Justin Trudeau hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Kirkhill]

The company we keep....

The welfare-addicted West is too decadent to rearm itself, let alone Ukraine​

While Russia’s might grows, Western Europe can find only pennies to spend on defence
LEWIS PAGE 5 April 2024 • 10:00am


Ukraine’s shortage of artillery shells is in the news again. A senior Ukrainian officer has pointed out the blunt truth: that the imminent arrival of F-16 fighter jets from the West will be “irrelevant” if his nation is overrun because its guns have fallen silent.
Many people will be wondering how this can possibly be. Artillery shells are not expensive things. Ukraine only needs 10,000 or so shells a day to hold the invaders back.
In the case of shells, the problem isn’t money, it’s lack of production capacity. Even the mighty USA, owner of the largest military-industrial complex in the world, can only produce 28,000 rounds of 155mm per month – less than 10pc of what Ukraine needs – and this with its factories on 24-hour operation.
The millions of shells Ukraine has already fired have mostly come from existing stockpiles, not from new production. These have not only been American stockpiles: nations all around the world – often preferring not to have their names mentioned, but happy to take Western money – have shipped their stocks of 155mm to Ukraine.
At some point, however, the cupboards will finally be bare.

Why, then, aren’t new factories being built? The short answer is that they are. This situation was understood back in 2022. The US has been building new factories since then, and they are expected to come on line later this year. Soon the US will be producing 70,000-80,000 shells per month. Other nations are ramping up too, though they did not move as quickly as the US and their production will not come as soon.
But it may not make that much sense for the West to establish a massive shell production industry able to keep Ukraine’s guns firing forever. Nothing else appearing, Ukraine will run out of men in the fairly near term. Then, regrettably, our focus would have to turn to our own defence.
Yet as the head of the RAF has lately said: “We do not want to fight this type of war.” And indeed – at least when we fight alongside the US – we don’t fight like that. Saddam Hussein’s large Soviet-equipped tank army was destroyed for almost no British losses in 2003. Our artillery fired just 9,000 155mm shells in the entire campaign.
One way or another, fairly soon after the fighting stops in Ukraine, the Russian army – even crippled – will recover and rearm itself. It will be much bigger than it was in 2022, backed by Vladimir Putin’s new Russian war economy, and battle-hardened.
On the face of it, Putin would still be mad to attack Nato. Even assuming the US withdraws from the alliance, the Russian economy is still smaller than that of Italy alone. Russia should never be able to match the military potential of the non-US Nato nations.

The rise of Russian defence spending is far outpacing that of Western democracies CREDIT: REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
But Russian military spending is rising to 6pc of GDP. Italy’s is just 1.7pc. Russia is already approximately three times as powerful as Italy.
Then, as Napoleon put it while conquering Europe, “the moral is to the physical as three to one”. Grit is even more important than numbers. The West could easily have supplied Ukraine with the weapons to drive the Russians out of Crimea: but we have not, because we lack grit.
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Will Putin really believe he would face serious resistance should he strike into the Suwalki Gap and cut off the Baltics for re-conquest?
There is much talk here in the UK of the need to raise defence spending, perhaps to 2.5 or even 3pc of GDP. But during the Cold War it was 4 to 5pc. The debate should actually be in those terms, and not only here either but all across Europe. Even in Estonia, on the very lip of the bear, defence spending will only hit 3pc this year.
In the democracies of Western Europe we are – to put it bluntly – so addicted to our bloated welfare states that we can find only pennies for defence. The Office for Budget Responsibility says that in 2023-24, Britain will spend just £32bn on defence (other figures are out there, but the UK is well known for creative accounting on its defence spending claims). In total the Government will spend an almost unbelievable £1,189bn.

Nobody dares to suggest a modest 3pc haircut for the other departments so that we can double our defence budget. Yet surely anyone can see that it would be better for all the pensioners, disabled, jobless and sick people to have 97pc of what they have now, given to them by their own government, than ruin and destruction and nothing at all as a newly conquered citizen of a hostile power.
If you’re thinking “that might happen in Estonia, but not here”, think again. When the dictators have conquered continental Europe, they always start looking at us.
Even if we somehow come to our senses and double our defence budget, our welfare mindset and stagnant economy would still cripple us.
Rather than just buying ships, we would keep attempting to revive long-dead British shipyards as social regeneration projects (Harland & Wolff). Rather than just buying fighters and missiles, we’d pour money into foredoomed job-creation schemes intended to copy US technology (GCAP). Rather than just buying drones and armoured vehicles, we’d insist on well-paid jobs for ourselves and in the process completely ruin successful designs (Watchkeeper, Ajax).
As the 155mm shell situation shows us, it’s too late to start getting ready once the war has begun. We need to develop some grit and stop assuming that it’s the Government’s job to give us welfare and nice well-paid jobs.
It’s the Government’s job, first and foremost, to see to the nation’s defences.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Work life balance is achieved through a proper ops tempo cycles, not shoving soldiers sailors into critical and understaffed support positions that now lack continuity becUse of regular posting cycles. They should be in rest/refit mode rather than a “shore posting”. What i suggest is no doubt radical and would lead to more troop downtime and a larger force requirement but Canada could actually make a real contribution and scale up for those critical times.

I just want to understand your position. We should expand the CAF so that when we are not on operation/at sea/in the field ect we should be off on some form of leave ?

 

[Kirkhill]

I just want to understand your position. We should expand the CAF so that when we are not on operation/at sea/in the field ect we should be off on some form of leave ?

Right the first time. Civil servants.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Right the first time. Civil servants.

?

 

[Furniture]

?

I could be wrong, but I think his idea is that non-deployable support is provided by civil servants, and uniformed pers end up in a training/standby pool between deployments and sailing.

It makes sense, but adds a lot of cost.

ECCC employs it's weather observers/upper air sounding techs in a three month rotations. Three months in the arctic, three months off, and three month working at Stony Plain doing training and staffing the upper air sounding/climatology site(8-12hr shifts), before heading back up to the arctic(Eureka, Alert, etc.) for three months. Something like that could be done with the RCN if we wanted to keep ships sailing with a high Op tempo.

 

[Halifax Tar]

I could be wrong, but I think his idea is that non-deployable support is provided by civil servants, and uniformed pers end up in a training/standby pool between deployments and sailing.

It makes sense, but adds a lot of cost.

ECCC employs it's weather observers/upper air sounding techs in a three month rotations. Three months in the arctic, three months off, and three month working at Stony Plain doing training and staffing the upper air sounding/climatology site(8-12hr shifts), before heading back up to the arctic(Eureka, Alert, etc.) for three months. Something like that could be done with the RCN if we wanted to keep ships sailing with a high Op tempo.

I think what a lot of people don't understand is that maintainers and loggies are operating even when they are not on operations. Those guys turning wrenches at TEME, Issuing parts from BSup, Serving your food in a galley are all practicing their job. They are operating.

They are also gaining XP (for you gamers) and understanding of how the support organization works. This part of our PD. As it becomes a needed skill the higher you go.

As for the rotation. So they (The RCN) tried to do this to my ship very very recently, for our upcoming deployment in June. The reaction from the crew was just short of a revolt. These folks had taken a ship worked it up through all phases, over a year and were expecting the reward of a six month deployment at the end.

Telling them we were swapping out 1/3 of them every 2 months was not received well, to put it politely. The ringing theme was "why would I ever to do a working up program again if I can just wait around for a third or two thirds of deployment" and "F-U I'm out if you do this".

I quite literally had an S1 crying that they were going to miss 2/3rds of the deployment so someone who didn't put in the work can get the experience and cash, and that this wasn't fair.

I think the rotation idea is interesting, but I don't think it would have the desired effects people think it would. I think It would create a culture of wait until the inglorious work is done then go get dollar bills.

 

[Furniture]

I think what a lot of people don't understand is that maintainers and loggies are operating even when they are not on operations. Those guys turning wrenches at TEME, Issuing parts from BSup, Serving your food in a galley are all practicing their job. They are operating.

They are also gaining XP (for you gamers) and understanding of how the support organization works. This part of our PD. As it becomes a needed skill the higher you go.

You're aware that my job is the same right? Forecasting/briefing/observing the weather is forecasting/briefing/observing the weather, whether or not we are deployed.

As for the rotation. So they (The RCN) tried to do this to my ship very very recently, for our upcoming deployment in June. The reaction from the crew was just short of a revolt. These folks had taken a ship worked it up through all phases, over a year and were expecting the reward of a six month deployment at the end.

Telling them we were swapping out 1/3 of them every 2 months was not received well, to put it politely. The ringing theme was "why would I ever to do a working up program again if I can just wait around for a third or two thirds of deployment" and "F-U I'm out if you do this".

I simply described what ECCC does, there is no reason it couldn't be expanded to longer rotation phases, so the people doing the WUPS get the trips.

I think the rotation idea is interesting, but I don't think it would have the desired effects people think it would. I think It would create a culture of wait until the inglorious work is done then go get dollar bills.

This already exists... CMs/Costal Advisors already parachute in their picked people to get the trip check in the box, before shuffling them off to the next stop on the succession management train.

The current situation is untenable, but nobody wants to explore options to fix it. It's the most CAF thing ever.

 

[Halifax Tar]

You're aware that my job is the same right? Forecasting/briefing/observing the weather is forecasting/briefing/observing the weather, whether or not we are deployed.

Hey man just staying in my arcs.

I simply described what ECCC does, there is no reason it couldn't be expanded to longer rotation phases, so the people doing the WUPS get the trips.

As it should be. And seems is the pulse of the folks.

This already exists... CMs/Costal Advisors already parachute in their picked people to get the trip check in the box, before shuffling them off to the next stop on the succession management train.

If this is your experience, I am sorry. But it's not mine. It's not something I am hearing being bitched about either. Pickings aren't deep enough to play those kinds of games.

The current situation is untenable, but nobody wants to explore options to fix it. It's the most CAF thing ever.

The answer is to make the CAF a place people want to work and thus boost our recruiting.

 

[Rifleman62]

If you can stand hearing her voice on CBC's The House this AM. If not:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/freeland-canada-support-ukraine-us-aid-1.7164585

U.S. 'unable to step up' on Ukraine aid, leaving Canada to fill the gap, says Freeland - 6 Apr 24​

U.S. ambassador says he's confident major aid will continue to flow to Ukraine​

Freeland was responding to a question about Canada's efforts to meet NATO's military spending target for member nations — two per cent of GDP — in an interview airing Saturday on CBC's The House.

Asked whether Canada would increase spending in the forthcoming April 16 federal budget, Freeland declined to give an answer either way. She told host Catherine Cullen that Canada's per capita commitments to Ukraine — which she called "NATO's most pressing challenge" — had been very significant.

"In March, Canada sent $2 billion in urgent budget financing support to Ukraine at a time when the U.S. — and this is maybe something you could ask the U.S. ambassador about — at a time when the U.S. has been unable to step up and provide support for Ukraine. We were there to fill the gap," Freeland said, after being told U.S. Ambassador David Cohen would also appear on the program.

"Canadians can stand up tall and proud, knowing that our country is absolutely doing our part to resist Russia [and] support Ukraine, which is NATO's biggest fight," she said.

As NATO marks a milestone amid the war in Ukraine, allies are keeping an eye on a possible second Trump presidency. The House speaks to representatives of two high-ranking member countries, U.S. Ambassador David Cohen and U.K. High Commissioner Susannah Goshko, about whether the alliance can survive and why NATO continues to put pressure on Canada to meet its defence spending promises.

Canada has faced increasing pressure — from both domestic voices and some allied countries — to meet the two per cent target set by NATO countries at the alliance's Wales meeting in 2014.

"We won't get kicked out of NATO, but when you make a point at the North Atlantic Council table, your voice carries less weight because you need to put your money where your mouth is," Kerry Buck, Canada's former ambassador to NATO, told CBC News earlier this week.

U.S. bill still in limbo​

Freeland said "shenanigans in Congress" have left the U.S. unable to provide much-needed support to Ukraine as it fights to defend itself from Russian forces.

"That is a problem. Canada's support for Ukraine is not Ukraine's problem," she said.

The U.S. has struggled to pass legislation that would authorize billions of dollars in aid for Ukraine and other allies. Republicans have demanded concessions on border measures in exchange for the foreign aid.

Cohen defended the U.S. contribution to Ukraine when asked about Freeland's comments.

"'I've no desire to debate Chrystia Freeland when she isn't even here," he said in a separate interview airing Saturday on The House.

"The United States has devoted to Ukraine US$77 billion, including $44 billion in military assistance ... I'll stand on that record every day and be very proud of it."

Discussing Canada's military spending more broadly, Cohen acknowledged Canada's actions on modernizing NORAD and supporting Ukraine, and its commitment to renew its fighter fleet. He said the 2 per cent target is still important as a spending floor but the U.S. considers other factors as well.

"I've been very careful to talk about my advocacy in terms of the need for Canada to invest properly in defence, in defence preparedness, to be able to continue to increase spending. And I've been equally clear that I don't think it's fair to assess Canada's performance or commitment to defence by reference to any single metric," he said.

"Democracy can be a little ugly at times, and it can be a little cumbersome. In the end, democracy works, and I have no doubt that the United States Congress will step up and that there will be an ongoing flow of continued significant support to Ukraine from the United States."

In previous statements, Cohen has balanced praise for Canada's other military commitments with some pressure on the NATO target. He has said "the world is watching" what Canada is doing and that he "remains hopeful" the target will be met.

"I don't think Canada has any interest in being that kind of an outlier in NATO," he told CBC News in February.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

I don't think it's Canada's place to berate the Americans on their defense spending, especially not the Liberals. The Ukraine spending may be hung up in congress, but at least the Americans have a system that provides oversight of the government spending, while in Canada, the Liberals, with the assistance of the Conservatives from time to time when they were in power, have used their majorities starting in the 1960's to modify rules of Parliament so as to eviscerate any possibility of it exercising it's proper oversight power on spending.

 

[rmc_wannabe]

Hell I wouldn't want to comment anything about the U.S. Defence spending when the bulk of our own continental defence rides on it.

 

[Cloud Cover]

How many people were aware that Canada transferred 2 billion in cash to Ukraine last month and it wasn’t to fund fighting the Russians?
In the whole history of Canada, the eastern “federal” government has never spent 2 billion in total in the interior of British Columbia. That amount of money would help to start to fix an awful lot of problems here.

I’m all for taking it to Putins Reds- blow them into a pink mist for all I care- but I am totally against transferring cash to - checks notes - pay public service retiree pensions in Ukraine.

We need to remove ourselves from that war for a few years and get things straight at home first, including our own military.

 

[FJAG]

How many people were aware that Canada transferred 2 billion in cash to Ukraine last month and it wasn’t to fund fighting the Russians?
In the whole history of Canada, the eastern “federal” government has never spent 2 billion in total in the interior of British Columbia. That amount of money would help to start to fix an awful lot of problems here.

I’m all for taking it to Putins Reds- blow them into a pink mist for all I care- but I am totally against transferring cash to - checks notes - pay public service retiree pensions in Ukraine.

We need to remove ourselves from that war for a few years and get things straight at home first, including our own military.

Nope.

We need to send $2 billion of military equipment manufactured in Canada to Ukraine to use now. Ukraine can't wait "a few years." What use is cash if it doesn't benefit Canadian defence industries. We don't have many industries that do the whole system but it could easily have been 155 ammo, LAVs and light armoured vehicles. Send equipment we have now and build replacements.

 

[Cloud Cover]

“We need to send $2 billion of military equipment manufactured in Canada to Ukraine to use now. Ukraine can't wait "a few years."

If Canada actually replaced the kit, I agree. But they won’t and everybody knows it.

As for the ammunition, the hold up must be entirely ideological because by now Canada could have scaled up production of at least that. It’s totally mystifying why we have not done so when throwing so much money around.

Ukraine will be around in a couple of years and it’s the better and proper role for Europe to see to that much more aggressively than we should ever have to be - and if they don’t then that’s on Europe and not us.

Our contributions militarily to Ukraine while seemingly large to Canadians, (you of course know they are just a NATO rounding error so far), but huge in the context of what little Canada had to offer- it has now become a sacrifice and not much more than that.

I’m sorry but I’ve come to the view that we are spending far too much money on Ukraine’s needs - both military and civil- and the whole thing is so far out of balance that feds are now going to position contributions to Ukraine as part of Canadian defence spending. The CAF will never be treated with the happy largess that Ukraine receives from Ottawa and so I don’t support it at the current levels until we have things together here.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Governments that express concern about Ukraine's ability to defend itself and recapture lost territory would have stepped up contributions and manufacturing capacity (weapons, ammunition) immediately if they were serious. By observation, they're not serious. No amount of wordsmithing can mask lack of action. Either governments stop posturing and talking and start doing, or just make it crystal clear to Ukraine that no more aid will be provided than is necessary to prevent further loss of territory, so that Ukraine is forced to seek terms and the fighting (and dying) stops.

 

[dimsum]

Hell I wouldn't want to comment anything about the U.S. Defence spending when the bulk of our own continental defence rides on it.

I will. Not about the amount, but the fact that US military members’ pay has to be re-approved as part of the DoD budget each year.

Never in my time in the CAF did I ask whether I would be paid that month or not. Meanwhile, I was on a deployment during the last actual govt shutdown (there have been close calls since) in 2019 when our US rider didn’t get paid for about 5-6 weeks.

ETA: TD as well. If the govt has any hint of shutdown, all TD stops in case it doesn’t get approved in time. Same with US base childcare, I think, bc it’s also paid through that budget. Basically everything seems to grinds to a halt unless operationally necessary.

 

[Navy_Pete]

So, you're saying it's time to ATI the Protecteur BOI?

There is finally a bit of sketchily 'declassified' version that is hard to find but apparently legitimately released on the DWAN, but you have to know a guy to find it. But the names were simply replaced by xxxx, so it's really hard to follow, and because it's essentially buried it's not actually being used for LL. A large part of it is stuff like this;

'xxxx directed xxxx to do something, and then xxxx reported that ....'

Understanding the flow of information and the decision making process is where we get most LLs, so that makes it somewhat useless. I like the HMAS Westralia model, where they replaced names with positions (and numbers, when there are multiple people doing the same role, like attack team leader etc). That was broadly followed by things I've seen from the HNMS Helge Ingstad, as well as marine safety incident inspections, as the names don't really matter. The USN ones tend to use names after they've identified positions, but in really big incidents means you almost need a 'cast of characters' index. Those ones are great though, and probably our primary source for real world LLs.

Once we finally saw it, we realized that a lot of the recommendations for equipment changes don't actually make sense on a modern design for an AOR, or they didn't actually make sense for the PRO, so there are systems coming on JSS that will never actually be used.

The big LL is that you just use your fitted system if it's available. The hard part is reminding people that means the fitted system has to be working beforehand, and also work remotely. Not long ago a ship found out one of their big space protection systems didn't work when it was accidentally activated, and two years ago we found out the AOPs system as delivered didn't work for the entire class for the main engine spaces. Had to actually argue with the RCN on that one that it was a 'must fix' before sailing but there was plenty of butthurt about it impacting the planned sailing. They missed the point that they had been running HDW like that for 2 years at that point. And even though flooding is a big concern, still have people saying the local valve, that is in the bilge and would be underwater, is fine and they don't need to fix the remote operation. Pretty frustrating.

All the other BOIs are still confidential and some of them are just lost, but hoping that there are some hard copies that get found in a drawer as we do some renovations and moving around. The sad thing is we've had numerous repeats of the same fires, so really more of 'lessons written down'.

Noticed that 'risk acceptance' goes up levels before it gets rubber stamped, but consequences and accountability both still roll downhill.

 

[rmc_wannabe]

I will. Not about the amount, but the fact that US military members’ pay has to be re-approved as part of the DoD budget each year.

Never in my time in the CAF did I ask whether I would be paid that month or not. Meanwhile, I was on a deployment during the last actual govt shutdown (there have been close calls since) in 2019 when our US rider didn’t get paid for about 5-6 weeks.

ETA: TD as well. If the govt has any hint of shutdown, all TD stops in case it doesn’t get approved in time. Same with US base childcare, I think, bc it’s also paid through that budget. Basically everything seems to grinds to a halt unless operationally necessary.

I can agree with your points here.

I also will offer that it is far less about the DOD budget and more about how Congress approves (or doesn't) budgets at the whims of political infighting.

 

[dimsum]

I can agree with your points here.

I also will offer that it is far less about the DOD budget and more about how Congress approves (or doesn't) budgets at the whims of political infighting.

Fair. I guess I was really responding to @Oldgateboatdriver comment about oversight in govt spending.

 

[Seyek]

How many people were aware that Canada transferred 2 billion in cash to Ukraine last month and it wasn’t to fund fighting the Russians?
In the whole history of Canada, the eastern “federal” government has never spent 2 billion in total in the interior of British Columbia. That amount of money would help to start to fix an awful lot of problems here.

I’m all for taking it to Putins Reds- blow them into a pink mist for all I care- but I am totally against transferring cash to - checks notes - pay public service retiree pensions in Ukraine.

We need to remove ourselves from that war for a few years and get things straight at home first, including our own military.

$35 billion for the trans mountain pipeline

Over $20 billion in contracts to Seaspan Shipyards, which results in contracts to various suppliers across BC and the rest of the country as part of the National Shipbuilding Strategy

Just under 30,000 federal public servants in BC at a cost of about $125k per full time employee for an annual cost of over $3.5 billion

Currently $9.5 billion in federal transfers to BC currently projected for 24-25

2016 and 2018 bi-lateral agreements for just under $5 billion in infrastructure related funding, outside other existing programs

That's near $10 billion in direct transfers, over $3 billion more for federal jobs in the province every year not including $25 billion in shipbuilding and infrastructure programs, what federal responsibilities in BC do you feel are being ignored? That was a short google search, there's various programs I'm sure neither of us are aware even exist that are probably federally funded in some manner.

I would rather see money for Ukraine being invested in Canadian built equipment. I want dramatically expanded munitions production, I want a multitude of logistics and armoured vehicles being pumped out around the clock. I want various models of drones being built here. I want to see new mortars, machine guns, rifles, body armour, load carriage systems, radios, STANO and other equipment being manufactured en masse to meet their needs and our own. I want to transfer large stocks of older equipment and use it as an opportunity to recapitalize but ultimately we aren't fighting a war for national survival, they are. We could transfer every tank, howitzer, and LAV and so long as we retain naval and air assets for continental defence we'd ultimately be okay in the short term. If Ukraine can't defend itself, then millions of Ukrainians will find themselves speaking Russian at gunpoint in short order, conscripted into their army, their resources and industry co-opted to serve an emboldened Russia who has demonstrated that the west will not live up to its ideals and take the actions needed to preserve democracy, national sovereignty and the rules based international order it professes to support.

We had plenty of problems at home in 1939 too, should we have sat out the first few years of WW2 to make sure we had everything in order here, or could we perhaps shoulder a little bit of financial cost to defend the foundational ideas of our civilization against a country that is actively hostile towards us, engages in hostile information ops against us, and is fundamentally opposed to our military and political alliances?

As for paying Ukrainian pensions - war or no war, old people need shelter and food, and that requires money. Doubtless there are improvements that could be made to Ukrainian government expenditures but even in wartime there are expenses outside of the military that continue to be necessary for a nation to function. By funding Ukrainian pensions they can take money that would otherwise have been allocated for that purpose and spend it on more military matters. Assuming that $2 billion was just for pensions, which it isn't, it's an overall aid package that includes a multitude of old and new programs including military support, civil support, demining projects, humanitarian aid unless there's a whole other multi billion dollar aid package that hasn't been announced anywhere or listed on any government site, news page, etc.

Total aid to Ukraine so far is sub $5 billion in primarily loan assistance, and $2 billion in military aid, primarily in the form of already existing equipment and ammunition. That's $3.5 billion a year on average so far, the majority of due to be paid back. A pretty paltry sum considering we're in the top ten economies of the world and our total aid so far amounts to about 0.1% of GDP per year, primarily in loan assistance.

I can agree with your points here.

I also will offer that it is far less about the DOD budget and more about how Congress approves (or doesn't) budgets at the whims of political infighting.

For all our faults and flaws, forcing an election anytime the government can't pass a budget seems like a pretty nice feature. Along with continuing to pay people while politicians have their disputes.