Canadian foreign expeditionary forces

Evan Kirchhoff writes:

I really had no idea — as a Canadian, I knew Canada was generally staying out of wars on ideological grounds, but I assumed there were Canadian troops somewhere doing something, even if only standing around in blue helmets watching people kill each other. Until I started clicking on "deployments" that turned out to consist of one person, or five people, I didn't realize the extent to which Canada had abandoned the idea of projecting force for any reason.

This is also a common misconception: that Canada has been and is continuing to be involved in peacekeeping operations around the world, and thus, has no troops available for more warlike activities. The latter part is, sadly, correct: we don't have any troops for warlike activities because we don't have anywhere near enough troops for what we're already committed to.

But what we're already committed to is a tiny portion of what we think we're doing. Canadian public opinion likes to think of our troops overseas helping prevent war and providing support for the victims of war. In actual fact, we don't have enough military muscle to do much of that any more. There are no more troops to send, and we desperately need to reduce our foreign operations now to ensure that we can at least maintain our involvement in some of the ongoing and future requirements.

Evan also points out that:

Canada is not being lazy or standoffish here: they're maxxed out on deployments. Also, there are apparently no overseas bases anymore, defeating my first theory about where all the troops were hiding. And there's no obvious way to change any of this. Even if it becomes politically acceptable to spend money on the Canadian military, they'd have to double or triple the budget for a decade to turn things around — currently, in military spending per GDP, Canada ranks slightly behind Belgium. This may work well enough for the foreseeable future, but my sense is that Canada's self-image hasn't quite caught up to this reality.

This brings to mind the old Andy Donato cartoon for the Toronto Sun back in the 1970's, with a Canadian general talking to the NATO generals, saying "Gentlemen, you wanted our best regiment for this job, and here he is!"

Original link via Bruce Ralston's Flit.

Posted by Nicholas at June 25, 2004 05:41 PM