Here’s a news story on Mickey I.’s foreign and defence policy speech yesteday. And these are the sections of the full Liberal Party paper most relevant to the CF. Still pandering to certain “right thinking” (joke) Canadian prejudices.
Not that the Conservatives are better, just different pandering. Here’s the problem. It is the function of the government to identify for the military the general types of missions that they may be required to perform. It is then up to the military to tell the government what numbers and types of forces and equipments are required and roughly what they may cost. The government finally should make the decision about what capabilities it is ultimately willing to pay for.
But our recent governments, Liberal and Conservative, have been both unwilling and (more important) incapable to engage in the sort of serious, and politically fraught (some traditional missions may have to be ditched and there may be job losses somewhere), analytic thinking that is required for such an exercise. Sadly, the CF themselves have done little or nothing to encourage such thinking, each service being afraid that it may be gored in the process.
The Conservatives’ “Canada First Defence Strategy” is no strategy at all. It is essentially a shopping list, one that this government is in fact unlikely to be willing fully to pay for given the current budget crunch. Liberal shopping most likely would be even more constrained though.
Trying to maintain “combat-capable, flexible, multi-role” Canadian Forces for all three services along current lines is, to my mind, simply impossible for all those services to be effective and efficient, given the limited funding that our governments (both stripes) are willing to provide.
So, in other words, a true “defence strategy” would attempt to:
1) Outline how the government thinks the CF should be employed for national, and then international, purposes;
2) Outline what mix of service capabilities are required to fulfill those roles.
But that would require serious decisions with political and service consequences this government is not willing to make–nor are, I am sure, most Canadians. Will any Canadian government ever be so ready?
Meanwhile the Brits, unlike us, are going to do some real thinking on the matter:
…
“One reason why tough choices are needed is that the Government has inherited a forward defence programme that is simply unaffordable against likely future resources…At the heart of the SDSR [Strategic Defence and Security Review] will be a thorough examination of our force structure…
The CF are trying to maintain or acquire too many capabilities (e.g. blue-water navy, submarines, all-purpose stealth fighters) that simply will not be affordable in my view.
Predate: More on the British situation here.
Mark
Ottawa
..the Government plans to invest close to $490 billion in defence over this period.(20 years)
Increase the number of military personnel to
70,000 Regular Forces and 30,000 Reserve Forces;
15 ships to replace existing destroyers and
frigates;
• 10 to 12 maritime patrol aircraft;
• 17 fixed-wing search and rescue aircraft;
• 65 next-generation fighter aircraft;
http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/pri/first-premier/June18_0910_CFDS_english_low-res.pdf
What part of the C.F.D.S. is not realistic?
CanadianSense: I would suggest it would be unwise to put much faith in such huge numbers over such a long period–esp. as the government will certainly change at some point; and Liberal devotion to these numbers is not likely. They already want to review planned equipment purchases. From the Liberal paper linked to in this post:
“A Liberal government will also re-evaluate all major procurement programs in a post-Afghanistan combat era. A well-resourced military will remain essential, but as one element of a broader concept of what Canada does in the world, compared to the narrow view of the current government.”
As for the Conservative government, promised rates of defence spending increase have already been abandoned. Given the huge deficit I think it’s fair to expect those promises to remain unfulfilled. See also this:
‘Despite government promises to continue increasing the Defence department’s budget post-Afghan mission and keep the military a high priority, nervousness and quiet doubts are proliferating among arms lobbyists, manufacturers and, apparently, top Canadian commanders as well…
Departmental budget cuts are being sought across most of the public service after the federal government’s two-year stimulus plan sunk billions into infrastructure and growth projects.
The Defence department and Canadian military accounted for roughly $21 billion out of the $259 billion the federal government spent last year. That amount is set to increase each year, but when it unveiled this year’s budget, the government cut the rate of increase significantly. Whether even that rate will be sustained is a matter of speculation.
Even more worrying for stakeholders is that the government announced in the spring that it is conducting a strategic review of the Defence department. Staff are being asked to find areas where it can cut five per cent of its budget.
The fear is that as the government continues to look for savings, procurement projects will be put on hold. Last week, the government announced its shipbuilding procurement strategy, although it did not contain dollar figures, and delayed the implementation for two years, ostensibly in order to conduct the process fairly…
Two weeks ago, the government released supplementary estimates that contained $412 million more in defence spending. This partly had to do with funding for security at the 2010 G8 and G20 summits, but also included funding for aircraft and heavy-lift helicopter projects. It also launched some infrastructure projects from several years ago.
The Canada First Defence Strategy, the government’s multi-decade, multi-billion-dollar defence checklist, is therefore left intact, but spread out over a year longer, says retired colonel Brian MacDonald, now a senior defence analyst with the Conference of Defence Associations. However, he was worried that the capital project spending was in supplementary estimates instead of the main estimates.
“I guess here the question is, really on the equipment side, when we are going to see some greater clarity on the strategic capital investment plan, particularly the big number items such as the fighters and the naval shipbuilding program,” said Mr. MacDonald…’
Mark
Ottawa
A Lib-Dem coalition will not continue the Plan in the purchase of new hardware.
Paul Martin did a reversal in 2005 when he was going to fight a campaign and put billions into a large number of programs.
Lib-Dems have a delusional “Boy Scout” theory of our foreign policy/armed forces.
We don’t need another repeat of Rwanda. The same nutters talk about our taking over the blue helmet leadership in the Congo.
The CPC did not touch many of the spending programs they supported.
Increasing foreign aid and increasing the military were not undermined.
A coalition that relies on the support of separatists will not support more money for ship building out in BC or East Coast.
The payola for Quebec would eliminate the hardware replacements.