“This used to be common among the non-American members of NATO, but with countries across the alliance now ramping up their military budgets as a direct response to Russia,” and this is exactly what they wanted. Sink hundreds of millions (billions) of dollars on an expense that objectively does nothing to improve the material conditions of the working class.
These specific points that the article raises are fucking absurd:
“The Royal Canadian Navy has no amphibious capability. The fleet doesn’t have a single landing craft or assault ship.”
– Why does it need this capability if NATO is supposed to be a ‘defensive’ alliance?
“The army has no self-propelled artillery. To throw shells at an enemy, Canada does it the same way we’ve been doing it since the First World War: We tow one of our 60-or-so guns to the battlefield and set it up.”
– This kind of builds off my first point, if you’re supposed to be defensive you can maintain a static, defensive position and field artillery (instead of SPGs) is fine, why would we spend more money on something that isn’t necessary?
“The navy can’t really resupply itself at sea. Canada’s last resupply ship kept catching fire, so until a replacement is completed, navy ships need to be refuelled and restocked using a former container ship that is not rated for combat.”
– Now this is more of a real problem; the RCN isn’t great and it can be fairly reasonably argued that a navy can be used for more than just offensive and imperialistic operations. It can also provide natural disaster assistance and other non-combat tasks. Personally, I’d give them a pass on bringing this up.
“We’re not doing great on drones. Armed Bayraktar drones have proved to be an exceedingly cheap way for Ukraine to target incoming Russian columns. But even for a Canadian military that loves to cheap out on air support, we’re still years away from getting an armed drone.”
– I don’t even think I need to point out why this is a stupid critique to raise.
“Even the official prime ministerial transport is an outdated embarrassment. The RCAF operates the Airbus CC-150 that is currently flying Trudeau around Europe, and as the National Post’s Colby Cosh noted in a recent column, the interior is notable for being strewn with extension cords.”
– Nor this…
This entire argument hinges on a vast misunderstanding of what NATO was meant to be, that being a joint defence force. It doesn’t matter that Canada lacks certain things, they’re meant to be supported by nations that do have those things. Defenders of NATO don’t even understand why NATO exists.
“This used to be common among the non-American members of NATO, but with countries across the alliance now ramping up their military budgets as a direct response to Russia,” and this is exactly what they wanted. Sink hundreds of millions (billions) of dollars on an expense that objectively does nothing to improve the material conditions of the working class.
These specific points that the article raises are fucking absurd:
This entire argument hinges on a vast misunderstanding of what NATO was meant to be, that being a joint defence force. It doesn’t matter that Canada lacks certain things, they’re meant to be supported by nations that do have those things. Defenders of NATO don’t even understand why NATO exists.
(note, this comment piggybacks on the above one)