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rfmcdonaldReading Canada Without Armed Forces?, edited by Douglas L. Bland and published last year by McGill-Queen's University Press, I was reminded that the Canadian military is in parlous shape. Brian MacDonald's contribution to this collection, "The Capital and the Future Force Crisis," once again notes that for the past generation both Liberal and Conservative federal governments have systematically underinvested in the Canadian military's capital goods (weapon systems, vehicles, et cetera), preferring to refit existing systems. As they age, though, the refits become steadily more expensive and produce increasingly bad results, as the sad story of the Sea King helicopters demonstrates. Since the Canadian military's capital goods will, alas, start falling apart this decade, the procurement budget will need to be doubled. Not that there's much chance of that, of course, particularly since (as Christopher Ankersen notes in his valuable essay) the Canadian military is suffering a 10% shortfall of new recruits thanks to the changing expectations of Canadian youth and relatively static and inflexible wage rates, while experienced personnel are beginning to leave in large numbers thanks to deteriorating working conditions. Bland is right to conclude that, overstretched and underfinanced, the Canadian military is set to fall apart over the next decade.
It's worth noting that Canada's military posture is hardly unique among developed countries. The question of burdensharing within NATO has been a transatlantic issue since the 1980s, at least. In the post-Cold War environment, Britain and France are the only other NATO member-states which have tried to sustain military forces comparable in ability to those of the United States and even these countries have found it difficult to keep up to the United States in terms of spending, as this Congressional Research Service report (PDF format) indicates. The technological gap between the United States and even Britain and France is another issue entirely. Britain and France, it's worth noting, have traditions of global force projection and substantial peacetime militaries which are entirely lacking in the North American country that they jointly founded, and have global obligations which require them to sustain substantial military forces. Germany, Italy, Spain, and Poland--after Britain and France, NATO's most substantial European military powers--each have their own deep-seated reasons to distrust the idea of maintaining powerful militaries capable of military action, and seem willing--if not quite as willing as Canada--to leave the defense of their frontiers to NATO's three major powers, or perhaps also--or instead--to a European Union-association defense system. The expensive third option of building up their own national militaries seems scarcely to be considered. Canada isn't a participant in European integration, but geography has ensured that it is quite capable of freeriding on the United States. Even if Canada's military forces were to collapse over the next decade, what is the worst thing that could conceivably happen?
A three-paragraph blurb by J.L. Granatstein, Canadian military historian, adorns the back cover of Canada Without Armed Forces?. Granatstein has also recently criticized the severe underfunding of the Canadian Armed Forces, most notably in his recent title Who Killed the Canadian Military?. Granatstein's analysis, like Bland's, holds that in order to defend Canada's territorial integrity and national interests Canada requires an adequately funded military. Like Bland, he argues that this expanded military should best be used to support American foreign-policy initiatives like (to raise a single, missed, example) the invasion of Iraq. This controversial and problematic issue advocacy, alas, obscures the good case that can be made for increasing Canada's funding of its military, at least enough funding to finance its slow reconstruction over the coming two decades. If the best argument that these gentlemen can devise in support of their thesis is that it'll make the Americans happier without necessarily tackling any of the issues Canadians deem worthwhile, Canada's military is doomed to become an overequipped paramilitary or police force.
It's worth noting that Canada's military posture is hardly unique among developed countries. The question of burdensharing within NATO has been a transatlantic issue since the 1980s, at least. In the post-Cold War environment, Britain and France are the only other NATO member-states which have tried to sustain military forces comparable in ability to those of the United States and even these countries have found it difficult to keep up to the United States in terms of spending, as this Congressional Research Service report (PDF format) indicates. The technological gap between the United States and even Britain and France is another issue entirely. Britain and France, it's worth noting, have traditions of global force projection and substantial peacetime militaries which are entirely lacking in the North American country that they jointly founded, and have global obligations which require them to sustain substantial military forces. Germany, Italy, Spain, and Poland--after Britain and France, NATO's most substantial European military powers--each have their own deep-seated reasons to distrust the idea of maintaining powerful militaries capable of military action, and seem willing--if not quite as willing as Canada--to leave the defense of their frontiers to NATO's three major powers, or perhaps also--or instead--to a European Union-association defense system. The expensive third option of building up their own national militaries seems scarcely to be considered. Canada isn't a participant in European integration, but geography has ensured that it is quite capable of freeriding on the United States. Even if Canada's military forces were to collapse over the next decade, what is the worst thing that could conceivably happen?
A three-paragraph blurb by J.L. Granatstein, Canadian military historian, adorns the back cover of Canada Without Armed Forces?. Granatstein has also recently criticized the severe underfunding of the Canadian Armed Forces, most notably in his recent title Who Killed the Canadian Military?. Granatstein's analysis, like Bland's, holds that in order to defend Canada's territorial integrity and national interests Canada requires an adequately funded military. Like Bland, he argues that this expanded military should best be used to support American foreign-policy initiatives like (to raise a single, missed, example) the invasion of Iraq. This controversial and problematic issue advocacy, alas, obscures the good case that can be made for increasing Canada's funding of its military, at least enough funding to finance its slow reconstruction over the coming two decades. If the best argument that these gentlemen can devise in support of their thesis is that it'll make the Americans happier without necessarily tackling any of the issues Canadians deem worthwhile, Canada's military is doomed to become an overequipped paramilitary or police force.
