Vincent J. Curtis
10 Nov 2016
With the election of Donald Trump as the next President of
the United States, the world can expect a large recapitalization of the U.S.
military over the next four to eight years.
We can also expect the Trump Administration to pressure NATO allies to
increase their defense expenditures to 2 % of their GDP.
Trump famously campaigned on the theme that the United
States was not going to carry a heavier share of the defense burden of the
western world than was justified by economics.
If NATO allies expected the assistance of the United States, then they
needed to do their part. Some of that
pressure will undoubtedly be applied to Canada, for Canada is one of those not
spending up to the agreed level of 2 % of GDP.
What does that mean for Canadian defense?
In the first place, it would mean that the Canadian defense
budget needs to be in the range of CDN $48 billion. The budget track released by the Trudeau
government in its maiden budget forecasts decreases in defense expenditures –
the amount projected for 2016 was $29.4 billion with a decrease to $14.4
billion by 2020-2021. In the eyes of
Trump, we are moving in the wrong direction.
Yes, defense is one of many competing priorities for Federal
tax expenditures, but national defense and maintaining good relations with
allies are among the most fundamental of priorities of any national
government. Those priorities have a
higher call for money than new spending to make life more comfortable for a
minority of Canadians. The needs of all
take priority over the needs of the few.
What use could be made of additional defense expenditures?
There is no question that the Canadian Armed Forces are in
need of recapitalization. The navy needs
to be completely rebuilt, and soon. The
fighting capacity of the RCAF is aging rapidly, and the replacement for the
CF-18 fleet is late and nowhere in sight.
The army could also use a new store of capital equipment for general
purpose combat operations.
The government is dithering over whether it should acquire
ten or twelve frigates to refight the Battle of the Atlantic, should it ever
come back. The naval brass is still in
the grip of the old-school small ship navy mentality that has dominated
Canadian naval thinking since the days of the Niobe and the Rainbow. The RCN brass need to have in their top
drawer a plan for a real battle fleet, a fleet consisting not just of frigates
but of one or more battlecruisers as well.
And if battlecruisers seem to be too war-like for political tastes, then
missile-cruisers in the 10,000 ton range can be had off-the-shelf from the
United States at $2 billion apiece, less than the cost of a 5,000 ton
custom-built frigate. Anyhow, a
capitalization project in the range of $40 billion should be ready to go.
The RCAF is caught between the failure of Lockheed-Martin to
deliver a viable F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in a timely and cost efficient
manner, and a new government that wants to start the bidding process for the
CF-18 from scratch. The solutions are
easy: buy off the shelf F-16s, or the updated F/A-18E/F Super Hornet off the
shelf, both of which are also still in production. These are Gen 4.5 fighters, not Gen 5
fighters, but they can be had soon; they are still current and viable for
modern combat air operations, and should be seen as an interim purchase until
the Gen 5 fighters are finally available.
The army could also use a store of useful equipment, in
particular modern artillery. The M-777
proved spectacular in Afghanistan, and no army has been able to succeed in
modern combat operations in the absence of dominant artillery since the Thirty
Years War.
The problem of joint operations between air and surface has
and will continue to bedevil CAF combat operations. If it flies, it is said to belong to the
RCAF. But what about rotary
aviation? What about a naval aircraft
carrier? The United States solved this
inter-service problem by assigning rotary aviation to the army and the Marines,
and carrier aircraft to the navy. The
USAF was assigned responsibility for long-range bombers, intercontinental
missiles and space operations, and that satisfied the inter-service rivalry
problem. That solution is not possible
for Canada, since we have no long range bombers, ICBMs, or space operations.
If the army is going to overcome its deficiency of rotary
combat aviation, the question of ownership needs to be solved. Nevertheless, the development of combat
aviation under the direct control of army command is something Canada may need
to resolve, and the pressure of increasing CAF combat capability would be an
impetus.
The pressure of Russia on NATO and of China in the South
China Sea is not going to disappear under a Trump Administration. They will be resolved by increasing the
combat power of NATO, which will add firmness to diplomacy.
Canada is being looked to as a bigger player in the
world. We are no longer the fireproof
house far from the sources of conflagration.
Greater combat power in the CAF is necessary for Canada to play its
proper role in keeping peace in the world.
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