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Originally Posted by llama64
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.
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Sure, foreign policy can define the missions that are put in front of a military. But the militarys first and main mandate is domestic not foreign. the military is first and foremost required to defend the security of the nation that it serves.
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Originally Posted by llama64
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.
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The military has always trained on this because assault, capture and invasion tactics can be classed as both offensive and defensive skill sets.
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Originally Posted by llama64
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.
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Isn't Canada invading regions of Afghanistan, didn't they invade areas of Bosnia. Didn't our jets strike against Iraq in the first Gulf War. Didn't Canada invade North Korea, Europe?
Because at the end of the day, the soldier requires the flexibility to be able to multi-role. peacekeeping is worthless without the capability for the peacekeeping force to be able to invade, assault and capture, there has to be the ability to back any UN mandate with muscle. The biggest problem with UN peacekeeping is that it intimidates no-one if they don't have the muscle of the ability to dictate the UN's will to create and enforce the peace. If that wasn't true then you could send 50 lawyers on peacekeeping missions and they could merely glower at the two warring sides.
Peacekeeping in a large extent needs soldiers that know how to be soldiers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by llama64
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.
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I've said previously that Canada could create a special battalion that trains outside of the standard military patterns that could be at the disposal of the UN for peacekeeping, but I'd prefer that the UN shoulders the costs of training and equipting it. But you'd still need to have military training and backing because when the crap hits the fan, you still want the ability to kill people and blow stuff up.