The Politicization of Post-Tsunami Aid

So, Canada's military is deploying the "DART" team to go help out with recovery in Sri Lanka. I'll grant that the Canadian Government was a bit slow to give DART their orders, but I don't think that's really the significant issue emerging.

More or less on cue, various commentators are squawking about how long it is taking to deploy the DART now that the team has been activated. Aid agencies aren't happy because of the time involved, and the hawkish right-wing commentators aren't happy because Canada's military "clearly isn't muscular enough".

In a recent column, Ezra Levant says:

Our inability to help in the Iraq war proved Canada has no hard power left.

But our inability to help with the tsunami recovery shows we have no soft power either.

Okay, fair enough - I don't think you can argue that Canada's military is in particularly good shape right now. The soldier count is down considerably from where it used to be; many of its assets are in questionable shape, with capital expenditure needs emerging in all divisions of the forces.

Given that is the case, perhaps it's time to stand back and ask ourselves just what our Military _should_ be doing, and equip it accordingly. The DART is equipped to deliver services based on some 50 tonnes worth of gear. That requires some serious heavy lift capacity to get it in the air and on site. Notably, this time the Government has leased access to a couple of Russian heavy-lift transports that dwarf anything Canada has ever owned.

Looking at Canada realistically, we are 30 Million people (+/- a few) occupying some 10 million square km of land. We are adjacent to the United States, some 293 Million people, occupying nearly 10 million square km of land. Russia is some 143 Million people occupying nearly 17 million square km of land.

As much as we like to compare ourselves to the US, the only comparison is in the amount of land area that we occupy. After that, Canada simply isn't that big of a population. History and resources have allowed us to enjoy a very high standard of living, but when it comes to military capacity, we have to get realistic.

A bit of digging around shows that the UK - a country that we resemble much more closely in terms of population and approximate wealth - is running at 2.4% of GDP spent on the military in 2003. Of course, we need to recognize that the 2.4$ of GDP is during a time of active conflict engagement - the UK tied its fortunes to the US in Iraq. By comparison, Canada spent 1.1% of GDP on its military in 2003, and the US spent 3.3% of GDP.

I'd argue that 1.1% is probably on the low side of what we should be spending on our military services - somewhere around 2% of GDP in peacetime would make more sense. However, the level of spending is almost academic if we have no clear sense of what we want our military to do.

On one hand, Canada's armies have been a key player in the UN Peacekeeper/Peacemaker programs around the world. Their contributions in a number of the world's hotspots over the last 35 odd years are nothing to sneer at. Teams like the DART seem to be consistent with that same involvement.

On the other hand, we have the hawkish commentators out there who want Canada to be able to "play" in the same sandbox as the United States. The chances of a country Canada's size of being able to develop military capability to sustain involvement in conflicts (as opposed to conflict zones) on multiple fronts is approximately zero. That simply is impractical, and wasteful. As much as it might be "fun" to go buying the fancy hardware that goes with that capability, it's mostly just going to sit, collect dust and eventually have to be scrapped.

No, if Canada is going to have a Military presence on the world stage, we need to have a frank and honest discussion about what that means. What role do we want our Military to play? Once we have defined the role, then it becomes reasonable to make capital expenditures to equip it to carry that out.

For example, if we decide that teams like the DART are a key part of a larger peacetime role of stabilizing troubled areas of the world, then let's invest in some serious heavy lift capacity. Our fleet of Hercules transports have served amazingly well, but they are aging. Perhaps a couple of Antonov style craft as well as a few Hercules class craft is an appropriate investment.

Similarly, if we want the ability to occupy another nation under arms (as the US is attempting to do in Iraq), then we would need to make much different investments in ground armor, and the transport capabilities to move it around. Do we spend money on Tanks or APCs?

An army designed for offensive strike capability is quite different than one that is designed to bring order to a conflict-stricken region. An army designed purely to defend our national borders is yet another configuration different from the other two.

Realistically, I think Canada's army needs to be a combination of peacemaking and defense capabilities. The hawkish people that argue we should be able to stand with the Americans in Iraq remind me of 12 year old boys looking at muscle building ads in a comic book. They haven't figured out yet that not everyone is going to be a muscle-bound ape.