Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
I was trained to be a soldier first. When I went through basic and through my infantry training school, we didn't even talk or think about peacekeeping. When I went out on field excercises, we trained to fight the Evil Red Hordes of communist Kaplakistan, not to stand in between warring factions of them.
We were taught military dicipline, we were taught the use of firearms, explosive devices, ambush sciences. Building a proper and secure encampment, day patrols and night patrols. We war gamed like mad. We were taught to fight wars first and foremost. For those of us that went on to peacekeeping, we would usually train for that specific peacekeeping machine before we deployed.
Foreign policy had nothing to do with it, a soldiers first job is to know how to soldier and to survive and suceed in a violent atmosphere, if we needed to peace keep, we learned how to do it.
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Actually, Foreign Policy has everything to do with the military. It is the instrument with which a nation defends or imposes it's will. Since a military is composed by soldiers, one would naturally assume that the soldier's training reflects the nation's intentions.
If Canada were an aggressive nation, our military would be training for assault, capture and invasion tactics. The technology would be primed for sustained conflict and mobility.
But Canada hasn't invaded anyone, nor does it seem like there will ever be a need to -- so I question why our forces are being trained to be "soldiers". If the vast bulk of Canadian military deployments are on a Peacekeeping initiative, the individual soldier training should be focused on creating an army of Peacekeepers, not war oriented soldiers.
I could see splitting the Military into two forces: The Military and The Peacekeeping force. One aimed at traditional military practices, the other aimed at foreign policing.