[Lord Grey Boots]

Raising interesting thoughts about being able to defend your country, and yourself.
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Guest columnist
Poor defense, bad attitude
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/134616729_ocanada17.html

By Barry Cooper
Special to Newsday






'Every nation," said Winston Churchill, "must have an army, either its own or somebody else's." His words bear on the fundamental question of Canadian security policy today: Because of Canadian military weakness, the upper half of the North American continent is increasingly going to be secured not by Canadians and Americans working together, but by Americans alone, acting under American commanders and on behalf of American interests.

Canadians have lost a lot of sovereignty because of military weakness; we are about to lose a lot more. Historically, Canadians took care of domestic security well enough, and relied on the British army and the Royal Navy for external defense. But, from the summer of 1940, when Britain appeared to be on the verge of defeat by Germany, to the present, Canada has relied on the United States for help to guard the approaches to the country and to the continent.

Until the past generation or so, Canada has been capable not of defending itself, but of not being a burden to the United States. Today, however, Canada has provided Washington, D.C., with an unnecessary problem: how to deal with a friendly country that is rapidly running out of defense capability and doesn't see its weakness as a problem.

Canada's current defense posture is not encouraging. Consider first the country's best-equipped and most battle-ready service, the navy. Ottawa's long-standing naval strategy is built around the concept of a flexible task group that can operate in combination with other navies — or, rather, with the only one that counts for Canada, the U.S. Navy. Canada has three 30-year-old destroyers and a fourth tied up in British Columbia because there are not enough sailors to put her to sea. In addition, four surplus submarines have been purchased from the Royal Navy, but there have been problems making them serviceable. Canada also owns two old and rusty support ships.

About the only blue-water vessels that are approximately equal to their U.S. equivalents are a dozen Halifax-class frigates. They are still relatively up-to-date — except that they carry Sea King helicopters. At 40-plus years of age, these dangerous helicopters are considerably senior to the pilots who fly them.

Worst of all, half of Canada's surface fleet and trained sailors are committed to Operation Apollo, Canada's military contribution to the international campaign against terrorism. But the current levels of commitment are simply not sustainable. There are no plans to replace the old ships. There is no slack to take the frigates out of service to upgrade them. By conservative estimates, within five years, Canada will be unable to mount any task-group deployments.

Matters are even worse in the other two services. The number of operational CF-18 jet fighters has declined from 122 some 20 years ago to about 80. One reason so many Air Canada pilots are so young is because they took early retirement from the air force.

Worst of all is the army. It needs 24 new fire-control-support technicians a year to operate certain wheeled armored vehicles. Over the past four years, a total of four technicians have been recruited. Canada has no first-class tanks.

The reason for the sorry state of the Canadian Forces is obvious: Successive Canadian governments spent the "peace dividend" long before there was a hint of peace. Currently, defense expenditures constitute 1.1 percent of the gross domestic product, which places us just ahead of Luxembourg. The United States spends Canada's defense budget in less than a week.

Moreover, the Americans have noticed. For U.S. defense planners, the Canadian Forces are past the point of no return: Canada may as well not have an army, the air force is minute and the navy will soon enough be rust.

In short, Americans today can no longer neglect Canada and trust Canadians to do their duty. It is one reason why the animosity between official Washington, D.C., and official Ottawa is nearing an all-time high. For the United States, Canadians have become weak freeloaders with a bad attitude.

Machiavelli explained what all this means for Canada-U.S. relations: "Among the evils of being unarmed," he said, "it causes you to be despised." Canadians are going to have to get used to being despised. (Bolded by GB)


Barry Cooper is a political science professor at the University of Calgary.



Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company

[KMKeller]

I wonder how Canada sees the entire relationship. Oh wait, they can't stop looking down their noses at us long enough to see the truth of their own military inadequacy. I've often felt that their criticism of the US is remarkably like biting the hand that feeds them, so to speak.

[Art Eatman]

Strictly for the short run of, say, the next ten years, it seems to me that Canada needs to concentrate its limited resources on dealing with internal security, more than external. It is a favored area of entry for Islamic terrorists headed for the U.S.

Seems to me that so long as they act as a relatively safe haven for terrs, they will not be bothered by acts of terrorism. (This is similar to the behavior of France, and to a lesser extent in the past, Germany.) How long that will last is an unknown, but at some point the U.S. leadership will become throrougly fed up--if they are not already there. :)

Overall, there's no real reason for Canada to have much of a military, from the standpoint of defending Canada. Too far to go to invade and too unimportant on the world stage for anybody to be mad at it. Of course, if you go to Vancouver you'd figure the Chinese are well on their way to creating a new colony...

Art

[Lord Grey Boots]

Don't forget that a Canadian wrote the article, and another Canadian (that would be me) posted it.

KMKeller, you are demonstrating the common American mistake that the Canadian Gov't actually represents the will of the people. It doesn't. Members of parliament are democratically elected, but the Parliament is, in effect, a dictatorship. What the Prime Minister wants, he gets. All majority party members pretty much must vote the way the Prime Minister wants. The Canadian Senate is a useless rubber stamp function. Not understanding this, Americans think the Canadian gov't works kind of like the US one, and thus Americans blame Canadian government actions on Canadians as a whole.

Canadians often make the inverse mistake when looking at US gov't actions, i.e. Canadians assume all US gov't actions are the result of desires of the US President. So we blame President Bush for everything the Congress and Senate does, actually, anything the US does, even if President Bush opposed it or had nothing to do with it.

[Lord Grey Boots]

Oh, and Art. Actually, Canada isn't a favoured entry. The 9/11/01 terrorists all came directly to the US from overseas.

Another article from the same paper. Note that the consul is a professional, not a political appointee.


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/134616732_consul17.html
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Guest columnist
Border security no hoax

By Roger Simmons
Special to The Times

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Once again, Canada's image has been tarnished by those who prefer to peddle gossip and innuendo rather than deliver credible news.

For nearly two weeks, the American public was deluged with stories alleging five terrorists had slipped into the United States from Canada. Commentators had a field day cooking up plots about the supposed infiltrators, only to learn from the FBI that the whole story was a hoax.

The FBI disclosure was in keeping with findings of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) that these five individuals never had passed through Canada — a point Canadian officials had been making since the story broke. Unfortunately, this critical point received little if any U.S. coverage.

This was hardly the first time that Canada has been falsely accused of allowing terrorists to cross its borders. After the terrible attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, media reports around the world suggested that several of the 19 hijackers entered the United States from Canada.

We now know that none of the terrorists came from Canada. In fact, the men had lawfully entered the United States with valid U.S. visas. Yet, more than a year later, that initial rush to judgment by the press still leaves a false impression that Canada is an unreliable security partner of the United States.

And, I continue to meet many people whose impressions of border security are based on the myth that Canada was, somehow, responsible for 9/11. These false impressions simply do not jibe with the reality of security along our nations' common border and with Canada's actions since 9/11 in a shared campaign against terrorism. Nor do they inform the American public about the real progress that Canada and the United States have made jointly fighting terrorism and developing a safe and secure border.

Over the past year, Canada has taken strong measures to keep out people who pose a threat to North America. Canadians desire this as much as Americans, even more since Canada was singled out as a potential terrorist target in a recently released tape by Osama Bin Laden.

Canada, like the United States, does not want any terrorists on its soil. New immigration rules implemented last year have tightened refugee determination policies and imposed harsher penalties for those using or selling false documents. Extra immigration-control officers were hired and posted abroad to stop the terrorists before they come to Canada.

Our efforts are working. Nearly 8,000 individuals were denied boarding on flights to Canada last year.

As part of the Smart Border process started in December 2001 between our two nations, Canada and the United States have created new Integrated Border Enforcement Teams (IBETs) to cooperate in guarding our shared border and to increase the exchange of information between law enforcement, intelligence and border-enforcement agencies. These teams have effectively disrupted criminal networks attempting to smuggle illegal migrants across the border and have made numerous arrests.

As we've seen in recent bombings in Kenya and Bali, no place in the world is safe from terrorist attacks. Most reasonable persons know that it is impossible to provide an absolute guarantee that no terrorists will ever enter from Canada, or ever enter Canada from the United States. But citizens on both sides of the border should be encouraged that Canadian and American resolve and cooperation among agencies in our two countries represent the best bet for our common security.


Roger Simmons is the Seattle-based consul general of Canada for Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.

[Art Eatman]

Good to hear. I was thinking more of post-9/11 than before it.

Canadian policies back in the 1960s-1980s made it so easy for "political refugees" to enter (at least, compared to the U.S. of that era) that there were numerous reports of Bad Folks first going to Canada and then on to the U.S.

As a generality, I see no particular need for most countries of the Americas--Canada or "down south"--to have any significant military structure of Blue Water or Major Force style. By and large, the money could be better spent on infrastructure.

Art

[4v50 Gary]

The old Athenian practice of exacting "tribute" from those who are incapable or unwilling of defending themselves is appeals very greatly at this moment. Japan should be first and rather than increase her Self Defense Force, should pay for a couple of carrier groups. The Canadians could pay for one as well as a couple squadrons of fighters and bombers.

Of course, we're benevolent unlike the Athenians who send a "host" to visit their "allies" who didn't pay the tribute.

[agricola]

but why does Canada need a strong military force? who is (even theoretically) going to attack her? who would pay for an increased armed force that would, in essence, do nothing aside from drive up and down the plains all day, with the odd trip abroad where the greatest risk is of being bombed by ones ally?

one of the problems here is that the old NATO force structure deemed that each of the component parts would fill, to a partial extent, a role in the whole NATO force, especially with regards to the navy - which is partially why the RN up until very recently had such a strong bias towards ASW operations.

[KMKeller]

Lord Grey Boots
KMKeller, you are demonstrating the common American mistake that the Canadian Gov't actually represents the will of the people.

Nope, I merely forgot to mention that I was speaking of the "Ruling class". Most Canadians I know are very much opposed to what's going on. As a matter of fact, I'm planning to go shoot sporting clays with a canadian, his boy an Lt. from the local PD as soon as I can get my stuff together. We were discussing which shotguns for him to purchase a couple weeks back. My apologies for that omission.

[Art Eatman]

Aw c'mon, ag, save the cheap shots. That "...greatest risk is of being bombed by ones ally?" was uncalled for. One of Murphy's Laws of War is, "Unfriendly fire: Isn't." Don't smart off as though you think those pilots did it on purpose. Wait til you accidentally hit somebody with your car, and see how you feel.

Otherwise, you're correct, IMO. And count me as one who no longer sees benefit at all in continuing the existence of the NATO...

Art

[agricola]

art,

Ok, that may have been a bit flippant; but (at least over here) its only half-jokingly the belief that more British casualties will be inflicted by trigger-happy US pilots than by the enemy.

I agree that NATO's usefulness is going to decline, alhough it should remain in existance for international excercises and cooperation. Hopefully a supra-national EU force and standardisation can now take place across Europe, and the US can concentrate on its key area, which is probably going to be the Pacific and Indian Ocean.