[HN Gopher] Canadian military will rely on public servants to bo...
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Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks
by 300k
Author : Teever
Score : 67 points
Date : 2025-11-10 16:55 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ottawacitizen.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (ottawacitizen.com)
| abrichr wrote:
| https://archive.is/G4oZo
| colechristensen wrote:
| Sign of the times, Canada is so afraid of the instability of
| America that they're low-key drafting public servants on a
| voluntary basis for now into the military.
|
| Canadians are our closest brothers and sisters and it's just a
| historical quirk that we're separate countries at all.
| _verandaguy wrote:
| I resent the implication that us being separate countries is a
| "historical quirk." It's condescending at best and exemplifies
| why we feel increasingly distant from the US.
|
| It's like saying that Belgium and the Netherlands, or Spain and
| Portugal, or Germany and Switzerland are one historical quirk
| away from being the same countries.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I mean, it's entirely possible that a historic quirk 300+
| years ago leads to an increasingly distant relationship
| today.
|
| It's definitely possible to intepret this the way Russia
| speaks about Ukraine - "They shouldn't even be a country
| *except for a historical quirk", but a charitable
| interpretation would be more along the lines of "things could
| have gone slightly differently and we'd be countrymen, but
| instead we brothers from a different mother (country)".
| _verandaguy wrote:
| After this past year of US political discourse, you'll
| forgive me for not extending the benefit of the doubt
| anymore.
| tokai wrote:
| No need to interpret. The exact same line colechristensen
| wrote has been used by Russias about Ukraine many times.
| JuniperMesos wrote:
| > It's like saying that Belgium and the Netherlands, or Spain
| and Portugal, or Germany and Switzerland are one historical
| quirk away from being the same countries.
|
| I think you could say this about any of those countries,
| although Switzerland's mountainous location means that it
| would always resist being part of a larger polity.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| > means that it would always resist being part of a larger
| polity.
|
| More like it can resist in a more cost effective way and
| that subjugating them is worth less.
| mmooss wrote:
| It also reprises one of Russia's claims to Ukraine, and that
| of many other expansionist dictators through history.
|
| Maybe the US should be part of Canada?
| Maxatar wrote:
| >It's condescending at best and exemplifies why we feel
| increasingly distant from the US.
|
| As a Canadian, why would it be condescending to suggest that
| at some point in the distant past, Canada and the U.S. could
| have been a single country had history played out slightly
| differently? There is nothing offensive about it, if anything
| the fact that it's a claim about a historical matter only
| highlights how the two countries have evolved separately and
| independently.
|
| Furthermore your other points are kind of bizzare. Spain and
| Portugal could absolutely have been a single country, and in
| fact they were under the Iberian Union. There are numerous
| other instances where the two countries came close to
| unifying.
|
| The historical possibility of a unified Belgium and the
| Netherlands is even stronger since those two countries had
| been unified twice.
|
| Germany and Switzerland however is a long shot, but at any
| rate I don't think anyone from Belgium, the Netherlands,
| Spain or Portugal would take offense or find it condescending
| that some historical event could have gone differently and
| reshaped all of Europe... taking offense to that suggestion
| as a Canadian, even during these times seems overly insecure
| and I don't think it's a sentiment shared by most of us.
| _verandaguy wrote:
| It's condescending to describe it as a quirk, in the sense
| that it's no more a quirk than anything else in history. In
| the current climate where this sort of rhetoric has been
| publicly and visibly used by Russia to justify their
| invasion of Ukraine, and by the PRC to justify their
| ongoing pressure campaigns against the ROC, I also don't
| take this kind of wording at face value.
|
| Wars were fought. People died, generations were involved in
| discourse about national identity and where borders should
| be drawn.
|
| The US and Canada were both at one point British
| properties, so by some definitions, we also used to be
| unified. _Then we weren 't._
|
| Is it insecure? Maybe. The reality is that in a shooting
| war, we wouldn't last very long against the US, in all
| likelihood. Under these conditions, the least I can do is
| to push back against rhetoric that undermines our
| legitimacy as our own country.
| tiagod wrote:
| Although I don't deny it could've happened, Spain and
| Portugal were different kingdoms during the Iberian Union
| (Philip II of Spain was known as Philip I of Portugal.)
| kakacik wrote:
| I've heard the same rhetoric (we're brothers, all will be
| fine) from many russians days before 2022 star of proper war
| in Ukraine. This feeling sadly means nothing in large enough
| scale.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| > I resent the implication that us being separate countries
| is a "historical quirk." It's condescending at best and
| exemplifies why we feel increasingly distant from the US.
|
| I mean that's a bit of an exaggeration. Canadians are
| basically Americans for all practical purpose to the degree
| you can barely tell them apart. It doesn't help that Canada
| has lacked any real national identity other then listing the
| few minor differences between it and the USA for decades.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| > Canadians are basically Americans for all practical
| purpose to the degree you can barely tell them apart. It
| doesn't help that Canada has lacked any real national
| identity other then listing the few minor differences
| between it and the USA for decades.
|
| Why does this even mean? Does national identity even really
| matter? It's like saying Californians are basically Texans
| for all practical purpose. Men and women are pretty
| similar. To suggest that they're so similar they may as
| well be the same is absolutely condescending.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| > Does national identity even really matter?
|
| In the context of this whole article aka getting people
| to join the military it 100% matters. Do you think people
| are going to fight and die for a concept they don't care
| about?
| colechristensen wrote:
| You are the one making the assumption that I meant Canada
| should be controlled by the US when I meant and wrote no such
| thing.
|
| And Europe _absolutely_ should unite under a single
| government instead of this pseudo national semi-single-
| currency/market with a vague poorly representative European
| government designed mostly just to dance around the fact that
| these small states are stuck on archaic nationalist ideas and
| can't get along with a unified purpose. The world needs the
| strength a unified Europe could provide to counteract Russian
| aggression, the growth of Chinese power, and the crumbling
| cornerstone of world order the US is going through.
|
| Being offended is strange.
| dboreham wrote:
| Those are examples not counterexamples.
| everdrive wrote:
| Perhaps another sign of the times: commenters are responding
| with animosity to your suggestion that Americans and Canadians
| are incredibly close.
| exe34 wrote:
| I imagine it's hard to feel too close to people who elected a
| clown who wants to invade you.
| guyzero wrote:
| It's a historic quirk that the US is a single country. It
| hardly feels like one most days.
| qball wrote:
| The same is true of Canada, but to a far greater extent since
| Toronto/Ottawa/Montreal have a permanent veto on whatever the
| rest of the country wants. The US political system, for all
| its other faults, has successfully avoided this problem.
|
| It is not a surprise that region can't find anyone else (in
| the rest of the economic zone over which it claims dominion)
| willing to die for its interests, especially when their
| interests have been revealed to be nothing but "loot the rest
| of the nation".
| 1986 wrote:
| We have the opposite problem, where if you live in NYC or
| LA your vote basically doesn't matter at the national level
| qball wrote:
| Yet, that compromise means NYC and LA can still field an
| all-volunteer army of people who tend not to be from NYC
| and LA.
|
| Toronto/Ottawa/Montreal, demonstrably, cannot do that.
|
| Which of the two strategies do you think give the cities
| a greater chance of survival?
| vdupras wrote:
| american: you're the historical quirk!
|
| canadian: no, you're the historical quirk!
|
| native american: you're both historical twerps.
| chawco wrote:
| Yeah, it's not a historical quirk, really. In talking to many
| Americans it seems like they don't really cover loyalists at
| all, or what happened after the Revolutionary War. Much of what
| became Canada was settled by former colonists from the what
| became the United States who remained loyal to the crown. My
| hometown was founded by loyalists from New York -- including
| the mayor of New York City -- after the Revolutionary War.
|
| Essentially we are even closer than many people think in terms
| of history, but Canadian identity was seeded from the beginning
| with the idea of rejecting being "American". We are indeed your
| closest brothers and sisters because of history, but it's no
| quirk at all that we're separate -- it's the entire reason we
| stayed separate at all.
|
| You can also see the reverse play out -- what would become
| Alberta was settled by large numbers of American colonists
| moving to Canada, and to this day you can see the cultural
| impact of that in the politics and world view from the region.
| fidotron wrote:
| The most damning thing about this is the Canadian gov would
| struggle to find 300k people in the rest of the population that
| it would trust with skilling up in those ways. Federal public
| servants will be the last bastion of the values they try to force
| on everyone else.
|
| It is in the process of spending vast amounts of money to remove
| guns from legal gun owners that are subject to absolutely amazing
| amounts of oversight already.
| thunderfork wrote:
| I don't think this is true. It's just much easier to bring in
| people when you have access to them to ask directly, basically.
|
| In my short experience in public service, I met a great number
| of people who were not in lockstep with the so-called "values
| they try to force" (i.e. the political plans of the current
| government), so it seems they're not doing a great job of
| "forcing" those values if that's the plan.
| fidotron wrote:
| They have enough problems keeping the people they currently
| have in the military on the same page.
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/rcmp-caf-charges-
| terrorism-...
|
| The general response to this was amazement that the MP or
| RCMP actually did anything about it, given what occurs within
| those.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| HN seems to hate this but you're right. The type of people the
| military relies on are not in power in Canada and haven't been
| for some time.
| busterarm wrote:
| Especially when most of them are in Western Canada, which
| keeps threatening to leave.
| incomingpain wrote:
| Canada has been running about 1% of gdp military spending,
| despite obligation of 2%; with new promise to meet 5%. a 500%
| increase to the size of our military in short order is the
| promise.
|
| Our reserves are at about 40,000. They announced the plan to go
| to 400,000. 10x the size. It's not so much about any outside
| fears, it's just meeting our obligations.The fear about Russia or
| China is unfounded. The problem is that the USA our greatest ally
| isn't letting us use them as a shield.
|
| >Federal and provincial employees would be given a one-week
| training course in how to handle firearms, drive trucks and fly
| drones, according to the directive, signed by Chief of the
| Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan
|
| There's only about 300,000 federal employees. Greater on the
| provincial sides, but Canada isn't that big. Conscription will be
| necessary to fulfill these numbers
|
| >The public servants would be inducted into the Supplementary
| Reserve, which is currently made up of inactive or retired
| members of the Canadian Forces who are willing to return to duty
| if called.
|
| It says voluntary, but given the very significant % who need to
| join and be subject to immediate activation. I dont expect many
| to volunteer. Reserves at least pays you to have this cost.
| Conscription will be necessary. They are forcing those government
| employees ultimately.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| Why is the US our greatest ally?
|
| 36 stratagems says "Befriend a distant state and strike a
| neighbouring one"
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| >The problem is that the USA our greatest ally isn't letting us
| use them as a shield.
|
| I personally think that Canada can be our (US) greatest ally,
| but this is only true in the hard-power sense of the word if
| Canada does actually meet its defense obligations.
|
| Canada has a huge coastline, directly adjacent to our most
| significant threats (China & Russia), yet doesn't have a navy
| to speak of.
|
| We need Canada to step up to its own defense so we can keep
| being equal allies, otherwise Canada is a de facto protectorate
| and should pay for that privilege.
| mmooss wrote:
| > The fear about Russia or China is unfounded.
|
| That dismisses the greatest security threats of the era with a
| word. Most people in that field think those threats are very
| well-founded. Should Canada take the risk that everything will
| be fine?
|
| I don't know much about Canada's current plans and how
| effective they would be.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Canada right now is trying to figure out if the greatest
| their to their security is China or the USA. They can tie
| their boat to either against the other, but they can't be
| allies with both.
| mmooss wrote:
| Can they be allies with neither? They are trying to improve
| relations with the EU and, most importantly, are members of
| NATO (where the US is also a member).
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Economically not really. China and the USA are the top
| economies, and China is only going to get more
| economically powerful, alignment with one or the other in
| trade at least is inevitable. The EU will be making
| similar decisions to Canada, and I doubt Canada is going
| to detach from Europe.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| China is completely dependant on other countries for it's
| economic power (mostly the US) as an export economy.
|
| They're also staring down a demographic crash, soon (10 -
| 15% drop with 25% of the remaining polution over 65).
|
| They are basically at their peak right now.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > China is completely dependant on other countries for
| it's economic power (mostly the US) as an export economy.
|
| That is Trump's big lie, but it has no basis in reality.
| This was the cornerstone of Trump's whole pressure agenda
| on China, and it imploded quickly when the Chinese
| indicated "We don't care about the American market, trade
| is only 5% of our GDP, and we have lots of trading
| partners."
|
| > They're also staring down a demographic crash, soon (10
| - 15% drop with 25% of the remaining polution over 65).
|
| Investments in AI and automation make that iffy,
| investments that, beyond AI, the USA is not making.
|
| > They are basically at their peak right now.
|
| That is the core of Trump's big lie on China, and again,
| has no basis in reality.
| Detrytus wrote:
| It's always funny how people get this backwards: China
| being an export economy means that the whole world is
| dependent on them, not the other way around.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| Real question: Is any serious person advocating Canada
| abandon the West for China? What's their analysis here? If
| anyone has an article I can read I would love to do that.
| incomingpain wrote:
| >Real question: Is any serious person advocating Canada
| abandon the West for China? What's their analysis here?
| If anyone has an article I can read I would love to do
| that.
|
| In Canada? Oh yes, many serious liberals are advocating
| ending with usa and becoming an ally with china. About a
| month ago: https://globalnews.ca/news/11490896/canada-
| strategic-partner...
|
| Which resulted in the USA suspending all trade talks with
| Canada the next day.
|
| But over the last decade, the liberals also have ordered
| various anti-china divestments:
| https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-
| canada/article...
|
| not to mention: https://electrek.co/2025/10/27/canada-
| rumored-immently-remov...
|
| Which this 'imminent' factor never happened, but what was
| imminent was right before this was the announcement of
| various auto manufacturing moving production out of
| canada. Not really much to do with china, more of a screw
| you to the big 3.
|
| China and Canada dont have a free trade agreement. The
| FIPA agreement is likely to be ended soon as it's
| possible.
|
| Going from the antagonistic to a major trade deal and
| changing to chinese alliance would be a bizarre change
| though.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| Thank you I will read these!
| gpm wrote:
| With the qualification that Canada has absolutely no
| intention of abandoning the West, merely the US. The
| intent of the government and people is absolutely to
| strengthen ties to western Europe, not weaken them.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| The "West" is the USA. Europe is a joke at projecting any
| kind of power.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| I mean, Vancouver is heavily financially influenced by
| China already...
| SirFatty wrote:
| "Canada right now is trying to figure out if the greatest
| their to their security is China or the USA."
|
| I very much doubt that is true. Unless the Canadian
| government get's their information only from "truth"
| social.
| goalieca wrote:
| The USA is a fantastic ally! When a small aircraft was
| recently hijacked from Vancouver international airport,
| guess which Air Force came to our rescue? Thank you!!
|
| While there's a lot of news and media about trade wars with
| the USA, the vast majority 85% of it remains under the free
| trade agreement. China does not even come close to a free
| and open market for us and their state sponsored corporate
| espionage is a real and growing danger.
| jonbiggums22 wrote:
| I'd imagine the threats of annexation are more concerning
| than the tariffs.
| lawlessone wrote:
| They might be more worried about the recent attempts to
| annex them.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/25/don
| ald...
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| China didn't strongly suggest that Canada should become
| its 23rd or 24th province. Also, if the USA keeps dipping
| its feet into fascism every other 4 year election cycle,
| every other western democracy is going to start pumping
| lots of resources into a plan B
| jack_tripper wrote:
| _> China didn't strongly suggest that Canada should
| become its 23rd or 24th province. _
|
| China ransacked and then sank Nortel.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| So? If we are going to talk about economic damage, the
| USA isn't going to come up looking better.
| goalieca wrote:
| In what world? We never had free and open access to
| Chinas markets and they conduct massive amounts of
| corporate espionage and state sponsored cyberattacks
| against our companies daily.
| wk_end wrote:
| Neither here nor there, but the plane was hijacked in
| Victoria and then flown over to Vancouver.
|
| (Only picking this particular nit because, as a
| Victorian, we constantly live in the shadow of our bigger
| brother, so I need to shout us out when I can. And I fly
| out of the flying club that the plane was hijacked from,
| so it's a story that's particularly close to my heart.)
| mikkupikku wrote:
| > _Canada right now is trying to figure out if the greatest
| [threat?] to their security is China or the USA._
|
| How do you get China in that list? Canada would most likely
| be challenged over their stake in the Arctic and Russia is
| plainly the greatest threat in that regard, not China.
| Russia has invested a great deal into arctic exploration
| and exploitation and pretty clearly sees the region as free
| real estate up for the taking. America too has a large
| stake in the Arctic, but has developed comparably fewer
| arctic capabilities than Russia. For Canada to have any
| chance of repelling a Russian invasion of their arctic
| territory would require America to help them, which under
| present American leadership would be a piss poor position
| for Canada to be in (not only because Trump has suggested
| annexing Canada himself, but also because he's said similar
| about Greenland, underscoring America's own desire to take
| that same arctic territory.)
|
| Now, I don't doubt that China would also like the Arctic
| for themselves, but from Canada's perspective, the relative
| threat of China must be less than that of Russia and
| America.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Russia can't even invade Ukraine right, I think the world
| sees them as pretty washed up as far as national security
| goes (besides them having nukes). China is like Russia,
| except richer, more disciplined, and not dumb. Canada
| also has a higher GDP than Russia despite having a much
| smaller population.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Russia's arctic operational capability is world class,
| exceeding even America by far. America could at least try
| to engage Russia with submarine warfare and long range
| missiles, but what could Canada do themselves, muster a
| few hundred native locals armed with century old rifles?
| Canada would be forced to go to America for help, which
| might end up in Canada giving up some mineral rights at
| least, if not substantial chunks of territory in whole.
|
| Now, however unlikely you think Russia is to actually
| start some kinetic shit in the Arctic, I think you're
| crazy to rate their threat lower than China. China being
| richer, more disciplined and less dumb only makes the
| relative threat to Canada even smaller. Russia, being
| relatively dumb, undisciplined, poor and increasingly
| reliant on oil exports to prop up their economy makes the
| probability of Russia daring to start shit higher, not
| lower.
|
| Edit: Some of you obviously don't take this seriously, so
| here's a question for any of you. If Russia announces
| they are going to be drilling oil in arctic waters that
| are nominally Canada's, and declares their annexation of
| this territory a fiat accompli, what is Canada's move?
| Demand help from their NATO allies, which may or may not
| include America? What if America declines and demands the
| mineral rights to Canadian territory in exchange for
| chasing Russia off Canada's sea floor? Canada sure as
| hell can't fight Russia under the ice cap themselves.
| Without a credible military response of their, Canada
| must count on having reliable and powerful allies.
| Russia's desire and motive are clear, they want the
| arctic oil. China is dangerous in their own way, the PLAN
| is very dangerous, but if they're going to start shit it
| will be over Taiwan and if it involves anybody else it
| will probably be the USN and maybe the JSDF, _not_
| Canada. The real threat the PRC poses to Canada is
| subversion of the Canadian political system, buying and
| bribing their way through getting anything they want from
| Canada. And that 's not the kind of threat you can
| counter with military spending.
| incomingpain wrote:
| Russia is weak, they cant even take ukraine. To think they'd
| have a shadow of a chance against NATO is a joke.
|
| China is strong, their standing army is probably 300 million
| and if they invaded canada. Our <100,000 CAF will be goners.
| Since they havent done it, they either dont want to or
| there's something external to canada protecting it. Either
| case, an unfounded threat.
|
| >I don't know much about Canada's current plans and how
| effective they would be.
|
| Ya that original comment about russia/china wasnt a
| significant part of my post anyway.
| jandrese wrote:
| The idea that China is going to ship 300 million troops to
| Canada seems absurd on its face. There is just no
| geopolitical scenario where that happens.
|
| This is more about Canada having enough troops to
| contribute if NATO decides to intervene in a China-Taiwan
| war.
| ferguess_k wrote:
| TBH I think taking land is stupid, at least taking a lot of
| land is stupid because you are left with a huge cost and
| people who hate you. The US has already gone past that
| point and I doubt China wants to go back this route. Taiwan
| for sure, but the rest of the world? meh.
| mmooss wrote:
| > China is strong, their standing army is probably 300
| million
|
| Maybe 1% of that. Also, numbers are important, but so are
| equipment, training, and leadership.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| > China is strong, their standing army is probably 300
| million and if they invaded canada. Our <100,000 CAF will
| be goners.
|
| Having 300 million people and being able to move them
| _across the Pacific Ocean_ are two very different things.
|
| Yeah, China's building a lot of landing craft. Are those
| landing craft capable of a 10,000 mile voyage? I doubt it.
| Does China have a way of loading and launching those ships
| 100 miles from Canada? I doubt it.
| stackedinserter wrote:
| I wouldn't call Russia weak. They have their strengths, one
| of which is insensitivity to losses. They can grind 20000
| soldiers to get a small town, and nobody cares. Also, total
| control over population, brainwashing the youth, military-
| oriented economy.
|
| Also, Russia knows how to operate in Arctic, and has real
| combat experience that none of NATO countries have.
|
| > To think they'd have a shadow of a chance against NATO is
| a joke.
|
| Which NATO with what army? Do you think Bundeswehr is
| combat-ready? Is society in any NATO country (except Poland
| and Finland) ready to fight?
|
| Russians will easily take Baltic countries, for example, is
| it NATO? Will NATO commit into full scale war with Russia
| over Estonia? They don't even have guts to block shadow
| fleet tankers and shoot russian drones over their own
| territory. Or forget doing something, they can't even stop
| buying russian oil and gas, because their population will
| pay more and be upset.
|
| Ukraine stopped them like a bag of teeth would grind teeth
| of someone who decided to eat them. West is not Ukrainians,
| even after all these wake-up calls.
| chollida1 wrote:
| > China is strong, their standing army is probably 300
| million
|
| You may want to check your facts:) The PLA is estimated to
| be about 3M poeple at the high end of estimates and
| probably closer to 2.5M people.
|
| Which puts you at 100x too large:)
| scotty79 wrote:
| Greatest security threat so far turned out to be USA.
| ferguess_k wrote:
| Why don't they offer to all PRs and citizens? I'd like to learn
| those skills...
| kakacik wrote:
| The only reason you can claim russia is not threat to you is
| their utter corrupted incompetence which had them losing cold
| war. In their mindset, every single one of you here living in
| free democratic country, doing and thinking whatever you like
| are a direct threat to their dictatorship and way of existence.
| Canada has no reason to not be another russian gubernia, they
| can come up with some made up claim like they would need one.
|
| One would laugh at all this and ignore them if they didn't have
| enough functional nukes to cover entire civilization few times
| over.
|
| Now I am not claiming the above about every russian person, nor
| attacking their culture or history. Actually history yes, a
| bit, its pretty sad and explains why they are as they are. They
| consistently end up with ruling elite who thinks above, maybe
| apart from Gorbachev (who is despised back home). Don't ever
| make a mistake of underestimating how fucked up russia as a
| country is. I keep repeating the same for past 2 decades (as
| someone coming from country practically enslaved for 4 decades
| by them) with people mostly laughing it off, apart from last 3
| years.
| groby_b wrote:
| Just in case people miss the core message: This is something you
| do if you have a credible risk assessment that you think a big
| conflict is a possibility within the next decade or so.
|
| And, as much as I'd like to focus on deteriorating Canada/US
| relations, it's likely a dual purpose. The Ukraine/Russia/NATO
| situation would be the second factor. OK, a triad, China/US is
| also on the radar. Whatever the weighting, it's pushed Canada to
| work on a mobilization framework, because the combined risk is
| high enough.
|
| Which means "oh shit" feelings are entirely appropriate, panic
| isn't.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Most people haven't noticed until recently but many countries
| around the world have been dramatically increasing their
| defense spending for several years now, pre-dating and somewhat
| independent of the Ukraine situation. Most of it is targeted
| for operational capability by the end of this decade. Interpret
| that how you will.
|
| As an eye-popping number that illustrates this, just the
| backlog of new foreign weapon sales awaiting approvals in the
| US is almost $1T on its own. Countries are spending tremendous
| amounts of money on advanced weapons right now.
| ferguess_k wrote:
| I think it's just they sense that US is no longer willing to
| be the world police (with its good and bad), so they better
| either prepare themselves for defence or prepare themselves
| for offence to grab some lands they have been drooling over
| for a while.
| observationist wrote:
| Any rational assessment of Canada's military capabilities, its
| funding capabilities, and population will lead to a
| determination that they're not in any sort of position to have
| any sort of meaningful defense or offense without the US
| running point.
|
| For that to change would require generational shifts in culture
| and revenue generation and so on. If the US chooses not to
| defend them, they're exposing themselves to unacceptable risk.
| If the US chooses to defend, Canada isn't contributing within
| the same order of magnitude. If the US chose to attack, then
| more has gone wrong in the world than you could possibly cope
| with, having a few thousand more tanks, ships, and helicopters
| isn't going to save the day. It'd take decades to build up
| population, R&D infrastructure, resources, and so on, and
| there'd likely be a lot of pressure to not do those things and
| use the US military industrial complex instead.
|
| Not saying this is good for Canada, btw, just that the reality
| is they've kinda coasted on US coattails for decades now, and
| for better or worse, they're stuck. Which should in turn beg
| the question - if there's no practical or pragmatic point in
| spending a bunch of money on military preparedness and
| expansion, then why's that money being spent, and who's getting
| paid? Why are bureaucrats being militarized, instead of a
| discrete, well regulated military being created to meet
| whatever the need was?
|
| Strange politics.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| I wish I had written this. I think the exact same thing but
| you articulated it much better than I have been able to.
| qball wrote:
| The bureaucrats are being militarized out of desperation.
|
| The political faction all bureaucrats in the nation belong to
| can't find enough soldiers. This is because they treat those
| soldiers with contempt- no young man wants to die for Ottawa.
| Plus, the volunteer soldiers that come back from Ukraine are
| not going to be on Ottawa's side if domestic instability
| ramped up, but will be familiar with the tools of modern
| warfare.
|
| Ottawa is currently (and perhaps rightfully) paranoid of a
| domestic uprising just as much as it is of the US invading.
| The US is strategically wrecking the economy of Canadian
| citizens only a few hours away and if those citizens
| violently insist on suing for peace Ottawa might lose its
| power _forever_.
|
| So, you do the next best thing- you take the faction with the
| political power in Canada (in this case, Ottawa bureaucrats)
| and tell them that if they want to keep their privileges,
| they must join the reserve.
|
| The fact that if any nation decided to actually attack they'd
| instantly flee (bureaucrats are not known for their courage
| under fire; that's why they're bureaucrats!) is a problem for
| future them. What matters is that, to fuel the jingoism fire
| long enough to keep the bureaucrat faction in power, they
| need to be seen to be doing something, and this is that
| something.
| observationist wrote:
| So it looks like they think they can keep the peasants in
| line by going full police state with drones and ultra
| surveillance? Good lord.
|
| I respect regular Canadians quite a lot, but damn, Canadian
| government officials seem like a social experiment in how
| far you can push people before they blow up in your face.
|
| Degens from up north indeed.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Seems like a generally good idea for creating a large reserve
| force. It definitely beats general conscription.
|
| I don't see why Canada in particular needs such a large reserve
| force. This would jump Canada from number 127 to number 52 in
| terms of percentage of population in reserves, and bump it up to
| 17th in terms of absolute reserves size. For a nation with
| basically zero chance of invasion of its home soil and an
| extremely low risk of internal conflict, it's hard to imagine a
| scenario where anywhere near this many reservists would be
| required.
| gpm wrote:
| The US has been consistently signalling that it is considering
| annexing us since Donald Trump was re-elected in November of
| last year... the politicians are unlikely to say it outright
| but I think this is pretty clearly aimed at the US and making
| it too costly to do so.
| electric_mayhem wrote:
| Canada would be insane to not beef up its military at this
| point. Mexico should, too.
| swader999 wrote:
| I'm ok with you guys taking over. You probably don't want
| us though.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| That Mexico has zero tanks or infantry fighting vehicles or
| real self propelled artillery might tell you how they've
| felt about the odds of the US actually invading again.
|
| (IMO they should get some of these things even if there's
| no chance of the US invading, given how much firepower some
| of the cartels have.)
| mikkupikku wrote:
| If Mexico wants to deter America, their best bet by far is
| to pose a credible insurgency threat. And in that regard,
| between the number of Mexican nationals and sympathizers in
| America, the number of guns in Mexico, the national pride
| of the Mexican people, and their established proficiency
| with asymmetric warfare (at least from their cartel
| elements)... I think they've got their bases well covered.
| Mexicans have the capacity to make an invasion of Mexico be
| _extremely_ painful to the American public.
|
| But Mexico using conventional military force to deter
| America? That's completely absurd.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Except America has shown that it would rather chew
| through all it's resources and capability than accept
| that "The public here doesn't want you, that wont change,
| go home and save the effort"
|
| How many people in the middle east did we blow up or
| kill? For 20 years. For a supposed outcome we had no
| chance of ever getting. Multiple presidents even.
|
| The deterrence effect of an occupation didn't stop
| Russia, did not stop the USA, does not stop someone who
| believes you can just bomb the occupied lands harder
| until all resistance is "quiet", and doesn't seem to be
| stopping China from preparing itself for the occupation
| of Taiwan.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| > the politicians are unlikely to say it outright but I think
| this is pretty clearly aimed at the US and making it too
| costly to do so.
|
| lol this makes zero impact on that. The Canadian government
| doesn't even think it's own solder would fight the USA or
| sadly even run an insurgency. It's the consequence of trying
| to minimize nationalism and being cultural dominated by the
| USA for decades.
|
| If the USA wants Canada it gets Canada.
| jjk166 wrote:
| The US invading Canada isn't a realistic possibility. Any
| attempt to do so would trigger a civil war within the US, to
| say nothing of obliterating the geopolitical system.
| Attempting to annex in any way shape or form is currently
| nothing more than the musings of an old man, the only way any
| territorial changes could happen are through peaceful,
| mutually agreed upon transfer.
|
| If the US were to seriously entertain the notion of invading
| its neighbor, 300,000 poorly trained reservists aren't going
| to seriously change the calculus. Canada is strong per capita
| but it has a fraction of the absolute population, military
| strength, and economy of the US. Nearly all of its major
| population centers are within extremely close proximity with
| the US border. It's military and economy are both heavily
| intertwined with the US, regardless of what rhetoric is being
| thrown around. A reserve force is for freeing up the active
| military to be used most effectively, defending key
| chokepoints, launching offensives, and operating complicated
| equipment, with the reservists doing things like preparing
| defensive lines, manning low risk areas, and supporting
| logistics. In a war between the US and Canada, the US would
| be able to launch large assaults with professional soldiers
| in multiple places with no natural obstacles over the short
| distance between their origin and objectives. There would be
| little for reservists to do to help - there would be no low
| risk areas to man, no defenses to prepare, very little in the
| ways of logistics to be concerned with. If Canada had serious
| concerns about the US invading, its money would be better
| spent on disentangling its armed forces from the US,
| acquiring counters to US systems, and establishing defensible
| positions between its border and major population centers.
| silisili wrote:
| > Any attempt to do so would trigger a civil war within the
| US
|
| What makes you say that?
|
| I could see heavy protests, even violent protests, as it's
| not something Americans want.
|
| I'm not sure I could envision any semblance of an actual
| civil war, though, but perhaps I'm underestimating things.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| > What makes you say that?
|
| Because the group of men fit to fight such a war would
| rather rebel against the government than fight a brother
| war. From lowest recruit to highest general.
| nemomarx wrote:
| how are they handling being deployed to US cities right
| now? I think they could be swayed into it with the right
| rhetoric.
| kulahan wrote:
| The US military being deployed is doing things like
| cleaning up trash, guarding federal buildings, and
| otherwise goofing off. There's zero indication they'd be
| easily swayed. Reserve Generals have directly stated they
| will defend the state, not follow the Presidents orders.
| jszymborski wrote:
| Much as is the case in the US and Canada, families and
| friends transcend the borders of Ukraine and Russia. That
| wasn't enough to stop the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
| While Americans enjoy much, much broader freedoms of
| expression (albeit that's also under great threat), I
| wouldn't imagine the reaction from our American
| "brothers" would be much different from Russian when it
| invaded its "brother".
|
| Your use of "brother" is apt. There's a Ukrainian joke
| that goes something like:
|
| "A Ukrainian man and a Russian man are walking together.
| They happen upon a $20 bill on the sidewalk. The Russian
| man says, 'Let us share it as brothers'. The Ukranian man
| says 'No, let us share it equally'".
| carlosjobim wrote:
| I guess we'll find out when it happens (or not happens).
|
| The only realistic scenario I can think of when your
| American "brothers" would go to war across the border is
| if the Canadian government commences war against its own
| population. Then I could see the US government
| intervening, or US fighters independent from the
| government taking sides in Canada.
| Teever wrote:
| If the United States tries to seize Canada they will do
| so after a protracted blockade in winter that coincides
| with air strikes on Canadian infrastructure.
|
| A lot of Canadians talk big talk about some sort of
| insurgency like Iraq, Afghanistan or Vietnam but all
| those places have borders with other countries that can
| enable smuggling of supplies to the resistance.
|
| Canada will be blockaded and after a period of cold and
| hunger the Canadian people will give up.
| aceofspades19 wrote:
| How are you going to blockade an almost 9000 km long
| border(with a huge variety of terrain) and a 243,000 km
| long coastline? The US can't even stop drugs and people
| coming through the 3,145 km border with Mexico. This
| argument also presumes that no Americans would smuggle
| supplies to Canada which seems unlikely to me because
| lots of Americans & Canadians are either related or
| friends.
| vharuck wrote:
| >The US invading Canada isn't a realistic possibility. Any
| attempt to do so would trigger a civil war within the US
|
| If you had told me this last year, but replaced "invading
| Canada" with "sending armed military forces into cities
| under false emergency declarations", I would've also
| agreed. But here we are. Which state wants to be the first
| to defect and pit it's national guard (half of whom would
| probably desert) against the US military?
|
| >If Canada had serious concerns about the US invading...
|
| It's best course of action would be the same as any
| individual preparing for a doomsday scenario: make friends
| with those around you. If the US invades or even just
| encroaches on Canada, I wonder if every European country
| would realize they're next. Canada can't beat the US alone,
| but it's allies could make it an extremely painful and
| unpopular war for the American public.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The US invading Canada isn't a realistic possibility. Any
| attempt to do so would trigger a civil war within the US
|
| Ok, maybe, but then:
|
| > In a war between the US and Canada, the US would be able
| to launch large assaults with professional soldiers in
| multiple places with no natural obstacles over the short
| distance between their origin and objectives.
|
| Given your earlier claim, surely you must believe that if
| they defied your wisdom and chose this course of action,
| they _wouldn 't_ be able to do this because they would have
| to devote a substantial fraction of their military capacity
| to domestic counterinsurgency efforts, leaving far more
| limited combat power to actually execute the invasion?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _The US invading Canada isn 't a realistic possibility_
|
| Of course it is. Troops would just be moved to
| "temporarily" occupy shit we want. (Or move to liberate
| Alberta.) Hell, you could probably do it with ICE agents.
|
| > _Any attempt to do so would trigger a civil war within
| the US_
|
| You'd take up arms against the U.S. because it invaded
| Canada?
|
| Of course you wouldn't. Neither would others. It would be
| brushed way as an another atrocity.
|
| > _300,000 poorly trained reservists aren 't going to
| seriously change the calculus_
|
| It's people you have to shoot through. Hong Kong versus
| Ukraine. Raises the costs from a low-effort political
| gambit to a real military campaign.
|
| This comment reminds of one on _HN_ from Kharkiv on the eve
| of the invasion. If you assume something can't happen or
| cannot be opposed, that's indistinguishable from an
| invitation for an autocrat.
| dboreham wrote:
| Yes but presumably other NATO members would counterattack,
| e.g. the UK has Trident missiles capable of significantly
| degrading the US. Modulo any kill switch those might
| contain.
| skissane wrote:
| > Attempting to annex in any way shape or form is currently
| nothing more than the musings of an old man, the only way
| any territorial changes could happen are through peaceful,
| mutually agreed upon transfer.
|
| A possible scenario: Alberta votes for independence, and
| then applies to join the US - similar trajectory to how
| Texas went from Mexico to the US via independence, albeit
| likely much more peacefully
|
| Is this actually going to happen? Probably not. But
| personally I think it is more likely than all the other
| farfetched scenarios some people here seem to be taking
| seriously
| qball wrote:
| >For a nation with basically zero chance of invasion of its
| home soil and an extremely low risk of internal conflict
|
| Clearly the Canadian government doesn't feel the same way. If
| they tried to conscript they'd quickly find themselves in a
| civil war (for the same reasons the US would), and one the
| Canadian capital clearly doesn't believe it'd win given how
| well it fared defending itself in 2022.
|
| Of course, bureaucrats aren't exactly known for their fighting
| prowess either. This is mostly a statement that "Toronto/Ottawa
| doesn't need the rest of the country, it can see to its own
| defense", and to try and retain/engage the Elbows Up crowd
| (which, being the only reason the sitting government is in
| power, is completely understandable).
| hotep99 wrote:
| They are likely being pressured to meet minimum obligations as
| part of NATO membership. Canada's military realistically isn't
| going to be called on for defense of the homeland but as part
| of a support force for NATO.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| 24 000 reserves out of a population of 40 million seems like a
| rather small number.
|
| Norway has 40 000 in the Home Guard (Heimevernet) rapid reaction
| force of volunteer part time soldiers and a further 20 000
| reserves. All from a population of about 5.5 million.
| gpm wrote:
| The difference here is presumably for the last hundred years,
| ending last November, there was simply no chance of a invasion
| of Canada. Nukes might fly overhead and end the world as they
| struck targets on either side, but other than that we were safe
| and any significant military action we took part in would be
| overseas and thus not justify calling up a huge number of
| reservists.
|
| Meanwhile Norway was occupied in WWII, and after that spent the
| next decades next to the Soviet Union, and then Russia. There's
| clearly been a long standing risk of actual invasion.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Except that there are several invasion risks, especially in
| the north. Canada maintains bases there (Alert) to protect
| its north from being taken by the likes of Russia, the USA
| and even Denmark (they have a longrunning dispute regarding
| an island near greenland). Canada also does not want the
| northwest passage to become an international waterway and so
| must maintain control over vessels in the north.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisky_War
|
| >> The Canadian government issued a declaration in 1986
| reaffirming Canadian rights to the waters. _The United States
| refused to recognize the Canadian claim_. In 1988 the
| governments of Canada and the United States signed an
| agreement, "Arctic Cooperation," that resolved the practical
| issue without solving the sovereignty questions. Under the
| law of the sea, ships engaged in transit passage are not
| permitted to engage in research. The agreement states that
| all U.S. Coast Guard and Navy vessels are engaged in
| research, and so would require permission from the Government
| of Canada to pass through
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Passage
| asdff wrote:
| outside edmonton and calgary the vast majority of the
| canadian population is within 100 miles of the US border.
| now imagine the logistics of a land invasion from northern
| canada. Shortest distance would be 1600 miles of
| wilderness. If you went from alert it would be more like
| 2500 miles of wilderness and several water crossings. All
| while you are being absolutely pummeled by US air support.
| It would be a suicide mission that would make the Kokoda
| Track campaign look like a boy scout trip.
|
| It is such a different situation in europe. Helsinki is 100
| miles from the russian border with road, highway, and rail
| connectivity and within reach of most of Russias air power.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| I think they might legitimately be worried about an
| invasion from the south.
| paleotrope wrote:
| They should worry more about the international flights
| from overseas.
| kps wrote:
| > Denmark (they have a longrunning dispute regarding an
| island near greenland)
|
| That was resolved in 2022 by dividing Hans Island. Canada
| now has a land border with Denmark.
| bonesss wrote:
| > Nukes might fly overhead
|
| Numerous Canadian sites, military and NORAD, were and surely
| are on first strike lists from the USSR and later Russia.
|
| The largest established combined bi-national military command
| in the world involves a fair amount of shared risk.
| hollerith wrote:
| Agreed. Also, even if Canada were to shut down all NORAD
| radars and command posts on Canadian territory and to kick
| out every US soldier and to tear up all agreements with the
| US, Canadian cities and important Canadian infrastructure
| within 100 miles of the US border (i.e., _most_ Canadian
| population and infrastructure) would probably get nuked in
| a nuclear war just so that the US cannot rely on those
| resources during the US 's recovery from the attack.
|
| A large nuclear exchange between great powers (and
| currently there are 3 great powers, the US, China and
| Russia) would be followed by the use of conventional
| military forces. E.g., The US would try to capture and hold
| major ports of the power or powers that attacked it because
| holding ports is a very effective way of denying the power
| the ability to deploy its own conventional forces outside
| its own territory and the ability to rebuild its nuclear
| stockpile. Military planners in the power or powers that
| planned the nuclear strike on the US would know that and
| consequently would realize that it is essential to slow
| down the US's recovery from the strike as long as possible.
|
| In summary, if the US ever endures a large nuclear strike,
| it is very likely that Canada gets nuked, too. Canada's
| kicking out the US military and declaring the US to be its
| enemy might cause a minor reduction in intensity of the
| nuclear attack on Canada, but is very unlikely prevent it
| altogether.
|
| Yes, Switzerland was able to avoid any attacks from the UK,
| the US or the USSR during WWII despite sharing a border
| with Germany, but that was probably near thing. Also,
| Switzerland was very hard for Germany to invade because of
| how mountainous it is; in contrast, most of the cities and
| infra in Southern Canada is separated from the US by
| nothing but plains. Also, Switzerland invests very heavily
| in its military capacity, e.g., every Swiss male must do
| military service, e.g., every bridge in Switzerland is
| engineered to be easy for Swiss forces to blow up.
| palmotea wrote:
| > A large nuclear exchange between great powers (and
| currently there are 3 great powers, the US, China and
| Russia) would be followed by the use of conventional
| military forces. E.g., The US would try to capture and
| hold the major ports of the power or powers that attacked
| it because holding those ports is the most effective way
| of denying the power the ability to deploy its own
| conventional forces outside its own territory and the
| ability to rebuild its nuclear stockpile.
|
| Do you have a source for that? Because that's pretty
| unbelievable action to take after a full nuclear exchange
| that leaves every major city and military base in ruins.
| I'd expect most if not all the US's force-projection
| power would be gone immediately after a nuclear war.
| Sure, maybe there'd be aircraft carriers out in the
| ocean, but with limited ability to resupply, they'd
| probably lose their effectiveness sooner than later.
| hollerith wrote:
| The Soviets had no hope of capturing any ports or any
| territory in the continental US, so their plan focused on
| the next best thing: namely capturing the part of the
| European plain they did not control already (namely,
| Germany, the low countries and maybe the part of France
| occupied by the Germans in WWII) then hoping that this
| new political entity consisting of the USSR augmented by
| Northern Europe could over the next few decades outpace
| the US in economic capacity, allowing the USSR to build a
| fleet more powerful than the US fleet. George Friedman
| has talked more than once about this as being the logical
| goal of the Soviets if there ever had been a hot war
| between the USSR and the US.
|
| One Soviet war plan that was made available to Western
| scholars in the 1990s anticipated this invasion of
| Northern Europe starting immediately after the Soviets
| make a large nuclear strike on Western Europe. Note that
| tanks crew are basically immune to nuclear fallout. Also,
| fallout is not like Chernobyl: it dissipates very quickly
| so after 3 weeks soldiers not inside tanks will be able
| to operate in what were 3 weeks earlier very deadly
| fallout plumes. (Also, the plumes never cover the entire
| attacked territory, but only about half of it: its just
| that it is impossible to predict which half.)
|
| This particular plan avoided any attack on Britain or
| France (and I presume also the US) to make it less likely
| that Britain and France will choose to use its nukes on
| the USSR, but hits West Germany, the low countries and
| NATO bases in northern Italy really hard.
|
| I've also heard experts other than Friedman say that
| Soviet planners always believed that a nuclear exchange
| would be followed by war between conventional forces.
|
| I'm not sure where I got the notion that the US would
| probably try to capture and hold Russian ports if Russia
| ever were stupid enough to launch a nuclear attack on the
| US. I think I heard the assertion made about Chinese
| ports (I don't know who from) and extrapolated. In
| particular, the assertion was that if the US every
| decided that China must be suppressed as much as possible
| by military means, it would be foolish to try to capture
| the whole country, so capturing and occupying its ports
| (which of course the Western powers did in the past)
| would be the likely goal. I figure the same thing is true
| of Russia especially since Russia has even less free
| access to the world ocean than China does.
| dylan604 wrote:
| The problem with a large military invasion of North
| America would be its difficulty to disguise. There's a
| lot of water buffer that prevents border skirmishes from
| escalating with easy supply routes to keep an invasion
| running.
| michaelt wrote:
| I think "Nukes might fly overhead and end the world [...]
| but other than that we were safe" agrees that Canada would
| not thrive during a global thermonuclear war.
| palmotea wrote:
| > The difference here is presumably for the last hundred
| years, ending last November, there was simply no chance of a
| invasion of Canada.
|
| The chance of Canada being invaded didn't change at all in
| November. The amount of hyperbole about Trump has been
| utterly astounding, and fears of an Canadian invasion are an
| instance of that.
|
| And my sense is that actually a fair amount of the bad stuff
| Trump has done (though definitely not all) is a direct result
| of the overreactions to him [1], so it's probably best not to
| overreact.
|
| [1] E.g. Democrats fear and loathe him, so they pursued all
| kinds of legal actions against him while he was out of office
| to damage and destroy him. They failed, he got re-elected,
| and now _only in his second term_ , he's corrupted the
| Justice Department into a club to attack those very same
| people.
| triceratops wrote:
| > Democrats fear and loathe him, so they pursued all kinds
| of legal actions against him while he was out of office
|
| So maybe he should'nt've have broken laws. Not give them
| anything to pursue.
| palmotea wrote:
| > So maybe he should'nt've have broken laws. Not give
| them anything to pursue.
|
| It's not so simple: 1) everybody breaks laws, and 2) in
| at least one case those laws were _stretched and abused
| in unusual ways to specifically target him_ (his felony
| convictions, which unsurprisingly were immediately turned
| into an electoral attack). I 'm not a Trump fan, but I'm
| not a Democratic partisan either, and I think that
| prosecution was really, _really_ gross.
| triceratops wrote:
| > laws were stretched in unusual ways to specifically
| target him
|
| Sure one man's campaign finance violations/embezzlement
| (I can't recall the details) are another man's
| politically motivated prosecution. That wasn't the only
| case against the guy though. It was the only case that
| concluded. Winning the election saved his skin. He was
| cooked otherwise.
| wyldberry wrote:
| "ending last November" - Is the implication that a Trump
| presidency implies a risk of invasion from the South?
|
| Canada has relied greatly on the United States providing a
| blanket defense guarantee of the continent. The Canadian
| military is currently operationally worthless across the
| board, save the cyber domain. There are many reasons for it
| that I'm not here to list out. However, that does come with
| grave consequences geopolitically and the Canadian government
| has been living in the 1900s.
|
| The USA, via Alaska, provides Canada against Russian
| provocation on the West Coast[0]. This is similar to the near
| constant probing of NATO states airspace, especially
| countries near Ukraine [1][2]
|
| The Canadian Navy is severely underfunded (along with the
| rest of the Canadian Armed forces)[3] with not enough ships
| to actively patrol and protect it's waters, especially in the
| North.
|
| The North passages are incredibly important, and will become
| more important as trade routes. The entirety of the US
| wanting to buy Greenland is as a part of having an Atlantic
| outpost to control those shipping lanes. Those trade lanes
| can be significantly shorter than routes using Suez or Panama
| canals.
|
| In addition to the trade routes, the US fears a Russian and
| Chinese alliance because of the access that grants to the
| North Atlantic. Point blank: Nato cannot build ships anymore,
| and the PLAN capacity is staggering. This is already
| independent of CN and RU intelligence probing of the entirety
| of the west coast.
|
| The world has changed dramatically, and the only thing that
| really changed in November is that the USA is no longer
| pretending it can defend the mainland, defend NATO countries,
| and police shipping lanes on their own. The USA doesn't have
| the capacity to replace ships, nor do they have the knowledge
| anymore to do so.
|
| [0] - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-planes-alaska-us-
| fighter...
|
| [1]-
| https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_237721.htm
|
| [2]- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Russian_drone_incursi
| on_i...
|
| [3] - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-greenland-panama-
| canal-wh...
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| I mean Canada just depends on the USA for nearly all it's
| defense. The USA isn't going to let anyone invade Canada or
| Mexico.
| mig39 wrote:
| I don't know if you've been paying attention, but the head of
| the USA has threatened on numerous occasions to invade
| Canada.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| I mean yeah we've famously even had full on invasion war
| plans drawn up in the past that leaked. Canada isn't going
| to do anything that changes the USA's ability to steam roll
| over the country.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Vs. Finland has reserves of 870 000 from a population of about
| 5.6 million.
|
| Via the magic of universal male conscription:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Defence_Forces#Conscri...
| scotty79 wrote:
| Not teaching your son a second language so he can escape the
| country with draft as soon as he's 18 is evil.
|
| You are obligated to give your child tools to choose his
| future if your government is trying to deny him that choice.
| kulahan wrote:
| Did you respond to the wrong comment or is this flying way
| over my head? I'm not actually sure how you arrived at
| talking about children needing to learn another language
| from this article that doesn't discuss language?
| wagwang wrote:
| No you have a duty and obligation to the society that
| raised you.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Your obligations are your choices. Only a slave has
| obligations without freely chosing them.
| mothballed wrote:
| How much raising of the typical pleb draftee do you think
| is done by the politician declaring the war? Society is
| just a collection of people. Even if there is some
| original debt from being raised that forms a binding
| contract with a minor that never consented to it, which I
| don't take on face, it's hard to imagine how politicians
| declaring a draft trump the senior shareholders of that
| contract (the family that did the bulk of the raising).
|
| In any case I would hope we would reject the notion that
| you can become a slave and made to die for the state
| because you allegedly owe them for something they did for
| you before you were old enough to even wittingly object
| or agree to it.
| qball wrote:
| The converse is also true, however.
|
| If, for example, society sees fit to deprive me of _my_
| right to security (for instance, perhaps it deigns to
| throw me in jail if I defend myself against a home
| invasion), then society doesn 't get to demand I give my
| life for _its_ security.
|
| In this way, it is society that has broken the contract
| with me, releasing me of my obligations to defend it.
| Most people who claim "duty and obligation to society"
| conveniently forget this is possible. By accident, I'm
| sure.
| naIak wrote:
| I was raised by my family, thank you very much.
| dylan604 wrote:
| How well would 24000 reserves fare against a smaller but well
| trained group of regular military units? Aren't they pretty
| much canon fodder?
|
| I guess it depends on the opposition. The counter is look at
| the quagmire the US military found itself against insurgent
| opposition because they were not willing to use the same plays
| as Russia leveling cities. Israel leveled Gaza with the same
| mentality.
| Animats wrote:
| This isn't using government employees for non-combat tasks to
| free up troops. It's more like the WWII Home Guard in the UK.
|
| _" Federal and provincial employees would be given a one-week
| training course in how to handle firearms, drive trucks and fly
| drones...The public servants would be inducted into the
| Supplementary Reserve, which is currently made up of inactive or
| retired members of the Canadian Forces who are willing to return
| to duty if called."_
|
| This sort of thing is usually a desperation measure in wartime.
| What threat does Canada see? US ICE goon squads crossing the
| border into Canada? Building up the regular military reserves is
| more normal. Further down, the article says that's happening.
|
| A better use for a Home Guard of government employees would be
| civil defense. What to do when power goes out, food distribution
| breaks down, or gas deliveries cease.
| Driver8 wrote:
| What you're describing sounds more like what the federal budget
| calls the Youth Climate Corps:
| https://www.budget.canada.ca/2025/report-rapport/chap3-en.ht...
| stackedinserter wrote:
| > Federal and provincial employees would be given a one-week
| training course in how to handle firearms, drive trucks and fly
| drones
|
| What is the use of these "professionals"?
|
| I know russians send these substandard soldiers to meat grinder
| ("infiltration in small groups" tactics). If they're killed with
| ukrainian FPV drone, it's fine, at least AFU spent a drone. Is it
| what Canadians are planning to do?
| lukan wrote:
| It is simply raising the costs for any potential invasion.
|
| When a wannabe imperialist thinks, he can get something easy,
| he will take it. If he thinks, there will be unknown risks and
| costs .. he might not.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Odd how this is on front page of HN but buried way down my feed
| on (Canadian) Google News and doesn't seem to be front-page news?
|
| Do you have to be a public servant or retired Canadian Forces, or
| do they take portly middle-aged out of shape software engineers,
| too? Asking for a friend.
|
| Haven't shot a gun since Bible Camp when I was 12. Could be fun.
| colonwqbang wrote:
| How much useful combat skills can be taught in only a week? It
| seems like an extremely low estimate on the training needed to
| play a useful role in the military.
| notatoad wrote:
| i don't think they're really expecting people to serve a useful
| role in the military. it's a "supplemental reserve", meaning a
| level below ordinary reservists.
|
| it sounds like basically if the country was ever in a situation
| dire enough that they were calling on ordinary citizens to help
| with defense, an ordinary citizen with a week's training would
| be better than one with no training.
|
| or more cynically: it's a way to make a whole bunch of voters
| feel like they're involved in the military, to make military
| spending more palatable to voters.
| mcny wrote:
| Maybe I wouldn't be very useful in combat but maybe I can
| peel potatoes or mop the floors in case of an invasion. I am
| thinking it frees up someone who is "combat ready" from
| kitchen or janitor duty. It helps, right?
| notatoad wrote:
| except they say the training will include firearms and
| drone flight.
| imgabe wrote:
| Everyone in the military should be trained with weapons.
| If it comes down to it, even the guy who mops the floors
| is going to need to pick up a rifle if the situation is
| dire enough. It helps if he held one before at least.
| dmurray wrote:
| In that case, how does the week's training help at all?
|
| Maybe it's helpful just for you to understand the way the
| military is organised: if you are conscripted you should
| report to this base, you'll sleep here, your commanding
| officer will be someone from this branch of the armed
| forces, you'll be in a group of X people sharing Y shifts,
| etc.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Every combat soldier requires like 10 support soldiers doing
| things like logistics. Millions of people during WW2 did
| nothing but drive trucks.
|
| A lot of military burst capacity is about freeing up soldiers
| who went through all the training and basic and specialization,
| but are stuck driving that truck.
|
| The guys and gals who fire bullets are just the sharp point of
| the spear and all that.
|
| It's also why Russia ballooned their "National Guard" forces
| even though they cannot be deployed outside Russia; They free
| up soldiers who can.
|
| One of the most important things for a government in an actual
| "Oh shit real war" situation that requires significant
| mobilization is a simple census of "Who has the capability to
| do what menial job?"
| Retric wrote:
| Useful for what role? It's not obvious if someone has near
| significant or near zero training when they are acting as a
| stationary guard at a checkpoint etc. Which enables trained
| troops to preform more useful roles.
|
| They are significantly less likely to do the correct thing if
| attacked, but a war isn't going to just be over in 24 hours
| either so they can be trained up on the job.
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