Canada's NATO Obligations

[SabreFan1]

Thanks to the orangutan running for president, I checked to see which countries in Nato were meeting their financial and military obligations.

 

Each NATO country is required to spend 2% of its GDP on military expenditures and Canada is currently spending 1%.

 

Since the US and UK would defend Canada no matter what or who was president in the US, do you think that Canadian citizens would allow/accept their government doubling the country's military spending?  With the current deficit Canada is running and its people being made up mostly of pacifists, I cant ever see that happening.

[riffraff]

Pretty simple really.

 

if your country doubles its military spending before other basic needs like education, healthcare, affordable housing, etc. ............then you have a team of idiots running your country

[SabreFan1]

1 minute ago, riffraff said:

Pretty simple really.

 

if your country doubles its military spending before other basic needs like education, healthcare, affordable housing, etc. ............then you have a team of idiots running your country

I agree.  It's also, in Canada's case, completely pointless.  It's role in world conflicts isn't in the number of its troops like it was back in the 40's-50's, especially in WW2. 

 

I'm just curious as to the average Canadian perspective.  NATO has set a soft deadline of 10 years for other countries to achieve the 2% spending.  I just don't see the point in Canada doing it.

[khay]

10 minutes ago, SabreFan1 said:

Thanks to the orangutan running for president, I checked to see which countries in Nato were meeting their financial and military obligations.

 

Each NATO country is required to spend 2% of its GDP on military expenditures and Canada is currently spending 1%.

 

Since the US and UK would defend Canada no matter what or who was president in the US, do you think that Canadian citizens would allow/accept their government doubling the country's military spending?  With the current deficit Canada is running and its people being made up mostly of pacifists, I cant ever see that happening.

No way. Hard to justify doubling military spending when there is no real enemy/threat to the country at the moment and none in the foreseeable future.

 

Most (if not all) of the countries that spend large portion of their budget on military expenditures do it because they have no choice. As a consequence, the quality of life of people in those countries are lower than countries that don't have to spend excessively on military. 

 

 

 

[nux_win]

3 minutes ago, SabreFan1 said:

I agree.  It's also, in Canada's case, completely pointless.  It's role in world conflicts isn't in the number of its troops like it was back in the 40's-50's, especially in WW2. 

 

I'm just curious as to the average Canadian perspective.  NATO has set a soft deadline of 10 years for other countries to achieve the 2% spending.  I just don't see the point in Canada doing it.

The point is that if we want to be part of a team, and in this case I think that it is not unwise, then we should all be pulling on the rope with the same amount of effort.  It's a matter of simply being fair to our fellow partners.  We could debate pulling out of the alliance altogether but as long as we are in then we should be an equal member and do our fair share.  And yes, these days it's not about troop numbers, it's a high tech game that comes with a big price tag.  And one more thought, there's something to economy of scale, by being part of NATO we get a bigger bang for our buck, if we backed out and had to defend ourselves by ourselves, we might end up spending even more. 

[SabreFan1]

1 minute ago, nux_win said:

The point is that if we want to be part of a team, and in this case I think that it is not unwise, then we should all be pulling on the rope with the same amount of effort.  It's a matter of simply being fair to our fellow partners.  We could debate pulling out of the alliance altogether but as long as we are in then we should be an equal member and do our fair share.  And yes, these days it's not about troop numbers, it's a high tech game that comes with a big price tag.  And one more thought, there's something to economy of scale, by being part of NATO we get a bigger bang for our buck, if we backed out and had to defend ourselves by ourselves, we might end up spending even more. 

My point of view is more selfish.  I personally would be more interested in Canada shifting most of its current level military spending to help secure the western US/Canadian air/sea border.  Putin proved a while back that he could get his MiGs uncomfortably close to the US west coast before they were detected.  The US military is deployed all over the world and NORAD seems to have some holes in it or at least it did several years back.

[riffraff]

It's not just the doubling of spending it's the operation costs after.

 

paying guys to do laps in fighter jets over Saskatchewan......

[SabreFan1]

17 minutes ago, riffraff said:

It's not just the doubling of spending it's the operation costs after.

 

paying guys to do laps in fighter jets over Saskatchewan......

I would assume the operation costs would factor into the percentage.  The NATO charter just mandates military spending and that would be considered military spending.

 

Although the idea of CF-18s doing laps around the provinces is a silly thought insofar as that would be very wasteful.

 

*edit*  My bad.  As @nux_winpointed out, Canada never commissioned a Canadian variant of the F-16.

[nux_win]

5 minutes ago, SabreFan1 said:

I would assume the operation costs would factor into the percentage.  The NATO charter just mandates military spending and that would be considered military spending.

 

Although the idea of CF-16s doing laps around the provinces is a silly thought insofar as that would be very wasteful.

Don't you mean CF-18s?  In any case, we don't necessarily have to spend the money in a wasteful way, we could for example use the money to build our own fighter jets here at home, and put people to work and build infrastructure and industry here at home at the same time that has very useful civilian spin-offs.

[SabreFan1]

3 minutes ago, nux_win said:

Don't you mean CF-18s?  In any case, we don't necessarily have to spend the money in a wasteful way, we could for example use the money to build our own fighter jets here at home, and put people to work and build infrastructure and industry here at home at the same time that has very useful civilian spin-offs.

Whoops.  My bad, you're right.  There was never a Canadian F-16 variant made.  No idea what I was thinking.

[riffraff]

39 minutes ago, SabreFan1 said:

I would assume the operation costs would factor into the percentage.  The NATO charter just mandates military spending and that would be considered military spending.

 

Although the idea of CF-18s doing laps around the provinces is a silly thought insofar as that would be very wasteful.

 

*edit*  My bad.  As @nux_winpointed out, Canada never commissioned a Canadian variant of the F-16.

Obviously You haven't seen the SAR choppers going to Starbucks here in the island

[SabreFan1]

1 minute ago, riffraff said:

Obviously You haven't seen the SAR choppers going to Starbucks here in the island

I live in Buffalo 3,000 miles away from BC, but I am sooo going to Google that.  That's just funny. 

[Ghostsof1915]

Much like anything with Money it depends on what you spend it on. If Money was spent on things that can help Canada in a disaster (Earthquakes, floods, ice storms, blizzards) then sure. I wouldn't have a problem if we bought V-22 Osprey's. They have 100 mile per hour advantage in speed over a AW159 Wildcat Helicopter. Double the range. They can transport 24 troops. and handle 20,000 lbs of cargo. Useful given our terrain and distances. Useful as it can double as an evacuation vehicle. Supply food and supplies, and medical personnel in an emergency. Given we were going to spend $4.4 billion on CH-149 in the late 80's for 48 helicopters. 

That same $4.4 billion now would get us 60 V-22's. 

 

Instead of buying F-35's make our own damn planes. Or buy Saab Gripen's In both cases Sweden and the US has paid the development costs. Or even revive concepts like the Martin Seamaster. Have it as a seaplane bomber, and/or cargo plane/ water bomber. 

 

 

Have Canada as more of a support role, assisting in the combat engineering, and medical roles. Then have troops out in the community helping with infrastructure. Open Small Hospitals that work as Veteran's Hospitals/Emergency Hospitals/Military Hospitals. 

Military Police as traffic police so regular police officers can focus more on crime. Tactical Units to work/assist as SWAT teams. 

 

The problem isn't just NATO, we need to decide what kind of military we want and the roles they should do, and what we can afford them to do. 

 

 

[Ghostsof1915]

42 minutes ago, SabreFan1 said:

Whoops.  My bad, you're right.  There was never a Canadian F-16 variant made.  No idea what I was thinking.

You're probably confusing CF-5's build by Canadair. 

[kylecanuck]

6 minutes ago, Ghostsof1915 said:

Much like anything with Money it depends on what you spend it on. If Money was spent on things that can help Canada in a disaster (Earthquakes, floods, ice storms, blizzards) then sure. I wouldn't have a problem if we bought V-22 Osprey's. They have 100 mile per hour advantage in speed over a AW159 Wildcat Helicopter. Double the range. They can transport 24 troops. and handle 20,000 lbs of cargo. Useful given our terrain and distances. Useful as it can double as an evacuation vehicle. Supply food and supplies, and medical personnel in an emergency. Given we were going to spend $4.4 billion on CH-149 in the late 80's for 48 helicopters. 

That same $4.4 billion now would get us 60 V-22's. 

 

Instead of buying F-35's make our own damn planes. Or buy Saab Gripen's In both cases Sweden and the US has paid the development costs. Or even revive concepts like the Martin Seamaster. Have it as a seaplane bomber, and/or cargo plane/ water bomber. 

 

 

Have Canada as more of a support role, assisting in the combat engineering, and medical roles. Then have troops out in the community helping with infrastructure. Open Small Hospitals that work as Veteran's Hospitals/Emergency Hospitals/Military Hospitals. 

Military Police as traffic police so regular police officers can focus more on crime. Tactical Units to work/assist as SWAT teams. 

 

The problem isn't just NATO, we need to decide what kind of military we want and the roles they should do, and what we can afford them to do. 

 

 

 

 

Very well thought out of way to set up the Canadian military/reliefe troops spending. If we do have to double our spending on military, this is the direction I would like to see it go. It's also a viable commodity for our country moving forward, while we might not be the strongest we could be one of the best educated and or prepared for a major war or surviving a catastrophe. 

[John Tortorella]

1 hour ago, riffraff said:

Pretty simple really.

 

if your country doubles its military spending before other basic needs like education, healthcare, affordable housing, etc. ............then you have a team of idiots running your country

Unfortunately that is not how it works.

Canada has as of 2015 91% of its GDP in government debt. Thus most of our wasted money is actually going to paying off a debt  http://www.tradingeconomics.com/canada/government-debt-to-gdp .(Think for a second, the country that makes the money is in debt and thus required tax dollars to pay a debt that shouldn't logically be a possibility)

Affordable housing, is a band-aid on agreements like NAFTA and soon TPP as our manufacturing or "Value Added" service industry has shrunk dramatically. This causes lower wage as service industries pay poorly. Walmart is one of the largest backers of social programs like welfare, why? because then they don't have to pay their employees livable wages, the other employees in the country who pay taxes will make up the difference.

 

I agree that education and healthcare are vital to a healthy country, however if the country is not safe, no education or health care will solve its problems. The agreement is 2% of GDP to NATO then Canada must contribute 2% of GDP. If the law is you have to apply to come into a country then someone who enters illegally is defined as a CRIMINAL, someone who does something illegal.

 

You cant bend the truth. spending 1% more to DEFENSE is absolutely important to do. I am not saying that we have enemies today but we do have the most drinking water in the world. Clearly we have something that will be of great desire in the near future and judging by the US's policy around oil, if it replaces its desire for oil with water, we can kiss our sovereignty good bye.

 

But similar to how the English wanted sovereignty but were ridiculed around the world, you likely will think becoming American is a great idea.and go on you knees at signs of first conflict.

[SabreFan1]

@John TortorellaThe US is many more times more likely to invest in huge desalination plants and pipelines to deliver it out west for Pacific Ocean water than it is in trying to absorb a country like Canada.  The US east coast is in no danger of running out of drinkable water.

[riffraff]

16 minutes ago, John Tortorella said:

Unfortunately that is not how it works.

Canada has as of 2015 91% of its GDP in government debt. Thus most of our wasted money is actually going to paying off a debt  http://www.tradingeconomics.com/canada/government-debt-to-gdp .(Think for a second, the country that makes the money is in debt and thus required tax dollars to pay a debt that shouldn't logically be a possibility)

Affordable housing, is a band-aid on agreements like NAFTA and soon TPP as our manufacturing or "Value Added" service industry has shrunk dramatically. This causes lower wage as service industries pay poorly. Walmart is one of the largest backers of social programs like welfare, why? because then they don't have to pay their employees livable wages, the other employees in the country who pay taxes will make up the difference.

 

I agree that education and healthcare are vital to a healthy country, however if the country is not safe, no education or health care will solve its problems. The agreement is 2% of GDP to NATO then Canada must contribute 2% of GDP. If the law is you have to apply to come into a country then someone who enters illegally is defined as a CRIMINAL, someone who does something illegal.

 

You cant bend the truth. spending 1% more to DEFENSE is absolutely important to do. I am not saying that we have enemies today but we do have the most drinking water in the world. Clearly we have something that will be of great desire in the near future and judging by the US's policy around oil, if it replaces its desire for oil with water, we can kiss our sovereignty good bye.

 

But similar to how the English wanted sovereignty but were ridiculed around the world, you likely will think becoming American is a great idea.and go on you knees at signs of first conflict.

Very good points.

 

i was vague on my affordable housing statement.  I more

meant possibly using tax money from foreign real estate investors directed at affordable housing or at least improving existing structures which I have worked on first hand.

 

i agree with your Walmart analogy.  I'm no socialist by any stretch.

 

i would suggest that you can't get blood from a stone and I just don't see where or how the average Canadian will pony up for a double in military spending.  

 

Another question is where do we get an increase in military staff from?  Today's youth?

[Kragar]

10 minutes ago, SabreFan1 said:

@John TortorellaThe US is many more times more likely to invest in huge desalination plants and pipelines to deliver it out west for Pacific Ocean water than it is in trying to absorb a country like Canada.  The US east coast is in no danger of running out of drinkable water.

There's been a desal plant planned for years here in Huntington Beach.  But, the legal hurdles seem insane, and IIRC, we have had two propostiions to vote on already.  Looks like the plant is planned to be running 2019, so at least progress is being made.  Makes a boatload more sense to me to use desal here than to run water down from NorCal, in open viaducts.  Hate to think how much water is lost to evaporation.

 

If CA is any indication of the rest of the country, your point is accurate.  Based on the plant developer's site:

 

Quote

STANFORD, CALIF - Today, the Hoover Institute released a statewide poll that shows Californians overwhelmingly support the building of desalination facilities on California’s coast. 
Across all demographic groups – including age, race, gender, geographic location, education level, and political party affiliation – respondents support desalination. In fact, 82 percent of those polled support building desalination facilities, with 57 percent strongly supporting. 

I"m surprised this state can be that much aligned over anything 

 

http://www.poseidonwater.com/news-and-events/category/huntington-beach-desalination-plant

[dominicanbob]

4 hours ago, SabreFan1 said:

I agree.  It's also, in Canada's case, completely pointless.  It's role in world conflicts isn't in the number of its troops like it was back in the 40's-50's, especially in WW2. 

 

I'm just curious as to the average Canadian perspective.  NATO has set a soft deadline of 10 years for other countries to achieve the 2% spending.  I just don't see the point in Canada doing it.

Except it is part of the treaty obligation when we joined NATO. Honouring your obligations whether domestic or international, is pretty important. I know we've come close to the two percent but never achieved it. We could take the ten billion in equalization payments from Quebec and put that toward Defense spending.