Canada does not need an army for defensive or offensive purposes. The US has a 400 billion dollar a year Military budget. The Americans air superiority is enough to win any battle. Any threat to us and by proxy the USA would respond.
Canada does need an army to flex it's sovereignly even though it's more of a staged event than an actual necessity.
Without all of these you cannot be considered a country. So why do we need an army, it is self explanatory if you don't want to be taken over by a rebel force who could in turn provide the above 3 items and ask for standing in the world as a legitimate country.
You can be considered a country without a military. There are countries right now with no Army, Air Force, or Navy to call their own. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_without_an_army. You may not be a world player, but meh. There are many nice socialist countries with insignificant forces and they are not under threat of losing their borders.
New Zealand's army is 1000 or so strong, they couldn't defend their land against a swarm of lemurs. Iceland.... not sure but I'm guessing it's small. Today, rebel force can't just take over a powerful country. Canada will never be taken over by 'rebels'. Presently, nobody is that unhappy to actually spur a bloody revolution. And if a rebellion did emerge then chances are the army (or a good portion of the army) would side with the rebels. So aside from image and personal pride, you can't make an argument that Canada would lose it's borders without the CF. I would like to hear your argument.
As of late, I'm starting to wonder if 'image' is what Canada even needs. I was sure it was for a very long time, and even championed it here at the forums. But given our population, our budget, and our place geographically- Can we support a worthy military? One that does not run on out-dated ships and one that Canadians could rely on? I'd say no. Small populations wield small taxes on top of which we import more than we export, so Canada has neither the bank nor size to support anything other than small military.
And to me, a small military is starting to become slightly irrelevant. I think a portion of Canadians feel pride in knowing they have an army and to that degree I'd say it's a good thing to have around. It really is the only argument I can see as to why we MUST have a military. Because the world would not notice if we scrapped our CF. I'm sure the US does not care, just as long as we have missile stocked satellites orbiting over our hemisphere.
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The US will not Annex Canada. Wealthy American industrialist already own a large portion of our industry. Vancouver’s hottest money maker at the moment, Land, is own vastly by wealthy Hong Kong business men - So don't think Americans are the only greedy ones out there. We sold Alaska and whatever lumber we don't use for ourselves, we sell to the US alongside energy and produce. I'm not sure if the cost of annexing Canada would be worth the hassle. Business with Canada works good for the US at the moment until our dollar surpasses their own. But the US would respond ot a weak dollar by simply tacking on tariffs to Canadian imports.
The US is not a threat. I can't think of one threat in the entire world. Building a huge army will not 'weed' out terrorism either. Stricter border control and spy games (CSIS, CIA, MI6) is what prevents that sort of thing, not Fort Bragg or Gagetown. Terrorists don't care about how big an army is, if you haven't already noticed.
So between the lack of threat and money and the presence of a big neighbor- Canada's military does seem a bit superfluous.
The Infantry, armour, arty and FD Eng have been traditionally still "Soldiers first" all along so it won't be a drastic change.
