'd hold vote after vote till they gave up! |
You're assuming whoever takes over canada is going to give us referendums...
LOL. That'd be funny. |
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| Sunsnail |
| quote: | Originally posted by Subey
I was thinking, since the only nations that have the means to take over Canada (US, Russia) are both democracies, then we (Canadians) could just hold a vote to cede from whoever took us over...
Then they'd have to invade again and again, and we'd hold vote after vote till they gave up! |
Flawless strategy :p |
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| Moral Hazard |
| This is an illconceived idea to say the very least. With a multitude of nations questioning Canada's soveriegnty over our nothern territories, the opening of the northwest passage and vast mineral wealth in the north we need a larger and stronger military focused on the preservation of soveriegnty rather then a smaller weaker military designed for foriegn peace keeping. Soveriegnty can only be maintained if we have the ability to enforce our will. I'm all for retooling the military and redesigning it for modern warfare (ie. a force that can be deployed rapidly, move quickly, and designed for short to moderate length engagements), however, the idea of changing the CF into a completely non-offencive entity is moronic to say the very least. Giving up offencive capability is tantamount to giving up autonomy. |
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