Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ubc-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!robinson From: robinson@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jim Robinson) Newsgroups: can.politics Subject: Re: Canadian Military Message-ID: <933@ubc-cs.UUCP> Date: Wed, 23-Jan-85 23:35:09 EST Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.933 Posted: Wed Jan 23 23:35:09 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 24-Jan-85 03:28:30 EST References: <797@ubc-vision.CDN> <925@ubc-cs.UUCP> <679@utcsrgv.UUCP> Reply-To: robinson@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jim Robinson) Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada Lines: 87 Summary: * >In today's fun-filled world, what exactly is a "credible defence"? In my opinion a credible defence should a) be capable of detecting would-be attackers long before penetration into home territory occurs, and b) be of sufficient strength and readiness that said attacker will find invading this country to be an extremely costly ( in all senses of the word ) venture. Coincidentally, I heard today on the radio that that venerable institution, the Senate, has decided that Canada's air defence system is totally inadequate and needs a massive overhaul. >How much would a "credible defence" cost? This is the type of question a good conservative asks. So I suppose I could give the standard conservative reply which is: as far national defence is concerned the cost is what it takes to do the job properly. However, among other things, that is an extremely vague answer so with the help of one Peter Newman let's get a little more precise. In 1983 Canadian defence expenditures were $8 billion which worked out to 1.8% of the GNP. In "True North, not Strong and Free" Peter Newman advocates annual increases in the military budget of about $2 billion until defence expenditures account for 3.6% of the GNP. This would put Canada on par with such countries as Sweden (3.1%), the Netherlands (3.4%), and Australia (3.0%). We'd still be behind Britain (5.3%) and France (4.1%). It is of interest to note that no other NATO country spends less, as a proportion of its GNP, than Canada. >What colour uniforms should be worn by members of a "credible defence"? I've always been partial to metallic orange, but I think the ultimate decision should be made by those who are going to have to wear them. The brother of a good friend of mine is in the Canadian "Navy", and he agrees that giving back the services their own distinctive colours would be a morale booster. Considering everything else they have to put up with I don't think that this is asking too much. The following are excerpts from Newman's book: -- As the Senate's Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs noted recently: "The current Canadian level of expenditures on defence does little more than buy the country the worst of both worlds. While the expenditures are large enough to represent a significant charge on the national exchequer, they are too small to produce worthwhile results" -- -An American version of Canada's CF-104, which for another two years (until the new CF-18s come fully into service) will be our main air weapon in NATO, is considered so outdated that it has recently been added to the historical exhibits of the United States Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. -The computers that operate the firing systems on most of our warships depend on antiquated vacuum tubes. Only two factories still turn out such obsolete equipment: one is located in Poland, the other in the USSR. -Despite our climate and geography, our army has no oversnow vehicles. In one winter exercise, held on Melville Island in the Arctic, Canada's armoured personnel carriers managed to move less than thirty-five kilometres a day - about half the distance covered by a not particularly perky dogsled team. -If we met our existing NATO commitments, fewer than three thousand troops would remain on Canadian soil to defend Canada's home territory in any future war. (It took sixteen thousand service personnel to provide security during the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.) -Although the Soviets have close to half a million undersea mines, at the moment our only defence against these deadly weapons is one squad of very nervous frogmen, groping around harbour bottoms with hand-held sonar sets -- Smaller than the British Columbia ferry system, Canada's navy has been left behind by the advancing technology of war at sea. Of our twenty fighting ships, all but four are between nineteen and twenty-seven years old; their hulls have become so thin and shaky that masking tape has had to be used to keep seawater from damaging electronic instruments. While these destroyers retain a fair anti-submarine capability, they have no defence at all against Exocet-style missiles and wouldn't last an hour in the kind of weapons exchange that took place in the Falklands War. J.B. Robinson