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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

#61

Post by gpm »

incomingpain wrote: post #56
ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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. In Canada? Oh yes, many serious liberals are advocating ending with usa and becoming an ally with china. About a month ago: https://globalnews.ca/news/11490896/canada-strategic-partner... Which resulted in the USA suspending all trade talks with C…

With the qualification that Canada has absolutely no intention of abandoning the West, merely the US. The intent of the government and people is absolutely to strengthen ties to western Europe, not weaken them.

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

#62

Post by seanmcdirmid »

goalieca wrote: post #36
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 rea…

China didn't strongly suggest that Canada should become its 23rd or 24th province. Also, if the USA keeps dipping its feet into fascism every other 4 year election cycle, every other western democracy is going to start pumping lots of resources into a plan B

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

#63

Post by [deleted] »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #42
groby_b wrote: post #21

Just in case people miss the core message: This is something you do if you have a credible risk assessment that you think a big conflict is a possibility within the next decade or so. And, as much as I'd like to focus on deteriorating Canada/US relations, it's likely a dual purpose. The Ukraine/Russia/NATO situation would be the second factor. OK, a triad, China/US is also on the radar. Whatever the weighting, it's p…

Most people haven't noticed until recently but many countries around the world have been dramatically increasing their defense spending for several years now, pre-dating and somewhat independent of the Ukraine situation. Most of it is targeted for operational capability by the end of this decade. Interpret that how you will. As an eye-popping number that illustrates this, just the backlog of new foreign weapon sales…

[deleted]

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

#64

Post by AnimalMuppet »

incomingpain wrote: post #34
mmooss wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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 >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.

> China is strong, their standing army is probably 300 million and if they invaded canada. Our 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.

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

#65

Post by seanmcdirmid »

mmooss wrote: post #27
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Economically not really. China and the USA are the top economies, and China is only going to get more economically powerful, alignment with one or the other in trade at least is inevitable. The EU will be making similar decisions to Canada, and I doubt Canada is going to detach from Europe.

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

#66

Post by kakacik »

_verandaguy wrote: post #4
colechristensen wrote: post #3

[flagged]

I resent the implication that us being separate countries is a "historical quirk." It's condescending at best and exemplifies why we feel increasingly distant from the US. It's like saying that Belgium and the Netherlands, or Spain and Portugal, or Germany and Switzerland are one historical quirk away from being the same countries.

I've heard the same rhetoric (we're brothers, all will be fine) from many russians days before 2022 star of proper war in Ukraine. This feeling sadly means nothing in large enough scale.

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

#67

Post by _verandaguy »

Maxatar wrote: post #37
_verandaguy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I resent the implication that us being separate countries is a "historical quirk." It's condescending at best and exemplifies why we feel increasingly distant from the US. It's like saying that Belgium and the Netherlands, or Spain and Portugal, or Germany and Switzerland are one historical quirk away from being the same countries.

>It's condescending at best and exemplifies why we feel increasingly distant from the US. As a Canadian, why would it be condescending to suggest that at some point in the distant past, Canada and the U.S. could have been a single country had history played out slightly differently? There is nothing offensive about it, if anything the fact that it's a claim about a historical matter only highlights how the two countr…

It's condescending to describe it as a quirk, in the sense that it's no more a quirk than anything else in history. In the current climate where this sort of rhetoric has been publicly and visibly used by Russia to justify their invasion of Ukraine, and by the PRC to justify their ongoing pressure campaigns against the ROC, I also don't take this kind of wording at face value.

Wars were fought. People died, generations were involved in discourse about national identity and where borders should be drawn.

The US and Canada were both at one point British properties, so by some definitions, we also used to be unified. Then we weren't.

Is it insecure? Maybe. The reality is that in a shooting war, we wouldn't last very long against the US, in all likelihood. Under these conditions, the least I can do is to push back against rhetoric that undermines our legitimacy as our own country.

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

#68

Post by qball »

observationist wrote: post #49
groby_b wrote: post #21

Just in case people miss the core message: This is something you do if you have a credible risk assessment that you think a big conflict is a possibility within the next decade or so. And, as much as I'd like to focus on deteriorating Canada/US relations, it's likely a dual purpose. The Ukraine/Russia/NATO situation would be the second factor. OK, a triad, China/US is also on the radar. Whatever the weighting, it's p…

Any rational assessment of Canada's military capabilities, its funding capabilities, and population will lead to a determination that they're not in any sort of position to have any sort of meaningful defense or offense without the US running point. For that to change would require generational shifts in culture and revenue generation and so on. If the US chooses not to defend them, they're exposing themselves to una…

The bureaucrats are being militarized out of desperation.

The political faction all bureaucrats in the nation belong to can't find enough soldiers. This is because they treat those soldiers with contempt- no young man wants to die for Ottawa. Plus, the volunteer soldiers that come back from Ukraine are not going to be on Ottawa's side if domestic instability ramped up, but will be familiar with the tools of modern warfare.

Ottawa is currently (and perhaps rightfully) paranoid of a domestic uprising just as much as it is of the US invading. The US is strategically wrecking the economy of Canadian citizens only a few hours away and if those citizens violently insist on suing for peace Ottawa might lose its power forever.

So, you do the next best thing- you take the faction with the political power in Canada (in this case, Ottawa bureaucrats) and tell them that if they want to keep their privileges, they must join the reserve.

The fact that if any nation decided to actually attack they'd instantly flee (bureaucrats are not known for their courage under fire; that's why they're bureaucrats!) is a problem for future them. What matters is that, to fuel the jingoism fire long enough to keep the bureaucrat faction in power, they need to be seen to be doing something, and this is that something.

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

#69

Post by tiagod »

Maxatar wrote: post #37
_verandaguy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I resent the implication that us being separate countries is a "historical quirk." It's condescending at best and exemplifies why we feel increasingly distant from the US. It's like saying that Belgium and the Netherlands, or Spain and Portugal, or Germany and Switzerland are one historical quirk away from being the same countries.

>It's condescending at best and exemplifies why we feel increasingly distant from the US. As a Canadian, why would it be condescending to suggest that at some point in the distant past, Canada and the U.S. could have been a single country had history played out slightly differently? There is nothing offensive about it, if anything the fact that it's a claim about a historical matter only highlights how the two countr…

Although I don't deny it could've happened, Spain and Portugal were different kingdoms during the Iberian Union (Philip II of Spain was known as Philip I of Portugal.)

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

#70

Post by swader999 »

electric_mayhem wrote: post #57
gpm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has been consistently signalling that it is considering annexing us since Donald Trump was re-elected in November of last year... the politicians are unlikely to say it outright but I think this is pretty clearly aimed at the US and making it too costly to do so.

Canada would be insane to not beef up its military at this point. Mexico should, too.

I'm ok with you guys taking over. You probably don't want us though.
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