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Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

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Re: Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

#161
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference here is presumably for the last hundred years, ending last November, there was simply no chance of a invasion of Canada. Nukes might fly overhead and end the world as they struck targets on either side, but other than that we were safe and any significant military action we took part in would be overseas and thus not justify calling up a huge number of reservists. Meanwhile Norway was occupied in WWII,…

"ending last November" - Is the implication that a Trump presidency implies a risk of invasion from the South? Canada has relied greatly on the United States providing a blanket defense guarantee of the continent. The Canadian military is currently operationally worthless across the board, save the cyber domain. There are many reasons for it that I'm not here to list out. However, that does come with grave consequenc…

There were literal statements of annexation. Brushed off by some "that was a joke" but they were made.

Lets not downplay that fact.

Re: Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

#163
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that there are several invasion risks, especially in the north. Canada maintains bases there (Alert) to protect its north from being taken by the likes of Russia, the USA and even Denmark (they have a longrunning dispute regarding an island near greenland). Canada also does not want the northwest passage to become an international waterway and so must maintain control over vessels in the north. https://en.wiki…

outside edmonton and calgary the vast majority of the canadian population is within 100 miles of the US border. now imagine the logistics of a land invasion from northern canada. Shortest distance would be 1600 miles of wilderness. If you went from alert it would be more like 2500 miles of wilderness and several water crossings. All while you are being absolutely pummeled by US air support. It would be a suicide miss…

Canada is not afraid of an invasion through the north. They fear an invasion of the north. They fear the north itself being taken, not that someone is going to drive south.

Re: Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So maybe he should'nt've have broken laws. Not give them anything to pursue. It's not so simple: 1) everybody breaks laws, and 2) in at least one case those laws were stretched and abused in unusual ways to specifically target him (his felony convictions, which unsurprisingly were immediately turned into an electoral attack). I'm not a Trump fan, but I'm not a Democratic partisan either, and I think that prosecutio…

> laws were stretched in unusual ways to specifically target him Sure one man's campaign finance violations/embezzlement (I can't recall the details) are another man's politically motivated prosecution. That wasn't the only case against the guy though. It was the only case that concluded. Winning the election saved his skin. He was cooked otherwise.

>> laws were stretched in unusual ways to specifically target him

> Sure one man's campaign finance violations/embezzlement (I'm hazy on the specifics) are another man's politically motivated prosecution.

Come on, don't be lazy: it's clear you're totally unfamiliar with the case, and a snowclone dismissal isn't clever. The tl;dr is he was actually guilty of a misdemeanors, which where promoted to felonies through unprecedented prosecutorial maneuvering. And it's pretty clear that maneuvering only happened because the prosecutors wanted to get Trump personally for something, and spend a lot of time looking and strategizing how to do it.

If a prosecutor looked at your conduct that closely, for that long, they could almost certainly nail you (or anyone) for a felony, too. And it's pretty important for a fair and democratic legal system that they don't target individuals like that.

Re: Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

#166
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you have a duty and obligation to the society that raised you.

I was raised by my family, thank you very much.

Thereis a huge difference between going to war somewhere and defending when being invaded

Re: Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

#167
post #58
post #41

Seems like a generally good idea for creating a large reserve force. It definitely beats general conscription. I don't see why Canada in particular needs such a large reserve force. This would jump Canada from number 127 to number 52 in terms of percentage of population in reserves, and bump it up to 17th in terms of absolute reserves size. For a nation with basically zero chance of invasion of its home soil and an e…

>For a nation with basically zero chance of invasion of its home soil and an extremely low risk of internal conflict Clearly the Canadian government doesn't feel the same way. If they tried to conscript they'd quickly find themselves in a civil war (for the same reasons the US would), and one the Canadian capital clearly doesn't believe it'd win given how well it fared defending itself in 2022. Of course, bureaucrats…

Are you referring to the "Freedom Convoy"?

Re: Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"ending last November" - Is the implication that a Trump presidency implies a risk of invasion from the South? Canada has relied greatly on the United States providing a blanket defense guarantee of the continent. The Canadian military is currently operationally worthless across the board, save the cyber domain. There are many reasons for it that I'm not here to list out. However, that does come with grave consequenc…

There were literal statements of annexation. Brushed off by some "that was a joke" but they were made. Lets not downplay that fact.

I personally can downplay them as a joke because it is a joke. The mostly likely path forward for anything like that would instead a certain oil rich province voting themselves independent and then asking the US for aid or to join.

And, if it wasn't a joke, then that's even more of a reason to consider meeting your 2% NATO agreement instead of just phoning it in.

Re: Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

#169
post #59

24 000 reserves out of a population of 40 million seems like a rather small number. Norway has 40 000 in the Home Guard (Heimevernet) rapid reaction force of volunteer part time soldiers and a further 20 000 reserves. All from a population of about 5.5 million.

The difference here is presumably for the last hundred years, ending last November, there was simply no chance of a invasion of Canada. Nukes might fly overhead and end the world as they struck targets on either side, but other than that we were safe and any significant military action we took part in would be overseas and thus not justify calling up a huge number of reservists. Meanwhile Norway was occupied in WWII,…

Hilariously wrong take - first, Canada does not have a chance if the US wanted to take it. Second, the US does not want to own Canada for a bunch of reasons, starting with the demographic and economic mess that Canada finds itself in.

Re: Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nukes might fly overhead Numerous Canadian sites, military and NORAD, were and surely are on first strike lists from the USSR and later Russia. The largest established combined bi-national military command in the world involves a fair amount of shared risk.

Agreed. Also, even if Canada were to shut down all NORAD radars and command posts on Canadian territory and to kick out every US soldier and to tear up all agreements with the US, Canadian cities and important Canadian infrastructure within 100 miles of the US border (i.e., most Canadian population and infrastructure) would probably get nuked in a nuclear war just so that the US cannot rely on those resources during…

You missed an important point which is that Switzerland under the guise of neutrality helped the germans finance the war. For most of the time it very much was not in Germanys interest to invade. If their track record is anything to go by, if they had it probably wouldn't have taken them very long. Very few military lessons can be learned from the Swiss for the simple reason they have never fought in a war. As a Brit i'm obligated to point out that it's a similar story with France because they have never won a war.
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