Comment by incomingpain
15 hours ago
Canada has been running about 1% of gdp military spending, despite obligation of 2%; with new promise to meet 5%. a 500% increase to the size of our military in short order is the promise.
Our reserves are at about 40,000. They announced the plan to go to 400,000. 10x the size. It's not so much about any outside fears, it's just meeting our obligations.The fear about Russia or China is unfounded. The problem is that the USA our greatest ally isn't letting us use them as a shield.
>Federal and provincial employees would be given a one-week training course in how to handle firearms, drive trucks and fly drones, according to the directive, signed by Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan
There's only about 300,000 federal employees. Greater on the provincial sides, but Canada isn't that big. Conscription will be necessary to fulfill these numbers
>The public servants would be inducted into the Supplementary Reserve, which is currently made up of inactive or retired members of the Canadian Forces who are willing to return to duty if called.
It says voluntary, but given the very significant % who need to join and be subject to immediate activation. I dont expect many to volunteer. Reserves at least pays you to have this cost. Conscription will be necessary. They are forcing those government employees ultimately.
> The fear about Russia or China is unfounded.
That dismisses the greatest security threats of the era with a word. Most people in that field think those threats are very well-founded. Should Canada take the risk that everything will be fine?
I don't know much about Canada's current plans and how effective they would be.
Canada right now is trying to figure out if the greatest their to their security is China or the USA. They can tie their boat to either against the other, but they can't be allies with both.
Can they be allies with neither? They are trying to improve relations with the EU and, most importantly, are members of NATO (where the US is also a member).
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Real question: Is any serious person advocating Canada abandon the West for China? What's their analysis here? If anyone has an article I can read I would love to do that.
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> Canada right now is trying to figure out if the greatest [threat?] to their security is China or the USA.
How do you get China in that list? Canada would most likely be challenged over their stake in the Arctic and Russia is plainly the greatest threat in that regard, not China. Russia has invested a great deal into arctic exploration and exploitation and pretty clearly sees the region as free real estate up for the taking. America too has a large stake in the Arctic, but has developed comparably fewer arctic capabilities than Russia. For Canada to have any chance of repelling a Russian invasion of their arctic territory would require America to help them, which under present American leadership would be a piss poor position for Canada to be in (not only because Trump has suggested annexing Canada himself, but also because he's said similar about Greenland, underscoring America's own desire to take that same arctic territory.)
Now, I don't doubt that China would also like the Arctic for themselves, but from Canada's perspective, the relative threat of China must be less than that of Russia and America.
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"Canada right now is trying to figure out if the greatest their to their security is China or the USA."
I very much doubt that is true. Unless the Canadian government get's their information only from "truth" social.
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The USA is a fantastic ally! When a small aircraft was recently hijacked from Vancouver international airport, guess which Air Force came to our rescue? Thank you!!
While there’s a lot of news and media about trade wars with the USA, the vast majority 85% of it remains under the free trade agreement. China does not even come close to a free and open market for us and their state sponsored corporate espionage is a real and growing danger.
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Greatest security threat so far turned out to be USA.
Russia is weak, they cant even take ukraine. To think they'd have a shadow of a chance against NATO is a joke.
China is strong, their standing army is probably 300 million and if they invaded canada. Our <100,000 CAF will be goners. Since they havent done it, they either dont want to or there's something external to canada protecting it. Either case, an unfounded threat.
>I don't know much about Canada's current plans and how effective they would be.
Ya that original comment about russia/china wasnt a significant part of my post anyway.
The idea that China is going to ship 300 million troops to Canada seems absurd on its face. There is just no geopolitical scenario where that happens.
This is more about Canada having enough troops to contribute if NATO decides to intervene in a China-Taiwan war.
>China is strong, their standing army is probably 300 million and if they invaded canada. Our <100,000 CAF will be goners. Since they havent done it, they either dont want to or there's something external to canada protecting it. Either case, an unfounded threat.
China has zero modern real world combat experience though. they would get steam rolled in any peer to peer or near peer conflict imo.
> China is strong, their standing army is probably 300 million
Maybe 1% of that. Also, numbers are important, but so are equipment, training, and leadership.
> China is strong, their standing army is probably 300 million
You may want to check your facts:) The PLA is estimated to be about 3M poeple at the high end of estimates and probably closer to 2.5M people.
Which puts you at 100x too large:)
> China is strong, their standing army is probably 300 million and if they invaded canada. Our <100,000 CAF will be goners.
Having 300 million people and being able to move them across the Pacific Ocean are two very different things.
Yeah, China's building a lot of landing craft. Are those landing craft capable of a 10,000 mile voyage? I doubt it. Does China have a way of loading and launching those ships 100 miles from Canada? I doubt it.
TBH I think taking land is stupid, at least taking a lot of land is stupid because you are left with a huge cost and people who hate you. The US has already gone past that point and I doubt China wants to go back this route. Taiwan for sure, but the rest of the world? meh.
I wouldn't call Russia weak. They have their strengths, one of which is insensitivity to losses. They can grind 20000 soldiers to get a small town, and nobody cares. Also, total control over population, brainwashing the youth, military-oriented economy.
Also, Russia knows how to operate in Arctic, and has real combat experience that none of NATO countries have.
> To think they'd have a shadow of a chance against NATO is a joke.
Which NATO with what army? Do you think Bundeswehr is combat-ready? Is society in any NATO country (except Poland and Finland) ready to fight?
Russians will easily take Baltic countries, for example, is it NATO? Will NATO commit into full scale war with Russia over Estonia? They don't even have guts to block shadow fleet tankers and shoot russian drones over their own territory. Or forget doing something, they can't even stop buying russian oil and gas, because their population will pay more and be upset.
Ukraine stopped them like a bag of teeth would grind teeth of someone who decided to eat them. West is not Ukrainians, even after all these wake-up calls.
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Why don't they offer to all PRs and citizens? I'd like to learn those skills...
Why is the US our greatest ally?
36 stratagems says "Befriend a distant state and strike a neighbouring one"
The only reason you can claim russia is not threat to you is their utter corrupted incompetence which had them losing cold war. In their mindset, every single one of you here living in free democratic country, doing and thinking whatever you like are a direct threat to their dictatorship and way of existence. Canada has no reason to not be another russian gubernia, they can come up with some made up claim like they would need one.
One would laugh at all this and ignore them if they didn't have enough functional nukes to cover entire civilization few times over.
Now I am not claiming the above about every russian person, nor attacking their culture or history. Actually history yes, a bit, its pretty sad and explains why they are as they are. They consistently end up with ruling elite who thinks above, maybe apart from Gorbachev (who is despised back home). Don't ever make a mistake of underestimating how fucked up russia as a country is. I keep repeating the same for past 2 decades (as someone coming from country practically enslaved for 4 decades by them) with people mostly laughing it off, apart from last 3 years.
>The problem is that the USA our greatest ally isn't letting us use them as a shield.
I personally think that Canada can be our (US) greatest ally, but this is only true in the hard-power sense of the word if Canada does actually meet its defense obligations.
Canada has a huge coastline, directly adjacent to our most significant threats (China & Russia), yet doesn't have a navy to speak of.
We need Canada to step up to its own defense so we can keep being equal allies, otherwise Canada is a de facto protectorate and should pay for that privilege.