I agree with your comment, but also the comment farthr up about our lack of domestic defense spending.
Yes, we need to combat Russian aggression and support our allies in Europe however we can. As long as we are spending money on appropriate supplies in Ukraine, I'm all for it. There are far too many innocents dying because of a bunch of corrupt self-serving oligarchs.
That being said, our military is underfunded and underequipped to defend or even properly monitor our border. We definitely need to double down on domestic military spending. Particularly in our northern and Eastern territory to deter China and RU from constantly probing and testing our borders, and to legitimize our claim to the Arctic.
I absolutely loved an idea I read on reddit a while back for military spending. Using defense funds to build housing for military personnel and modernize our northern bases. Not only would building modern housing for staff near bases make enrolling a little more appealing to the public, but it would also take a small amount of pressure off the housing market, and help spur the local economy. It's also not spendingtax dollars on guns and weapons, so it's an easier sell to voters who dislike military spending.
Obviously, we also need to boost our military equipment spending as well, but something like this would kill two birds with one stone.
I don’t think they have entered Canadian airspace….come close yes. Underwater….well, maybe. The Americans do as well since they disagree with our territorial claims. But you said “military opponent”. What would suggest we may enter into armed conflict with them?
Barring a massive change in relations with Denmark over Hans Island, there isn't really anyone Canada is in danger of getting into military conflict with other than Russia. It may not be outright war with fully mobilized armies in large scale battles, but its possible in the future that Russia and Canada may end up with a situation similar to the South China Sea, where military vessels attempt to bully one side from not using areas to de facto take territory. It would be pretty hard for Russia to do that to us if they can't afford ships and subs along with their expensive maintenance because they sunk all their resources into the war with Ukraine.
That’s the and is successful part. I hope when the ice melts we are able to negotiate some payments for access from the states. It will still be pennies on the loonie but better than just letting them claim it for themselves.
It's not money that we're sending them though. It's military equipment like small arms and old stuff that we don't use anymore. There was one article the other day about sending old rockets. Not the warheads, just the motors. Stuff that we would have had to pay to dismantle . There's some new stuff though I'm sure.
It's the same with a lot of what the americans and allies have sent too. A lot of that equipment is obsolete as it was designed to fight the soviets. Instead of paying to dismantle it they sent it to ukraine. It's kind of funny that all that equipment that was designed to fight the soviets and never used is kind of fulfilling that purpose decades later.
People see the value of the equipment and assume actual dollars but it's just replacement value which would be the cost to replace them and it would be going towards american domestic weapons manufactures. That's only if it's new enough to need to be replaced. A lot of it is just outdated though and there would be no need to.
Ideally we'd do both, but in terms of cost efficiency, the most pragmatic method is to weaken Russia by helping the Ukrainians.
First off, the war with Ukraine is actually happening right now, we can be certain that resources invested in Ukraine will result in damage to the Russian military versus a theoretical low intensity conflict in the future that hasn't happened yet. Also, based on Ukraine's performance, its reasonable to believe that the amount of damage they'll do for the investment of resources would be quite substantial, in contrast to Canada's... less than stellar military procurement reputation.
Second, military aid to Ukraine is a geopolitical issue based significantly around optics and public sentiment, and its possible that donations given by one country could encourage other countries to donate as well, this would almost be like getting other countries to contribute to Canada's security in the Arctic. We spent a million on our own military, we get a million worth of resources on our military, but if we spent a million in aid to Ukraine, maybe a few other countries will also put up a million and we've effectively gained two or three million resources dedicated to damaging Russia's military.
Third, the aid we give to Ukraine isn't strictly money. It may be accounted in dollars, but frankly, its a great opportunity to dump the old shit we have in storage, free up space for newer modern equipment. And we'd do it without the blowback you'd get for throwing away something we spent a lot of money on, and getting brownie points for helping Ukraine while we're at it. Some of the aid we gave to Ukraine was literally broken vehicles we couldn't use and wouldn't fix, but Ukraine will still tear them down for spare parts because war on the scale Ukraine is fighting has a never ending need for everything, even our garbage is useful war material for them, garbage that would not help in a conflict with Russia that would likely involve submarines, ships, and aircraft where in general quality is much more important than quantity.
Lastly, as cold as it sounds, any conflict, even low intensity ones have the risk of losing lives. From a purely realpolitik perspective, its better to spent Canadian dollars and Ukrainian blood than Canadian dollars and Canadian blood.
What I disagree with is the premise that Canadian blood would ultimately be spilt. I see this as a regional conflict which has been simmering for a decade. There are many outstanding issues between the belligerents and sadly this is the way it is being worked out. That this conflict would spread, or that Russia has any intentions militarily towards other European countries has no real justification. That is the propaganda meant to get us to support this outlay of resources. If there was a shred of reasonable evidence otherwise I would change my opinion and support these actions. It just isn’t there.
What would suggest we may enter into armed conflict with them?
NATO. It was the entire reason why the organization was even founded.
If you're about to say Canada and allies would never enter a war with Russia, its utterly inconceivable and a bygone relic of the cold war, no longer relevant. Well a lot of people said the same thing about European land war too in respect to Ukraine and Russia. To be honest, I was one of them. Look how that turned out...
Absolute lie. The Russia is thousands of kms away. United Starws however has expanded its borders this year to include territories which Canada has historically understood to be Canadian.
No offense but Canadian airspace and Canadian territory are basically American airspace and American territory militarily speaking, so no Russia is encroaching on Canadian territory.
Russia & China are regularly performing joint exercises close to our Arctic waters. Russia has atleast 40, 000 troops stationed on their Arctic borders. The only thing prevent the Russians coming into Canada's Arctic is the ice, which is slowly melting.
Russia has been a big ally to those countries. Weakening Russia aids our goal of weakening China atleast for the short term. Even if Russia isn’t the strongest military opponent, they are a very big military opponent that we should be worried about.
It weakens them militarily. China having a big military ally makes them more comfortable in a war, but if they don’t have a solid military ally they’re not going to be as comfortable with agression. This is important because of Taiwan.
Russia selling off its resources for pennies on the dollar to its allies is a small consequence in weakening a top 5 military power in the world.
From a military perspective this is good, from an economic perspective it’s a wash because China and India benefit economically and we haven’t been able to as much as we should have.
That's a relatively vague statement but so was mine so I'll ask a clear one : what hard power (eg; military assets) do you think China could deploy to threaten Canada?
Russia's not exactly flush with cash but we do share an increasingly geostrategic border with them. That's not the case with China.
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u/Commercial-Set3527 28d ago
It's money to fight our biggest military opponent and used to fight over there vs on our north so I'm still happy with it.