Posts: 23084
Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 12:58 pm
Comparing defence spending to GDP is just as useless as comparing the total dollars spent. Neither one is an accurate measure of what we need for the CF to do the jobs its tasked for.
When you talk dollars, $20 billion sounds like an awful lot, but compared to what we need our military to do, it's far less than we should be spending. After all, other than the US and Denmark, none of the other NATO nations has such a massive Arctic backdoor to worry about.
When you talk percentage GDP, the argument is just as specious. Which military is bigger, badder and better equipped, us or the Danes. They spend more than us per capita wise, but in a shooting war, we're going to fighter better, hit harder and take on far more missions than the relatively small Danish forces can.
The right amount of defence spending is one that allows us to patrol the Arctic, field a brigade group or two, and have an adequate naval and aerial presence to patrol our coasts.
So far, we aren't close. I'd say $25 - 30 billion is what we should be spending on the CF. For that price, we can't afford carriers (which we don't need anyways) or indigenous SSNs, but we could afford a dozen of those 212s capable of three weeks under the ice, and maybe a helicopter carrier, though I doubt Canada truly needs one.
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