[Newsbot]

Title: The slow death of the duct tape military
Category: Military
Posted By: Freakinoldguy
Date: 2019-01-07 22:31:53
Canadian

[llama66]

What a disgrace.

[uwish]

but it is what Canadians want, they vote for people that never fix the military, and are the first to make fun of it, yet also the fist to call on it when it is needed.

Typicall hypocritical Canadian behavior.

[raydan]

Duct tape is good.

[Prof_Chomsky]

As long as we pay for it with taxes on the 1% I'm all for modernizing it.
I mean, that is how we were able to pay for our originally well funded, modern military. Hell, our top marginal tax rate was above 90% at the time.

[Thanos]

Kind of just more whistling past the graveyard because until the government does a full commission to see what kind of a military we can afford then we'll be stuck here in the same deteriorating situation five or ten years from now as exists today. All I know is we can't afford a military that covers all the bases, the way it could in World War Two or during the Cold War. We have to decide what we can and should specialize in and leave an omnibus military that tries to do everything in the past.

[BeaverFever]

Unfortunately when it comes to big-ticket items, we also need to buy more off-the-shelf equipment from our allies. Unique Canadian made ships, vehicles and aircraft is simply cost prohibitive when ordering in such small numbers.

[xerxes]

One of these days, a Canadian government is going to have to bite the bullet and spend the money to do what needs to be done with regards to our military. It’ll be expensive and it’ll be unpopular. But it will have to be done, and sooner preferably than later.

[Thanos]

I have my doubts. The problem seems massive enough that the best interests of the politicians seems to be kicking it forward for other generations to deal with, and they'll probably have the same view of it in the future as the current "leadership" does. Besides, both main parties get to make a lot of hay in the Maritimes during elections with the photo-ops promising shipyards and all that other crap that never seems to come to pass. It's pretty much the problem that keeps on giving when it comes to grabbing for political advantage even if most of the time nothing significant or of substance ever happens as far as delivering modern and reliable equipment is concerned.

[PluggyRug]

We are getting new jet fighters.......

[martin14]

PluggyRug PluggyRug:

new

When you are buying used crap because you are too cheap to get good new stuff,

the proper term is 'new to me'. Or in this case 'new to the lieberals'.

[Freakinoldguy]

Prof_Chomsky Prof_Chomsky:

As long as we pay for it with taxes on the 1% I'm all for modernizing it.
I mean, that is how we were able to pay for our originally well funded, modern military. Hell, our top marginal tax rate was above 90% at the time.

So you're saying that the 99% shouldn't pay for their own protection?

I don't think that's a good idea, especially given our politicians proclivity to pander to the rich and famous for their own personal gain. Can you imagine how long it would take till the 1% who were paying for the military would convince our less than scrupulous political leaders to use it for purposes other than what it was designed for? The outrage from the 99% would be palpable.

As a nation all people have to be invested into their military or it doesn't work. They have to feel that they own it and as such have a voice in how and when it's used. But, when you don't pay for it the gov't and rich become it's sole owners who can use it at will. In essence it has a strong possibility of becoming a private military to be deployed as those people see fit.

Think about it. Canadians get completely outraged when the rich want to cut lines by paying for their own personal health care treatments. People claim it takes away from the universality of the health care and delays or prevents treatment for the rest of us. Well the same thing applies to a single payer military. It makes the military equivalent to a two tier health care system where a small group use their wealth to garner benefits from the gov't agency the rest of us can't afford.


Properly funding the military isn't rocket science and for us it wouldn't be even all that expensive if done properly. It just requires political will and and an unfortunately large initial infusion of cash to help start the reversal of the financial malaise it's been seeing since the 60's.

[llama66]

I'm for modernizing our military. Do we need a 6 division, 450+ ship, 1000+ air craft military? Maybe not. But s 2 or 3 division, 80 ships and several hundred aircraft military would be nice.

[Freakinoldguy]

Hell, when a very senior entity of the gov't thinks it's underfunded and publicly says so maybe it's time for our Governments to take notice and start trying to repair the damage they done over the past decades.

https://sencanada.ca/content/sen/commit ... INAL_e.pdf


Although I won't hold my breath because it isn't going to happen. The same culprits regardless of their party affiliation will continue to bullshit the Canadian public with the standard claim of, "we can't afford a properly funded military" or "we'll fund it later" and the Canadians who don't think a viable military is necessary will latch onto that fallacy and run with it giving the Gov't the excuse it needs to continue down the same destructive path.

Unfortunately it's the Canadian way and has been since 1867. For some reason I think Canadians have this pipe dream that if a war or a major conflict starts we'll be able to ramp up industry and the military like we did in the two world wars. Well allow me to point out that this isn't 1939 and advances in technology and training have has made that scenario next to impossible.

In today's world military's have to keep current or they'll be run over on the battlefield, in the air or at sea and the only way to keep current is to continually upgrade to the latest technology because that's what our potential opponents are doing.

[xerxes]

Thanos Thanos:

I have my doubts. The problem seems massive enough that the best interests of the politicians seems to be kicking it forward for other generations to deal with, and they'll probably have the same view of it in the future as the current "leadership" does. Besides, both main parties get to make a lot of hay in the Maritimes during elections with the photo-ops promising shipyards and all that other crap that never seems to come to pass. It's pretty much the problem that keeps on giving when it comes to grabbing for political advantage even if most of the time nothing significant or of substance ever happens as far as delivering modern and reliable equipment is concerned.

I think part of the problem too is the long, Byzantine nature of the procurement process. Just like with infrastructure spending, it takes years before the end result is realized and by then, a politician or a party can’t take credit for it. So why bother?