Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site utcsri.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsri!hogg From: hogg@utcsri.UUCP (John Hogg) Newsgroups: can.politics Subject: Arming our Forces Message-ID: <1371@utcsri.UUCP> Date: Thu, 5-Sep-85 14:04:41 EDT Article-I.D.: utcsri.1371 Posted: Thu Sep 5 14:04:41 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 5-Sep-85 14:20:45 EDT Reply-To: hogg@utcsri.UUCP (John &) Distribution: can Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto Lines: 58 There has been considerable discussion in the past few weeks about what Canada's defence needs are, and how many fighters/frigates/arctic-trained battalions are needed. In particular, Donald Acton feels that we should have more frigates on our coasts, because Soviet aircraft and surface vessels approach our country with impunity. This, I suggest, is a slightly skewed view of our requirements. We are presently at peace with the entire world, including the USSR. Should World War III break out (nuclear or otherwise) we would not be able to do more than spit in the wind against Soviet military forces on our own. The Big Stick would have to come from down south, and there is no point in building up tin-pot fangs that will make no difference. What we DO need to do is enforce our peace-time security by employing peace-time levels of force. We need to know who is in and around our waters and our airspace, and we need just enough muscle to tell them to beat it. We don't need frigates; we need a large number of cheap patrol boats, armed with a few depth charges and perhaps a token missile, but with sufficient detection gear to locate foreign vessels. We need aircraft backed up with radar that can spot intruders, and we need a small air-droppable infantry unit that can stand on the ground and tell people that This Land Is Ours. None of these forces need "battle survivability", or whatever the Pentagonese is. *We are at peace.* Depth-charging an unidentified sub in our waters is an exercise of sovereignity; any response would be an act of war, and no foreign commander is likely to be given licence to commit such a faux pas. If you believe in protracted non-nuclear global war and the Easter Bunny, you can argue that our sensors should remain intact for long enough to call Uncle down on whatever we find, but I'd be happy with totally defenceless units. When the shooting war breaks out, no defence will be terribly effective; until that time, our purity of heart will be sufficient. The key point is to defend ourselves, so that our neighbours don't take over the job themselves on the hallowed grounds of their own National Security being at stake. Not defend ourselves from all-out war, but from incursions and near-incursions. And to do this, we must have enough units to cover the ground. Given the GNP of our country, this means that the units, be they planes or ships, must be cheap and thus small and simple. A wonderful bonus of this approach is that virtually all our hardware can be "made in Canada"; large production runs of simple items do not require billions of dollars of sunk costs due to development of complicated, unreliable technology. Thus, we don't need frigates; we need LOTS of patrol boats of perhaps 40m in length. We don't need F-whatevers, but large numbers of aircraft with little more fighting ability than a Lear Jet, and the ability to intercept intruders simply by being very numerous on the ground. Our boys don't need fancy toys; they need lots of them. Unfortunately, this view does not seem to be very widely held. OK Henry, give us the technical and quantitative analysis. -- John Hogg Computer Systems Research Institute, UofT {allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsri!hogg